A group of researchers from the Rohtak in India conducting a study recently has claimed that wild plants found in Indian forests and mountains can fight mouth infections caused by bacteria or fungal attack in oral cancer patients. For the sake of their study they examined the extracts of some Indian plants that are used in traditional or folk medicines. Those medicines are used to prevent or treat infections caused by microbial. These microbial are also found in oral cancer patients’ mouths.

The researchers selected 40 patients for their study. Among them 35 patients were such that they had less neutrophil counts in their body. Among the plants they examined they found eight such plants that were able to prevent the development of organisms which were collected through mouth cleaning pure cultures of fungies and bacteria.  The eight plants are namely desert date, false daisy, wild asparagus, fenugreek, curry tree and castor oil plant.

According to Dr. Jaya Parkash Yadav for the advancement of medical science it is very necessary to study plant based medicines, especially local plant based medicines. Moreover, conventional knowledge about plants is very important to treat diseases. She has also mentioned that researchers have found those plant extracts are very useful in treating diseases spread by microbes.

Most of the plant extracts examined by the researchers were found to be able to build up a shield against the attack of bacteria like E. coli, S. aureus and fungi like Candida and Aspergillus. Desert date and castor oil plant extracts are able to treat Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is true that the extracts are not strong enough like traditional antibiotics the study can at least show a ray of hope that those extracts can be tested and developed in labs to make medicines.

The study has been appeared in journal Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials.