Status and ethno-medicinal usage of invasive plants in traditional health care practices: a case study from northeastern Bangladesh

Species diversity and ethno-medicinal usage of 39 species of invasive plants were explored in and around two protected areas, Khadimnagar National Park （KNP） and Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctu- ary （RKWS）, of northeastern Bangladesh,. Status of invasive plants were investigated in 60 sample plots with 5 different habitat types, including forest, roadside, homestead, fallow land and others （ponds, canals, water logged areas, agricultural land, etc.）. Data about the usage of invasive plants in traditional health care were collected through interviewing 110 households. Among the five habitat types, fallow land （28 species）.possessed the highest number of species, followed by roadside （25 species）, forest （23 species）, homestead （22 species） and others （13 species）. Based on the survey, invasive plants of study areas were also categorized into five degrees of invasiveness e.g., naturalized, introduced, possibly invasive, moderately invasive and highly invasive. Additionally, there is the linear trend between degrees of invasivaness and use percentage of invasive plants. Total 39 species of invasive plants belonging to 29 families were recorded, which are generally used to treat 37 diseases, ranging from simple headache to highly complicated eye and heart diseases. The majority of the species used by the local inhabitants were herbs （16 species）, followed by some shrubs （11 species）, climbers （5 species）, trees （5 species） and grasses （2 species）. The use percentage of aboveground plant parts were higher （70.58%） than that of underground plant parts （16.18%）.

A review of five traditionally used anti-diabetic plants of Bangladesh and their pharmacological activities

Plants are used traditionally throughout the globe to treat various diseases.Traditionally used medicinal plants are an essential part of the health sector in Bangladesh due to its abundance of a vast source of ethno-medicine.Rural people from developing country like Bangladesh are greatly dependent on traditional source of medicine.The prevalence of diabetes mellitus is increasing from recent years; therefore various researches are going on to discover better medicine to treat this disease.This study has focused on five plants which are Andrographis paniculata, Ageratum conyzoides, Swertia chirata, Terminalia arjuna, and Azadirachta indica to find out their traditional formulation as anti-diabetic medicine and their pharmacological activity has also been explored through literature search.The available information about traditional anti-diabetic uses of these plants and their pharmacological activities were collected from various electronic sources like Pubmed, Sci Finder, Elsevier, Springer, Scopus, Scirus, Science Direct, Google Scholar and Web of Science apart from these locally available books and peer reviewed journal were also used to collect information.This study will help to strengthen the relation between traditional medicine, pharmacology and drug development.A clue may be found from the information provided this review to discover new and better anti-diabetic drugs.