Herbal Therapy: Chaste Tree Berry, The Whole Herb Medicine for Prevention and Treatment of Cataract

Kyle J. Norton, Master of Nutrients
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published on line, including world wide health, ezine articles, article base, healthblogs, selfgrowth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
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Whole food ingredients in herbal plant have been found to process some significant effects in reduced risk and treatment of certain diseases, but single ingredient isolated from such plants may induce opposite outcomes.

Recent study suggested that Chaste Tree Berry may be used to modulate risk and treatment of selenite induced cataractogensis.

Chaste tree berry is a species of Vitex agnus-castus, genus Vitex, belonging to the family Lamiaceae, native to the Mediterranean region, used in herbal medicine for thousands of year as anaphrodisiac herb and considered as Queen herb in treating menstrual problems and discomforts.

Cataract is a condition of blur vision caused by clouding of the lens in the eye.

According to the University of Kerala, flavonoids found in the herbal plant exerted cataract protective effect in reduced damage of lenticular membrane and abnormal fiber structure in patient with cataract viewed through electron microscopy.

Furthermore, the study also found that Chaste tree berry also expresses a significant improvement of chaperone property of α-crystallin and soluble protein levels in two dimensional-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) and immunoblot analysis. 

Dr. Rooban BN, the lead author said, " FVN modulated selenite induced cataractogensis in rat pups by preventing loss of chaperone property, various changes in lens proteins, and lens structure, further strengthening its protective role".

Some researchers suggested that the efficacy of chaste tree berry in reduced risk and treatment of cataract may be a result of phytochemical antioxidants activity in scavenge free radicals cause of the disease, as oxidative stress, loss of calcium homeostasis, calpain activation and protein insolubilization are found to associate to cataract patients.

More importantly, in a study of eight-day-old Sprague-Dawley rat pups divided into four groups: Control (G I), Sodium selenite-induced (G II), Sodium selenite+quercetin treated (G III), Sodium selenite+flavonoids from Vitex negundo (FVN) (G IV), group fed with sodium selenite+flavonoids showed normal levels of expression of lens of water soluble proteins in compared to other groups.

In fact, fed treated with FVN showed to exhibite the antioxidant effects in modulating biochemical parameters against selenite-induced cataract, the University of Kerala insisted.

In support to the above differentiation, the Sprague-Dawley rat pups of 8 days old divided into control (G I), selenite induced (G II), and selenite + V. negundo treated (G III) with cataract induced by the single subcutaneous injection of sodium selenite (4 mg/kg body weight) on the tenth day and V. negundo (2.5 mg/Kg body weight) administered intraperitoneally from eighth to 15th day study, group III showed to exert reduced activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, lower level of reactive oxygen species, Ca(2+), and thiobarbituric acid reactive substance significantly.

Taking together, Chaste tree berry may process of therapeutic potential used for prevention and treatment of cataract with mild adverse effects.

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Sources
(1) Analysis on the alterations of lens proteins by Vitex negundo in selenite cataract models by Rooban BN1, Sasikala V, Sahasranamam V, Abraham A.(PubMed)
(2) Vitex negundo attenuates calpain activation and cataractogenesis in selenite models by Rooban BN1, Lija Y, Biju PG, Sasikala V, Sahasranamam V, Abraham A.(PubMed)