The use of medicinal plants in the treatment of selected lifestyle diseases in the population of Santa Marta, Colombia

Bc. Martina Hamříková

Diplomová práce

Abstract:

Colombian population is considerably threatened by lifestyle diseases. However, as the traditional medicine is still popular in Colombia, the local people do not hesitate to use medicinal plants for their treatment. Therefore, the main aim of this thesis was to find medicinal plants that are recommended by herbalist shops to cure obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart diseases. Data were collected in the period of September 2016 - February 2017 in 7 herboristerías in Santa Marta through 3 semi structured questionnaires and open-ended interviews. First questionnaire was focused mainly on the information about the vendor, the second questionnaire was for each disease category, focusing on the appropriate medicinal plants. The third was oriented on each mentioned plant, describing plant part used and the mode of preparation and application. The study documented 53 folk taxa corresponding to 56 plant species, and belonging to 35 botanical families. Quantitative ethnobotanical indices were calculated to determine the most cited and frequently used species to treat each disease category, and to compare ailments among themselves. For diabetes the most frequently cited plants were Anacardium occidentale, Moringa oleifera and Bauhinia sp. For obesity it was Marrubium vulgare, for hypertension Salvia palifolia and in heart diseases category it was Phthirusa stelis. In general, the scale of used plants was relatively broad, as we found 30 unique species, and therefore the Informant Consensus Factor of each ailment category was low. We also documented species of plants for which future researches about biological activity could be done. This thesis contributed to the exploration of the traditional Colombian knowledge about medicinal plants.

Keywords

ethnobotany, traditional knowledge, herboristería, diabetes, Latin America

Jazyk práce: angličtina

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 27. 4. 2017

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Vedoucí: doc. Ing. Zbyněk Polesný, Ph.D.

Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze

Fakulta tropického zemědělství

Magisterský studijní program / obor:
Tropické zemědělství / Tropical Crop Management and Ecology