Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Feb 20:10:24.
doi: 10.1186/1746-4269-10-24.

A study of the medicinal plants used by the Marakwet Community in Kenya

Wilson Kipkore, Bernard Wanjohi, Hillary Rono, Gabriel Kigen  1
Affiliations

A study of the medicinal plants used by the Marakwet Community in Kenya

Wilson Kipkore et al. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed. .

Abstract

Background: The medicinal plants used by herbalists in Kenya have not been well documented, despite their widespread use. The threat of complete disappearance of the knowledge on herbal medicine from factors such as deforestation, lack of proper regulation, overexploitation and sociocultural issues warrants an urgent need to document the information. The purpose of the study was to document information on medicinal plants used by herbalists in Marakwet District towards the utilization of indigenous ethnobotanical knowledge for the advancement of biomedical research and development.

Methods: Semi- structured oral interviews were conducted with 112 practicing herbalists. The types of plants used were identified and the conditions treated recorded.

Results: Herbal practice is still common in the district, and 111 plants were identified to have medicinal or related uses. Different herbal preparations including fruits and healing vegetables are employed in the treatment of various medical conditions. Veterinary uses and pesticides were also recorded.

Conclusion: The study provides comprehensive ethnobotanical information about herbal medicine and healing methods among the Marakwet community. The identification of the active ingredients of the plants used by the herbalists may provide some useful leads for the development of new drugs.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map of Marakwet District.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Terrain map of Marakwet district on the left, and the Map of Kenya showing the position of Marakwet district in the right. © 2010 Google - Map Data ©2010 Google, Tracks4Africa. Adapted from [23].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Balunas MJ, Kinghorn AD. Drug discovery from medicinal plants. Life Sci. 2005;78(5):431–441. doi: 10.1016/j.lfs.2005.09.012. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Torres MP, Rachagani S, Purohit V, Pandey P, Joshi S, Moore ED, Johansson SL, Singh PK, Ganti AK, Batra SK. Graviola: a novel promising natural-derived drug that inhibits tumorigenicity and metastasis of pancreatic cancer cells in vitro and in vivo through altering cell metabolism. Cancer Lett. 2012;323(1):29–40. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2012.03.031. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Vickers A, Zollman C, Lee R. Herbal medicine. West J Med. 2001;175(2):125–128. doi: 10.1136/ewjm.175.2.125. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO. Traditional Medicine, Fact sheet. 2008. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs134/en/
    1. WHO. WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002–2005. Geneva: WHO; 2002. http://www.who.int/topics/traditional_medicine/en/; whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2002/who_edm_trm_2002.1.pdf. Accesed on 19/112/2011.