scholarly journals East African quintessential plants claimed to be used as blood purifiers, cleansers, detoxifiers and tonics: an appraisal of ethnobotanical reports and correlation with reported bioactivities

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Omara
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Aloe Vera ◽  
Centella Asiatica ◽  
Blood Purification ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
East African ◽  
Traditional Practice ◽  
Online Library ◽  
Google Search

Abstract Background Blood cleansing, purification, detoxification or strengthening is an ancient folkloric East African practice without any validated scientific underpinnings. This study was undertaken to retrieve ethnobotanical information and reported bioactivities of plants claimed to be blood purifiers, cleansers, detoxifiers and tonics in Eastern Africa and correlate their claimed use with scientific studies to find out whether there is any justification for their use in this ancient practice. Method An elaborate review was performed in electronic databases (PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, Springer Link, Wiley Online Library, Taylor & Francis Online, SciFinder, Google Scholar, Web of Science) and the Google search engine to retrieve information on ethnomedicinal plants used in East Africa in blood purification, detoxification, cleansing or strengthening and their investigated bioactivities related to their use in this traditional practice. Results The search retrieved 74 plant species from 45 families distributed among 66 genera with some documented bioactivities, though, with little correlation with their traditional utilization in blood purification, cleansing, detoxification and strengthening. Some justification of the link between blood purification, cleansing, detoxification and strengthening and the use of the plants as antiplatelet aggregation, vasorelaxant, bronchodilatory, antihyperlipidaemic, cardioprotective, antiatherosclerotic and immunomodulatory agents were evident, but majorly antimicrobial activity has been investigated in most species. Thus, only 15 (20.2%) of the plant species (Allium sativum, Moringa oleifera, Olea capensis, Clausena anisata, Centella asiatica, Nasturtium officinale, Solanum nigrum, Withania somnifera, Rubus apetalus, Delonix elata, Persia americana, Aloe vera, Azadirachta indica, Echinacea angustifolia and Dioscorea bulbifera) could be directly correlated with studies pertaining to blood health. Conclusion Medicinal plants used in blood purification, cleansing, detoxification and strengthening in East Africa play a holistic role in rejuvenation of overall human health. Few studies have examined their bioactivities pertaining to blood health. Thus, bioactivities and pharmacological activities (such as blood thinning, hypolipemic, cardioprotective, immunomodulatory, tonic and renoprotective properties) and phytochemicals of the claimed plants warrant further research as these could lead to discovery of chemical scaffolds of lead compounds that can be used in modern blood purification.

scholarly journals Nectar Meals of a Mosquito-Specialist Spider

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josiah O. Kuja ◽  
Robert R. Jackson ◽  
Godfrey O. Sune ◽  
Rebecca N. H. Karanja ◽  
Zipporah O. Lagat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Laboratory Tests ◽  
Field Data ◽  
Ricinus Communis ◽  
Aloe Vera ◽  
East African ◽  
Natural Diet ◽  
Striga Asiatica ◽  
Early Instar ◽  
Evarcha Culicivora

Evarcha culicivora, an East African jumping spider, is known for feeding indirectly on vertebrate blood by actively choosing blood-carrying mosquitoes as prey. Using cold-anthrone tests to detect fructose, we demonstrate thatE. culicivoraalso feeds on nectar. Field-collected individuals, found on the plantLantana camara, tested positive for plant sugar (fructose). In the laboratory,E. culicivoratested positive for fructose after being kept withL. camaraor one of another ten plant species (Aloe vera, Clerodendron magnifica, Hamelia patens, Lantana montevideo, Leonotis nepetaefolia, Parthenium hysterophorus, Ricinus communis, Senna didymobotrya, Striga asiatica, andVerbena trivernia). Our findings demonstrate thatE. culicivoraacquires fructose from its natural diet and can ingest fructose directly from plant nectaries. However, experiments in the laboratory also show thatE. culicivoracan obtain fructose indirectly by feeding on prey that have fed on fructose, implying a need to consider this possibility when field-collected spiders test positive for fructose. In laboratory tests, 53.5% of 1,215 small juveniles, but only 3.4% of 622 adultE. culicivora, left with plants for 24 hours, were positive for fructose. These findings, along with the field data, suggest that fructose is especially important for early-instar juveniles ofE. culicivora.

