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Calendula Officinalis
Calendula Officinalis L has gained importance in the process of rediscovering natural healing forces. Increasing significance is contributed to calendula ointment, which have been used traditionally for a long time
Calendula extracts is characterized by a high level of terpenoids e.g.
saponosides in the form of oleanolglycosides and triterpene alcohols.
The triterpenediol-3-monoesters consist for 85% of Faradiol esters.
Calendula extract is a rich source of
carotinoids. The colour of the flowers depends on their content of carotinoids (88).
Also remarkable is the fat oil of the seeds which predominately consists of the conjugated trienoic calendula acid (88).
Calendula preparations are mainly used for the treatments of wounds and for cosmetical purposes (88). Dressing materials containin Calendula Officinalis ointment applied to experimental animal's wounds has been found to enhance the tissue repair (89). Topical application of Calendula Officinalis markedly stimulates physiological regeneration and
epithelization. This effect is assumed to be due to more intensive metabolism of
glycoproteins, nucleoproteins and collagen proteins during the regenerative period in the tissue (90). Medicinal herbs containing Calendula extract has been found to be stimulating to the wound healing process by their antifungal/antibacterial qualities. Some investigators reported that the wound-healing period for Calendula Officinalis is shorter than that of the witness (91).
Animal experimental studies showed that the green leaf juice of C.
Officinalis produced significant analgesia; pain threshold increased by
58.9 and 62.15 to that of control. It has been also found to have anti-inflammatory action (92).
Studies proved the anti-inflammatory action of Calendula Officinalis (93). The triterpenoids has been shown to be the most important anti-inflammatory principles of Calendula extracts. The anti-inflammatory activity was proportional to their content of Faradiol monoester, which can be taken as a suitable parameter for the quality control of Calendula preparations (94, 95). Whole plant extract differ from that of the flowers by the presence of monoterpene hydrocarbons, essential oil, in addition to the alcohols
Calendula Officinalis extracts has been found to have anti-edematous activity due to its Faradiol esters content which is dose dependent activity (96).
Calendula extract is a rich source of Flavonoids. Characteristic
calendula-flavonoids are the isorhamnetin glycosides. The total flavonoids in calendula Officinalis flowers in the ligulate rayflorets and tubular disc-florets were found to be 0.88 and 0.25% respectively (97).
The saponins isolated from Calendula Officinalis were tested for its toxic and mutagenic activities. All the saponins were found to be non-toxic and non-mutagenic for doses of 400.mu g (98).
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