Khellin - Toothpicks, kidney stones, and mast cells
- chromone brought into existence by Ammi visnaga, a herbaceous plant native to the Middle East that is also affectionately known as toothpickweed since it's pedicels apparently make good toothpicks (hooray!)
- relaxer of smooth muscle
- used historically to treat pain caused by kidney stones since it relaxes ureteral smooth muscle in order to facilitate the rather uncomfortable movement of stones into the bladder
- relaxes the vascular smooth muscle found in coronary arteries, resulting in improved coronary blood flow, making it a possible treatment for angina pectoris and coronary heart disease
- used to treat asthma since it has antispasmodic activity with respect to bronchial smooth muscle
- cromoglicate (cromolyn, cromoglycate) and nedocromil (Tilade) are synthetic khellin analogues that have neat names and do cool stuff like prevent the release of pro-inflammatory mediators such as histamine from mast cells, making them effective drugs for treating asthma
http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Ammi+visnaga
2 chemically inspired comments:
not to be confused with "Ammi majus", the source of a psoralen used ont he treatment of psoriasis.
This post is zuuuuuuuuuuuuuber.
Post a Comment