Active ingredients

From eagle-rock.org
Topic in Gardening courses

Active ingredients in herbs are substances in plants that have medicinal benefits. In herbal medicine the active ingredient is often unknown or requires other factors for a therapeutic effect.

Alkaloids

Main article: Alkaloids

Alkaloids are a group of naturally occurring chemical compounds that contain mostly basic nitrogen atoms.

Anthraquinone

Main article: Anthraquinone

Anthraquinone is a building block of many dyes and is used in bleaching pulp for papermaking. Anthraquinones act to stimulate muscular contraction of the large intestine and therefore have a laxative effect.

External links