Artemisia for Cancer Treatment

Recently, I wrote about the anti-malarial properties of artemisia. Artemisia was also recently in the news for its potential effectiveness against covid-19, and I explored that a few months ago in "Artemisia for COVID Treatment." Turns out the plant might have other hidden wonders: it is also being investigated as a cancer therapy. Artemisia, whose medicinal origins can be traced back to 200 BCE in ancient China, is one truly impressive medicinal plant!

Artemisia has active phytochemicals that have a list of medicinal properties— antimalarial, antioxidant, cytotoxic, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial to name a few. It has recently also been found that the bioactive compounds of the plant target multiple pathways in the case of cancer.

A study by University of Washington researchers found artemisinin to be very effective in killing specific cancer cells—up to 1200 times more effective than current treatments! The UW researcher described it as “ like a special agent planting a bomb inside the cell.” Not only is it effective in killing cancer cells, but it does so selectively, targeting only cancer cells while sparing normal cells from damage, unlike aggressive treatments like chemotherapy.

What was most fascinating to me about this was how the UW team (and medical researchers in general) were able to connect similarities in very different scenarios to come up with a new drug. When artemisinin was found to be effective against malaria, it was discovered that the mechanism by which it acts is the reaction between artemisinin and the high iron concentrations found in the malaria parasite. When artemisinin comes into contact with iron, it triggers a chemical reaction that produces free radicals that attack cell membranes and kill the single-cell parasite.

The UW researchers decided to try this for cancer therapy because it is known that cancer cells need a lot of iron to replicate DNA during cell division, so cancer cells have higher iron concentrations than normal cells. Therefore, artemisinin will selectively target cancer cells because they have high iron content.

The wonders of ancient medicinal plants continue to amaze!

Sources:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0968089619308053
https://www.cancerplants.com/herb_news/artemisia_annua.html

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