Pastoralism in Eastern Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Galaty
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Rift Valley ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Rural Poverty ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Rainfall Regime ◽  
East African ◽  
History Of

The Rift Valley is a stage on which the history of Eastern Africa has unfolded over the last 10,000 years. It served as a corridor for the southward migration from the Upper Nile and the Ethiopian highlands of Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic speakers and cultures, with their domestic animals, which over time defined and restructured the social and cultural fabric of East Africa. Genetic evidence suggests that, contrary to other regions in Africa where geography overrides language, the clustering of East African populations primarily reflects linguistic affiliation. Eastern Sudanic Nilotic speakers are dedicated livestock keepers whose identification with cattle over thousands of years is manifested in elaborate symbolism, networks created by cattle exchange, and the practice of sacrifice. The geographical attributes of rich grasslands in a semi-arid environment, close proximity of lowland and highland grazing, and a bimodal rainfall regime, made the Rift Valley an ideal setting for increasingly specialized pastoralism. However, specialized animal husbandry characteristic of East Africa was possible only within a wider socioeconomic configuration that included hunters and bee-keeping foragers and cultivators occupying escarpments and highland areas. Some pastoral groups, like Maasai, Turkana, Borana, and Somali, spread widely across grazing areas, creating more culturally homogeneous regions, while others settled near one another in geographically variegated regions, as in the Omo Valley, the Lake Baringo basin, or the Tanzanian western highlands, creating social knots that signal historical interlaying and long-term mutual coexistence. At the advent of the colonial period, Oromo and Maasai speakers successfully exploited the ecological potential of the Rift environment by combining the art of raising animals with social systems built out of principles of clanship, age and generation organizations, and territorial sections. Faced with displacement by colonial settlers and then privatization of rangelands, some Maasai pastoralists sold lands that they had been allocated, leading to landlessness amid rangeland bounty. Pastoral futures involve a combination of education, religious conversion, and diversified rangeland livelihoods, which combine animal production with cultivation, business, wage labor, or conservation enterprises. Pastoralists provide urban markets with meat, but, with human population increasing, per capita livestock holdings have diminished, leading to rural poverty, as small towns absorbing young people departing pastoralism have become critical. The Great East African Rift Valley has had a 10,000-year history of developing pastoralism as one of the world’s great forms of food production, which spread throughout Eastern Africa. The dynamics of pastoral mobility and dedication to livestock have been challenged by modernity, which has undermined pastoral territoriality and culture while providing opportunities that pastoralists now seek as citizens of their nations and the world.

scholarly journals The Leven House Factor in the Birth of Digo Mission and Christian Empire in East Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius M. Gathogo
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
East African ◽  
Christian Missions ◽  
East African Coast ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
Kenyan Coast

Leven House, as it exists in the 21st century in Mombasa city of Kenya, remains one of the most historic buildings in eastern Africa. In our focus on both the birth of the Christian Empire in East Africa (that stretches from the Kenyan Coast to the Democratic Republic of Congo), and the Digo Mission that began in 1904, Leven House becomes a critical issue. As the Anglican Diocese of Mombasa commemorated 114 years of the Digo Mission (1904–2018) in December 2018, serious issues emerged regarding the birth of Protestant Christianity in the region. One of the issues is the nature of English missions during the 19th and 20th centuries in Africa, where the Christian symbol of the flag was preceded by the British flag. The second issue is the nature of Arabic civilisation on the East African coast, which went hand-in-hand with the spread of Islam. Third is the conflict among the three ruling Omani dynasties (Yorubi, Busaidi, and Mazrui) as one major factor that ironically favoured Christian missions in eastern Africa. Fourth is the role of Mazrui-Omani Arabs, a Muslim society, in midwifing Christianity in East Africa. Was Christianity in East Africa mid-wifed by Mazrui-Omani Arabs via their provision of Leven House to the British soldiers in 1824? Was the feuding of the three Arab Omani clans a blessing in disguise that aided the establishment of the British Empire and the Christian missions that went hand-in-hand? In its methodology, the article historicises the issues at hand in order to retrace the events that paved ways for the establishment of the Christian Empire and the Digo Mission in particular. In a nutshell, the problem statement is: What is the role of Leven House in the establishment of the Digo Mission in particular, and Christian Empire in general?

scholarly journals Revalidation of Pyxicephalus angusticeps Parry, 1982 (Anura: Natatanura: Pyxicephalidae), a bullfrog endemic to the lowlands of eastern Africa

Zootaxa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3599 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH SCOTT ◽  
JOHN D. VISSER ◽  
CAROLINE A. YETMAN ◽  
CAROLINE A. YETMAN ◽  
LAUREN OLIVER ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Taxonomic Status ◽  
Morphological Characters ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Advertisement Call ◽  
Breeding Ecology ◽  
East African ◽  
Diagnostic Characters ◽  
History Of ◽  
Voucher Specimens

