Eclipta alba species role in natural medicine

Eclipta alba is a seasonal medicinal plant native to Pakistan and its associated countries, vastly present in tropical and sub-tropical regions, having multi-branched white flowers. Almost all parts of E. alba are being used in the treatment of various ailments due to the presence of wide range of phytochemical constituents. Therefore, this review article has been written to compile to therapeutic applications of said medicinal herb.

Selective reference material was selected using different search engines like PubMed, NCBI, Google Scholar, Science direct etc.by putting Keywords including E. alba, its medicinal uses, nutritional benefits of E. alba, diseases, and E. alba etc.

Researches revealed that traditionally E. alba is well known to cure several diseases like hair growth disorders, efficacious hyperglycemic activity through inhibition of alpha-glucosidase and aldose reductase as well as by stimulating insulin secretion. Obesity is considered as the mother of disease, and many health occurs from obesity, so by its lipid-lowering activity, it lowers all types of fat. Mosquitoes as vectors cause serious human diseases like malaria, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis, yellow fever, dengue fever and chikungunya have become major causes of mortality and morbidity among people. E. alba has insecticidal, larvicidal and ovicidal activity to control the mosquitoes borne diseases. Liver ailments such as liver enlargement, hepatitis and cirrhosis of liver have been a major issue for public issue. Wedelolactone, the chemical constituent of E. alba is very potent in liver ailment and due to its anti-viral activity, it can kill the virus responsible for hepatitis and other viruses as well. E. alba has efficacious anti-inflammatory activity, because of anti-oxidant constituents present in this herb. A very important role of this herbal plant is in hair growth promotion activity, so it has major value to treat hair problems such as alopecia, thinning of hair and hair color problems. It activates the hair follicles and enhances the hairs growth. It also has anti-hemorrhagic, antibiotic, antiseptic, anti-microbial activity and has very in snake bite scorpion sting.

Although, E. alba has several health-related benefits, but still more research is under consideration in scientific community related to its phytochemical constituents and mechanism of actions.