Potential Development of Coca Leaf as New Botanical Medicines

Transcript Abstract

In traditional medicine, coca leaves are utilized for a wide variety of purposes, ranging from alleviating oral pain and digestive maladies, enhancing absorption of carbohydrates, and as a remedy for hunger, altitude sickness, fatigue, mild depression as well as muscular and skeletal aches. While many commonly used neuropsychiatric medications have side effects such as personality changes or sedation, there is no medical documentation of these problems with the use of coca in traditional medicine.

With centuries of safe use by Indigenous healers and daily use by millions of people in Andean and Amazonian communities, whole coca leaf plant-derived botanical medicines offer potential new mechanisms of action for treating mental disorders while being potentially safer than the small molecule drugs that may have ‘off target’ effects.

The creation of Botanical Drug Guidelines, along with the approval of several new therapeutic agents by the US Food and Drug Administration since 2006, provides an opportunity to explore the development of whole coca leaf Botanical Drug products for a variety of potential medical conditions. The emergence and widespread use in Andean nations of whole coca leaf in nutritional supplements, tea and food products further supports the safe development of Botanical Drug products with this sacred and ancient plant medicine.