Pyxicephalus currently contains three recognized species, viz. P. adspersus, P. edulis and P. obbianus, the former two of which have a long history of confusion. Parry (1982) described P. adspersus angusticeps from Beira, Mozambique, which was synonymized with P. edulis. We re-examine the taxonomic status of Pyxicephalus taxa from Mozambique, examining the types and contrasting them to congeners throughout Africa. Morphological characters previously used to delimit species in Pyxicephalus are examined, and problems with some identified. Additional diagnostic characters and their variation in Pyxicephalus are discussed, and a revised key is provided. Confusion among species in the genus, type localities, literature and folklore led to P. adspersus angusticeps being incorrectly synonymized with P. edulis. We formally revalidate P. angusticeps, and designate a lectotype for P. edulis. The identity of voucher specimens from previous work suggests that the breeding ecology of P. angusticeps is distinct from that of P. adspersus and P. edulis, and that the advertisement call of P. angusticeps was used as part of the evidence for elevating P. edulis out of synonymy with P. adspersus. The previous confusion of P. adspersus and P. edulis does not affect the recognition of P. angusticeps. The wider implication of the previous misidentification of P. angusticeps as P. edulis is that most of the museum material labeled as P. adspersus from East Africa is P. edulis, and most of the museum material labeled as P. edulis from East Africa is P. angusticeps. This conclusion has been confirmed from East African museum material thus far examined.

scholarly journals Prevalence and Determinants of Home Delivery in Eastern Africa: Further Analysis of Countries Recent Demographic and Health Survey Data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lemma Demissie Regassa ◽  
Assefa Tola ◽  
Adisu Birhanu Weldesenbet ◽  
Biruk Shalmeno Tusa
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Health Survey ◽  
Media Exposure ◽  
Wealth Index ◽  
Home Delivery ◽  
Demographic And Health Survey ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
East African ◽  
African Countries

Abstract Background: Despite the high proportion of maternal mortality ratio in East African countries primarily attributed to home delivery, overall magnitude of home delivery and its determinants remains unclear. Therefore, the current study aimed to determine magnitude of home delivery and its determinant factors in East Africa using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data.Methods: We pooled the DHS survey data of the 11 East African countries, and a total weighted sample of 125,786 women were included in the study. Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) was fitted to identify factors associated with home delivery. Variables with Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with a 95% Confidence Interval (CI), and p-value < 0.05 in the final GLMM model were reported to declare significantly associated factors with home delivery.Result: The weighted prevalence of home delivery was 23.79% [95% CI: 23.55 – 24.02] among women in East Africa countries. Home delivery was highest among Ethiopian women (72.5%) whereas, it was lowest among women from Mozambique (2.8%). In GMM, respondent’s age group, marital status, educational status, place of residence, living country, wealth index, media exposure and total children ever born were shown significantly associated with the home delivery in the East Africa countiesConclusion: Home delivery was varied between countries of East African zone. The home delivery was significantly increased among women aged 20-34 years, higher number of ever born children, rural residence, never married or formerly married participants. To the contrast home delivery was decreased with higher educational level, media exposure, and higher wealth index. Wide range interventions to decrease home delivery should focus on addressing inequities associated with maternal education, family wealth, increased access to media, as well as narrowing the gap between the rural and the urban areas, poor and rich families, and married and unmarried mothers.

scholarly journals An annotated checklist of the coastal forests of Kenya, East Africa

PhytoKeys ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 147 ◽  
pp. 1-191
Author(s):  
Veronicah Mutele Ngumbau ◽  
Quentin Luke ◽  
Mwadime Nyange ◽  
Vincent Okelo Wanga ◽  
Benjamin Muema Watuma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Iucn Red List ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Coastal Forests ◽  
East African ◽  
Tana River ◽  
The World ◽  
Fragmented Forests

