Asparagus racemosus

Plants have been an important source for developing drugs since time immemorial. Various medicinal herbs are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and Asparagus is one such plant. Asparagus racemosus Willd., more commonly known as Shatavari, has been traditionally used in many systems of medicine such as Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha. It has been used for decades as a galactogogue, uterine tonic, adaptogen, and rejuvenator. Also it has been used to mitigate symptoms of peptic ulcer, as an immunostimulant, hepatoprotective, and aphrodisiac. In addition, several other health benefits of this wonder plant, such as antidepressant, antiamnesic, antianxiety, hypolipidemic, antidiabetic, and anticonvulsant effects have been discovered in the recent years. In this article, an effort has been made to comprehensively enumerate all the health benefits of A. racemosus, known so far.

Satavar is an important drug which has been used in Unani and Ayurveda systems of medicine since long as an effective aphrodisiac and galactogogue drug. It is widely distributed throughout tropical and sub-tropical parts of India up to an altitude of 1500 m. It is also known as the queen of herbs. It is cultivated in gardens as an ornamental plant. Chemically it is comprised of saponins, alkaloids, steroids, carbohydrates, mucilage and essential nutrients like mineral and vitamins by virtue of which it possesses therapeutic actions such as aphrodisiac, galactogogue, immunomodulator, demulcent and anti-inflammatory etc. Modern scientific researches have also proved its novel therapeutic activities like antioxidant, antibacterial, hypoglycemic, antidepressant etc. In this article an attempt has been made to summarize the immense classical Unani literature and modern researches on Satavar. Key words: Satavar, Asparagus racemosus, galactogogue, Unani, Ayurveda

Asparagus racemosus and Centella asiatica are two very common and well known medicinal plant available in India. Both the plants are traditionally used as antiamoebic drugs. Not only are those, both the drugs used as the herbal treatment of several diseases of human beings. In between them some are really critical disease. Several important phytoconstituents have been already isolated and characterized from both the plants and in between them some are the major active marker for the treatment of above said critical diseases. Instead of all those characters, these two plants have very potent antioxidant property. Here, we have taken an attempt to prepare a formulation of the mixture (50:50) of the aqueous extracts of both the plants and compare the antioxidant property of that formulation and extracts. In this study calcium chloride cross linked alginate microsphere and chitosan coated microsphere have been prepared by using the above said plant extracts and the anti-oxidant property of those formulations were compared with the extracts and also standard drugs. The result therefore reflects that the antioxidant potency of the combined extract entrapped in formulations was almost equivalent to the original extract combinations. This entails despite of the different process control stresses in the manufacturing steps the potency of the polymer entrapped drug substances does not changed. So researchers may look forward in further purification of the extract and then an effective drug loading to get an equivalent potent action from the same quantity of a standard antioxidant.