review · Frontiers in Natural Products
Vernonia amygdalina is a perennial shrub native to sub-Saharan Africa and widely used across traditional medicine. Its leaves contain essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that support human dietary requirements and food security. Traditional applications span diverse human and veterinary ailments, such as diabetes, malaria, hepatitis, digestive complaints, and wounds. Chemical analysis identifies diverse phytochemical groups, including flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, and sesquiterpene lactones. Specific isolated compounds include vernolide, luteolin, vernodalol, and vernoamyosides. Tests on these isolated compounds demonstrate biological activities such as antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antihelmintic, and anticancer properties. Bringing together evidence on traditional usage, chemical constituents, and verified bioactivity provides a baseline for exploring the therapeutic and dietary value of the plant.
Vernonia amygdalina is among the most widely utilised indigenous medicinal plants in sub-Saharan Africa. Documenting its chemical makeup and biological properties provides scientific backing for established traditional remedies. This knowledge also highlights the nutritional value of its leaves, offering pathways to address both dietary deficiencies and health management through locally accessible botanical resources.
The compiled data could guide product development teams and researchers aiming to formulate novel nutraceutical products, dietary supplements, or botanical healthcare treatments. Because the underlying evidence comes from early-stage literature reviews and laboratory evaluations of isolated compounds, commercial applications remain at an exploratory, early research stage. Further translational testing, safety profiling, and standardised formulation will be necessary before any consumer products can reach the market.
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Vernonia amygdalina is a perennial shrub that belongs to the family Asteraceae. The herb is an indigenous African plant that grows in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa. It is probably the most used medicinal plant in the genus Vernonia. Previous studies on the traditional medicinal value, nutritional composition, classes of phytochemical or compound isolation, and evaluation of their pharmacology activity are numerous. This provokes us to review and provide up-to-date evidence-based information on the study plant. A systematic online search using the databases of Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, Wiley, Elsevier and Sci-Hub was carefully applied, using some important key words to get appropriate information. The leafy part of Vernonia amygdalina contributes greatly to the nutritional requirements for human health and to food security since it contains enough concentrations of proximate composition, minerals, and vitamins. The plant parts are used in traditional medicine for many human and animal healthcare purposes, including diarrhea, diabetes, wound healing, tonsillitis, evil eye, retained placenta, headache, eye disease, intestinal parasite, bloating, hepatitis, toothache, anthrax, malaria, urine retention, gastritis, stomach disorders, and snake bites. The chemical analysis revealed the presence of flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, tannins, triterpenoids, sesquiterpene lactones, steroids, cardiac glycosides, oxalates, phytates, cyanogenic glycosides, and phenols. Additionally, various compounds such as vernolide, luteolin, vernodalol, vernoamyoside A, vernoamyoside B, isorhamnetin, glucuronolactone, and 1-Heneicosenol O-β-D-glucopyranoside were isolated. Some of the isolated compounds pharmacological activity was evaluated against some diseases and showed antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, antihelmintic, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory potencies. Thus, the review provides comprehensive information about ethnomedicinal value, nutritional composition, isolated classes of phytochemicals, and compounds, including an evaluation of the pharmacological activity of the isolated compounds of Vernonia amygdalina . A review with this much information could be extremely valuable for future research on developing innovative nutraceutical products.
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DOI: 10.3389/fntpr.2024.1347855
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