Mistletoes are a group of obligate plant semi-parasites in the order Santalales. These clumps of plants growing on a wide range of host plants have been traditionally regarded as medicinal repositories. However, current scientific discoveries have validated their health potentials like never before. Their extracts containing alkaloids, viscotoxins, lectins, and polysaccharides have been evidenc...

BACKGROUND The NFkappaB signalling pathway plays an important role in chemoresistance and decreased apoptosis. One indirect way to inhibit the NFkappaB pathway is to slow down the proteasomal degradation of its inhibitor IkappaB, thus preventing NFkappaB from translocation into the nucleus. Hence, the effect of the proteasome inhibitor bortezomib (Velcade) on the cell proliferation of the MV3, ...

Aginanthus brunneus is a specie of Africa mistletoe and is hemiparasitic in nature growing on many trees. Phytochemical screening showed the presence of carbohydrates, Alkaloids, Tannins and flavonoids. The ethanolic and aqueous extracts inhibited growth of Klesiella aerogenes, Proteus spp Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Gentamycin and Cloxacillin did not exhibit any activity against ...

Background Cancer patients widely seek integrative oncology which embraces a wide variety of treatments and system approaches. Objective To investigate the concepts, therapeutic goals, procedures, and working conditions of integrative oncology doctors in the field of anthroposophic medicine. Methods This qualitative study was based on in-depth interviews with 35 highly experienced doctors worki...

As part of an International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) program to study Jordan's biodiversity, the relative levels of antioxidant activity and the total phenolic content of aqueous and methanolic extracts of a total of 95 plant species, all of Jordanian origin and those collected at random, have been measured. The total phenolic content of aqueous and methanolic extracts of the inve...

This study evaluated the effect of gamma irradiation on the reduction of the toxicity of mistletoe lectin using both in vitro and in vivo models. To extract the lectin from mistletoe, an (NH4)2SO4 precipitation method was employed and the precipitant purified using a Sepharose 4B column to obtain the pure lectin fraction. Purified lectin was then gamma-irradiated at doses of 0, 5, 10, 15, and 2...

Breast cancer is among the most frequent types of cancer in women worldwide. Current conventional treatment options are accompanied by side effects. Mistletoe is amongst the important herbal medicines traditionally used as complementary remedies. An increasing number of studies have reported anticancer activity of mistletoe extracts on breast cancer cells and animal models. Some recent evidence...

BACKGROUND The effects of standardized aqueous mistletoe extracts on Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) of tumor patients needs further evaluation. METHODS in this non-interventional, prospective clinical investigation the longitudinal course of Quality of Life of 270 breast cancer patients during adjuvant chemotherapy and mistletoe therapy with abnobaVISCUM(®) Mali was investigated. HRQo...

Viscum album (VA) preparations are extensively used as complementary therapy in cancer and are shown to exert anti-tumor activities which involve the cytotoxic properties, induction of apoptosis, inhibition of angiogenesis and several other immunomodulatory mechanisms. In addition to their application in cancer therapy, VA preparations have also been successfully utilized in the treatment of se...