Nature's Medicine Cabinet Part 2
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- 4 days ago
- 9 min read
Infections, Metabolic Problems, and Mental Health
A series of articles exploring the botanical origins of the medicines we use every day
by B. Kristine Burneko, MSN, APRN, PMHNP-BC, APHN-BC
This article is a continuation of the series, "Nature's Medicine Cabinet: The Surprising Plant Origins of Common Medicines" available by this author on the MedReport Website.
Infectious Diseases
So many plant compounds have been used for antibacterial and antimicrobial purposes that it would be impractical to list them here. Instead, we will examine the plant-based treatments for two prevalent infections: malaria and influenza. As of 2024 (the latest data available), it is estimated that around 280 million people suffer from malaria every year – and the prevalence is increasing (World Health Organization, 2025.) The need for effective malaria drugs is urgent – and fortunately, our earth has provided multiple.
Two plants, a tree and a bush, have given rise to two frequently used, first-line antimalarial medicines, quinine and artemisinin (Lesi & Meremikwu, 2004). The cinchona tree, Cinchona officianalis, is also known as the “fever tree”, “sacred bark”, Jesuit’s bark”, and “cardinal bark” is a statuesque tree native to the Andes mountains that occasionally yields delicate pink flowers and gives us quinine. The sweet wormwood plant, Artemisia annua, is a beautiful lace-like bush that yields delicate yellow flowers is also known as “qinghao”, “sweet annie”, or “annual mugwort” and has demonstrated powerful antimalarial effects, known to Chinese medical practitioners for at least 2,000 years (Centers for Disease Control, 2014).
The trademarked drug TamifluTM (olseltamivir), used to mitigate the symptoms of influenza, also finds its origin in the plant world – specifically, the seeds of the Chinese star anise pod, Illicium verum (Arora et al., 2017.) This plant has been used for centuries in Chinese and Vietnamese medicine and cuisine and the charming, star-shaped seed pods are familiar to many cooking enthusiasts. In the healing traditions of both countries, it is used for rheumatism and gastric symptoms (Schönholzer, 2018), and in the cuisine of these countries it imparts a pleasant note of anise to food– if you have ever enjoyed phò at a Vietnamese restaurant, you have certainly tasted star anise. While olseltamivir was first derived from the seeds of star anise, the current form on the market is most often lab-synthesized from E. coli bacteria due to pod supply issues (Sagandira, 2020).
Metabolic Diseases
One of the most surprising modern examples of nature-inspired pharmacology is the development of GLP-1 receptor agonists – commonly marketed today as semaglutide and terzepitide. In the mid-1990s, researchers affiliated with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs identified exendin-4, a hormone found in the venom of the Gila monster, Heloderma suspectum. This compound mimicked human glucagon-like peptide-1, which naturally upregulates insulin secretion and maintains serum glucose balance (Eng et al., 2019). Synthesized derivatives of the exendin-4 hormone were approved by the FDA in 2005 and have since transformed the management of type 2 diabetes and obesity (United States Department of Veterans’ Affairs, 2019.)
Metformin, another widely prescribed antidiabetic medication, originates from Galega officinalis, a petite flower-stalk resembling an inverted, violet cluster of grapes which is commonly referred to as “French lilac” or “goat’s rue”. Traditional European healers have used the plant for diabetic symptoms long before its active compound inspired modern glucose-lowering therapy. What ancient European healers documented as “falling sickness” in the 1600s, we would refer to today as hypoglycemic lightheadedness, shakiness, or pre-syncope (Bailey, 2017).
Mental Health and Neurology
Occasionally, nature provides us medicine even in the form of her simplest minerals. Lithium had an interesting start in the world of Western medicine. Lithium was first officially marketed to the public in the Victorian patent-medicine era as a soda (“lithiated lemon-lime soda”, changed later to “lithiated 7-up" owing to the atomic mass of lithium, 6.9 (McVean, 2017.) Its precipitous toxicity became rapidly apparent, and the soda quickly reformulated (Fountolakis, 2025). Lithium is a simple element and is often a component in mineral-rich waters, clays, and stones, occurring as a beautifully iridescent, white, and incredibly soft metal that can even be easily cut with a knife (Fountolakis, 2025). Lithium salts were first discovered in 1800 by Brazilian chemist José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva in a Swedish mine (Fountolakis, 2025), though the psychiatric utilities of the salts became apparent later. Today, lithium salts are now considered the most effective, gold-standard treatment for bipolar I disorder (Airainer and Seifert, 2024) and an affordable, effective adjunct treatment for treatment-resistant depression (Edwards et al., 2013).
The “common snowdrop”, with its melancholy, droopy white flowers, is known as Galanthus nivalis and has been used since at least the time of ancient Greece for the treatment of neurological disorder (Lee, 1999) and is still used today in the form of galantamine, a cholinesterase inhibitor that helps to moderate the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (Babashpour-Asl et al., 2023).
In the next installment, we'll wander deeper into the garden and take a look at nature's remedies for the heart, circulatory system, cancers, and some jack-of-all-trades or multipurpose plants - and continue to celebrate them in all their beauty and strangeness. See you next month!
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