Six standard compounds, (a) adenosine, (b) tanshinone IIA, (c) tramadol, (d) isosorbide mononitrate, (e)
digitoxin, and (f) telmisartan, were selected to prepare various test mixtures for the (A) serum and (B) urine samples.
Michael Balick and Paul Alan Cox list fifty drugs that were developed through leads provided by traditional medicinal knowledge or ethnobotanical leads, including aspirin,
digitoxin, and digoxin for cardiac treatment, quinine for malaria, and vinblastine and vincristine for the treatment of particular kinds of cancer .
Digitalis, derived from the foxglove plant, is also known as digoxin and
digitoxin. It is a drug that strengthens the contraction of the heart muscle, slows the heart rate and promotes the elimination of fluid from body tissues.
"For example,
digitoxin was added in 1947, while digitalis leaf powder was deleted in 1975."
Digoxin and
digitoxin are the two glycosides mainly used, the former due to its more rapid elimination in case of intoxication [5].
Even today, no more effective drug for treating heart failure exists than digitalis, although we now call its active constituents digoxin and
digitoxin. The drug strengthens the heartbeat and, at the same time, slows the heart rate, allowing more time for the ventricles (the pumping chambers of the heart) to fill with blood, making it easier for weakened hearts to function.
Digitalis Rifampin may enhance the hepatic metabolism of glycosides
digitoxin, substantially reducing its plasma concentrations.
Therapeutic agents derived from plants include pure chemical entities available as prescription drugs (e.g.,
digitoxin, morphine, and taxol), standardized extracts, herbal teas, and food plants; plant-derived remedies can contain chemicals with potent pharmacologic and toxicologic properties (2,3).
Digoxin and
digitoxin, two such inotropic agents, were found to be oxidized, in in vitro experiments, by alcohol dehydrogenase, an enzyme that metabolizes alcohol (Frey and Vallee, 1979).
The hospitalizations involved episodes of congestive heart failure, hypertension management,
digitoxin toxicity, pericarditis, and myocardial infarction.
From the deadly nightshade comes atropin, a drug important in ophthamology, and derived from the foxglove plant is
digitoxin, or digitalis, the necessary ingredient in several heart medications.
Molecules with similar structures include cardenolides, such as digoxin and
digitoxin, which are known substrates of ABC transporters (de Lan noy and Silverman 1992; Cavet et al.
