INTRODUCTION When directly exposed to various echinacea fractions, human leukocytes ex vivo are strongly stimulated to proliferate and to produce immunostimulation and inflammatory cytokines. A comparison of fractions containing lipoidal small molecules and high-molecular-weight water-soluble polysaccharides indicates that the latter are substantially more potent as immunostimulants. Echinacea ...

Americans spend between $3.5 and $5 billion annually on herbal treatments, and nearly 50 million individuals currently report use of botanical supplements. With so many herbal products on the market, it is imperative that physicians thoroughly question patients with regard to supplement use. Physicians must understand the benefits and risks associated with medicinal herbs and counsel patients a...

Since years ago, phytopharmaceutical drugs have been used by various societies, as a traditional treatment. Echinacea purpurea (Asteraceae) is the best known of the dozen or so species of the genus Echinacea, a group of perennial prairie wildflowers native to the central grasslands of North American. E. purpurea is cultivated widely throughout the United states, Canada and Europe, although it h...

One of the most important anthropogenic pollution types in countries with oil production is soil and water contamination by petroleum. Phytoremediation is an emerging green technology for cleaning up polluted soil. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to study the effect of oil-contaminated soil on Echinacea purpurea with four concentrations of crude oil - contaminated soil: control = 0, 0.5% ...

An experiment was conducted to study the different biochemical constituents imparting resistance and susceptibility rust of sorghum disease caused by Puccinia purpurea Cooke. For this, five resistant (R) susceptible (S) genotypes were inoculated at 30 days after sowing (DAS) studied both inoculation (DAI). Reduction in chlorophyll a, b, total chlorophyll, soluble protein, reducing sugar, non su...

this experiment was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of different levels of echinacea (echinacea purpurea) methanol extract on the growth performances (final weight (fw), daily growth ratio (dgr), feed conversion rate (fcr), voluntary feed intake (vfi) and protein efficiency ratio (per) and some of hematological parameters (hemoglobin (hb), hematocrit (hct), red blood cell (rbc) and white blo...

Due to the limited availability of effective pharmaceutical products and serious side effects of the available therapy for leishmaniasis, search for useful medicinal plants is necessary. Previous studies reported preventative effect of Echinacea against Leishmania infections through immunologic stimulation. Here we tested concentrated ethanolic extract of the root of Echinacea purpurea prepared...