The inadequacy of information impedes society’s competence to find out the cause or degree of a problem or even to avoid further losses in an ecosystem. It becomes even harder to identify all the biological resources at risk because there is no exhaustive inventory of either fauna or flora of a particular region. Coastal forests of Kenya are located in the southeast part of Kenya and are distributed mainly in four counties: Kwale, Kilifi, Lamu, and Tana River County. They are a stretch of fragmented forests ca. 30−120 km away from the Indian Ocean, and they have existed for millions of years. Diversity of both fauna and flora is very high in these relicts and the coastal forests of Eastern Africa, extending along the coast from Somalia through Kenya and Tanzania to Mozambique, are ranked among the priority biodiversity hotspot in the world. In spite of the high plant species richness and their importance towards supporting the livelihoods of the communities that live around them, floristic studies in these forests have remained poorly investigated. Hence, based on numerous field investigations, plant lists from published monograph/literature, and data from BRAHMS (Botanical Records and Herbarium Management System) database at East African herbarium (EA), we present a detailed checklist of vascular plants recorded in this region. Our results show that Kenyan coastal forests play an essential role in the flora of Kenya and the plant diversity of the coastal forests of East Africa. The checklist represents 176 families, 981 genera, 2489 species, 100 infraspecific taxa, 90 endemic plants species, 72 exotic species, and 120 species that are included in the current IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as species of major concern. We also discovered three new species to the world from these relicts. Thus, Kenyan coastal forests present a remarkable and significant center of plant diversity.

scholarly journals The Use of Ethnomedicinal Plants by the People of Bharat Pokhari, Kaski

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Suraj Raj Adhikari ◽  
Kusum Pokhrel ◽  
Narayan Dutta Bastakoti ◽  
Bimal Kuwar
Keyword(s):  
Medicinal Plant ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Aloe Vera ◽  
Centella Asiatica ◽  
Medicinal Plant Species ◽  
Ocimum Sanctum ◽  
Acorus Calamus ◽  
Medicinal Uses

Ethnomedicine is the study of traditional uses of plant by people who live in rural areas. The present study is the documentation of traditional knowledge on plant utilization by local people in Bharat Pokhari, Kaski and was conducted during February-July 2020 by using the following methods. Data about medicinal uses of plants were collected using the questionnaire, personal interview and group discussion. Voucher specimens were collected from informants and identified with the help of available literature and taxonomic experts. The plant species were then categorized based on their medicinal uses. During the study, 56 medicinal plant species belonging to 36 families were documented. These plants have been used to treat various diseases. The highest number of species (20) being used for gastro-intestinal disorders, followed by bone and muscular ailments (13), cold and cough (11) and respiratory system ailments (10). In the study area, the popularly used medicinal plant species are Acacia pennata Willd, Acorus calamus L., Aloe vera (L.) Burm.f., Azadirachta indica A. Juss., Cassia fistula L., Centella asiatica (L.) Urb., Ocimum sanctum L., Terminalia chebula Retz., and Viscum album L.

Quaternary Climate Variation in Eastern Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Lake Malawi ◽  
Climate Variation ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
East African ◽  
Past Climate ◽  
The Past

The people of East Africa are particularly vulnerable to the whims of their regional climate. A rapidly growing population depends heavily on rain-fed agriculture, and when the rains deviate from normal, creating severe drought or flooding, the toll can be devastating in terms of starvation, disease, and political instability. Humanity depends upon climate models to ascertain how the climate will change in the coming decades, in response to anthropogenic forcing, to better comprehend what lies in store for East African society, and how they might best cope with the circumstances. These climate models are tested for their accuracy by comparing their output of past climate conditions against what we know of how the climate has evolved. East African climate has undergone dramatic change, as indicated by lake shorelines exposed several tens of meters above present lake levels, by seismic reflection profiles in lake basins displaying submerged and buried nearshore sedimentary sequences, and by the fossil and chemical records preserved in lake sediments, which indicate dramatic past change in lake water chemistry and biota, both within the lakes and in their catchments, in response to shifting patterns of rainfall and temperature. This history, on timescales from decades to millennia, and the mechanisms that account for the observed past climate variation, are summarized in this article. The focus of this article is on paleoclimate data and not on climate models, which are discussed thoroughly in an accompanying article in this volume. Very briefly, regional climate variability over the past few centuries has been attributed to shifting patterns of sea surface temperature in the Indian Ocean. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was an arid period throughout most of East Africa, with the exception of the coastal terrain), and the region did not experience much wetter conditions until around 15,000 years ago (15 ka). A brief return to drier times occurred during the Younger Dryas (YD) (12.9–11.7 ka), and then a wet African Humid Period until about 5 ka, after which the region, at least north of Lake Malawi at ~10º S latitude, became relatively dry again. The penultimate ice age was much drier than the LGM, and such megadroughts occurred several times over the previous 1.3 million years. While the African continent north of the equator experienced, on average, progressively drier conditions over the past few million years, unusually wet periods occurred around 2.7–2.5, 1.9–1.7, and 1.1–0.7 million years ago. By contrast, the Lake Malawi basin at ~10º—14º S latitude has undergone a trend of progressively wetter conditions superimposed on a glacial–dry, interglacial–wet cycle since the Mid-Pleistocene Transition at ~900 ka.

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