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eCAM Advance Access originally published online on October 5, 2006
eCAM 2007 4(2):145-148; doi:10.1093/ecam/nel064
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© 2006 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Commentary

Traditional Phytochemistry: Identification of Drug by ‘Taste’

Kalpana Joshi1, Alex Hankey2 and Bhushan Patwardhan1

1Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, University of Pune Pune 411007, India and 2Hethe House, Cowden Kent TN8 7DZ, UK

Ayurveda, the system of traditional medicine from India, holds that ‘Rasa’, a concept roughly corresponding to taste, is a basis for identifying pharmacological properties of plants and other materia medica used in Dravyaguna—its system of phytomedicine. This idea has recently found support in studies of ibuprofen, the pharmacological properties of which are similar to those of oleocanthal, because the two substances have very similar tastes. This paper discusses a possible scientific approach to understanding the Ayurvedic (hypo)thesis in terms of the stereochemical basis of both pharamaco-activity and taste, and the numbers of possible pharmaco-active compounds that ‘Rasa’ may be able to distinguish. We conclude that molecules binding to a specific enzyme active site should have their own ‘Rasa’, and that the number of different subjectively experienced ‘tastes’ is more than enough to distinguish between molecular shapes binding to all enzyme active sites in the body.

Keywords: ayurveda – drug discovery – ibruprofen – oleocanthal – taste

For reprints and all correspondence: Alex Hankey, Hethe House, Cowden, Kent TN8 7DZ, UK. E-mail: Alexhank{at}dircon.co.uk

Received November 7, 2005; accepted August 22, 2006


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