Plants Used for Reproduction and Contraception

1. Plants Used for Reproduction and Contraception

2. Plants affecting reproduction • Many ways plants used for reproductive system • Contraceptives • Aphrodiasics • Aids in child birth

3. Development of modern contraceptives • 1933 Corner and Allen isolated progesterone from corpus luteum • 1933 Butenandt and Jacobi discover plant chemicals similar to female sex hormones • 1934 structural formula determined by Wintersteiner and Allen • 1939-1941 Russel Marker described use of plant sources to produce progesterone • Disogenin from Dioscorea (wild yam) especially promising • 1945-1960, Pincus, Chang, Rock worked on development of birth control pill - clinical trials in 1950s and FDA approval in 1960

4. Diosogenin

5. Human steroids progesterone testosterone cortisol

6. Yams - Dioscorea spp. • True yams - Tuber crop • Important staples in many areas: • West Africa, southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, and Caribbean Islands • Genus has several hundred species of which ten are major food sources • Yams have been cultivated for over 5000 years in tropical Africa.

7. Dioscorea - tropical vine

8. Tubers of Dioscorea

9. Yam

10. Yam harvest

11. Other herbal contraceptives • Silphium or Silphion • A plant in the genus Ferula – parsley family • Related to giant fennel • Native to northern Africa near the city of ancient city of Cyrene

12. Silphium on Ancient Greek Coins

14. Silphium • Pliny, Theophrastus, Soranus, and Dioscorides • Another species of Ferula (Ferulaassafoetida) became an acceptable substitute for silphium after silphium became extinct

15. Other Ferula species • Modern researchers tested Ferula spp and found anti-fertility effects in the family • Crude extracts of asafetida and Ferulaorientalis inhibited implantation of fertilized eggs in rats by 40% to 50% • Other Ferula species have similar results; one species was found to be nearly 100% effective in preventing pregnancy when administered to female rats within three days after intercourse

16. Pomegranate Queen Anne’s Lace Pennyroyal Artemisia Date Palm Doom Palm Juniperus Myrrh Squirting cucumber Aloe Willow Cypress Rue Chaste tree Other Plants in Ancient World

17. Queen Anne’s Lace • Women have used the seeds from Daucus carota (wild carrot or queen anne’s lace) for centuries as a contraceptive • Earliest written reference dates back to the late 5th or 4th century B.C. appearing in a work by Hippocrates

18. Queen Anne’s Lace

19. Distribution of Daucus carota

20. Queen Anne’s Lace • Animal studies have shown that extracts of seeds disrupt implantation • Also a fertilized egg that has recently implanted will be released • Terpenoids in seed block progesterone synthesis in pregnant animals • Some “herbalists” suggests it makes the uterus slippery so that the egg is unable to implant

21. Pomegranate • Punicia granatum is a shrub or small tree native to southern Asia • Widely known in ancient times - and used medicinally

23. Pomegranate • Contemporary studies show pomegranate has contraceptive properties • Female rats 72% reduction in fertility • In another study 50% reduction in fertility • Guinea pigs 100% reduction in fertility • 40 days after removing pomegranate fertility was restored in both animals

24. Male Contraceptive • For a number of years researchers looking into the question of the development of an effective oral contraceptive for men • Much attention focused on gossypol from cottonseed oil • Known to cause male infertility in areas where cottonseed oil used • Decades of work on the development of gossypol as a contraceptive – stopped when side effects showed hypokalaemia – low level of K+ in blood