For thousands of years, nature has been a source of medical substances, and an astounding numeral of contemporary remedies have been identified from natural origins. Plants have long been used as folk herbal medicines to treat various disorders, and their different natural products have inspired the design, discovery, and development of new drugs. With the invention of recent molecular targets based on proteins, there is a growing need for fresh chemical diversification in screening. Natural products will play a vital part in supplying this need via the continuous exploration of global biodiversity, the majority of which remains unexplored. Even though drug discovery from medicinal plants remains an important source of novel therapeutic leads, various hurdles exist, including identifying and executing suitable high-throughput screening bioassays, scaling up the supply of bioactive molecules, and acquiring plant materials. Investigating these natural resources takes multi-disciplinary, nationwide, and global partnerships in design, synthesis, discovery, and drug development techniques. This review article discusses current advancements and future approaches for discovering natural items such as health- and wellness-promoting remedies. It also summarizes strategies to unify the therapeutic use of plant-derived natural products worldwide to support future drug discoveries derived from plant sources.

Since early times, the people of Morocco use medicinal and aromatic plants as traditional medicine to heal different human ailments. However, little studies have been made in the past to properly document and promote the traditional knowledge. This study was carried out in the Rif (North of Morocco), it aimed to identify medicinal and aromatic plant used by the local people to treat metabolic diseases, together with the associated ethnomedicinal knowledge. The ethnomedical information collected was from 582 traditional healers using semi-structured interviews, free listing and focus group. Family use value (FUV), use value (UV), plant part value (PPV), fidelity level (FL) and informant agreement ratio (IAR) were employed in data analysis. Medicinal and aromatic plant were collected, identified and kept at the natural resources and biodiversity laboratory, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra. During the present study 30 medicinal plant species belonging to 14 families has been documented. The most frequent ailments reported were diabetes (IAR = 0.98). The majority of the remedies were prepared from infusion (53.9%). Leaves were the most frequently used plant part (PPV 0.633) and Rosmarinus officinalis L. (UV = 0.325) was the specie most commonly prescribed by local herbalists. The results of this study showed that people living in the Rif of Morocco are still dependent on medicinal and aromatic plants. The documented plants can serve as a basis for further studies on the regions medicinal plants knowledge and for future phytochemical and pharmacological studies.

Background/Objectives: The interaction of bioactive compounds derived from plants with drugs has become a significant area of investigation due to its potential to improve, reduce, or have no effect on therapeutic outcomes. Due to the dual effect of these interactions, elucidating the underlying mechanisms is essential for establishing a therapeutic strategy. This study emphasizes the significant findings, mechanisms, and clinical implications of drug–plant bioactive interactions. It calls for more studies to seek safe and effective incorporation into clinical practice. Methods: To identify relevant studies, we performed a systematic literature search based on various scientific databases from 11 August 2024 to 30 December 2024. The search will be based on relevant keywords such as synergy, antagonism, plant bioactive compounds, and drug interactions supplemented with secondary terms such as phytochemicals, herb-drug interactions, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics. Results: Plant bioactives, including polyphenols, flavonoids, alkaloids, and terpenoids, display valuable biological activities that can interact with medications in three principal ways: synergy, additive effects, and antagonism. Synergy occurs when the combined effects of plant chemicals and pharmaceuticals outweigh the sum of their separate effects, increasing therapeutic effectiveness or allowing dosage decrease to reduce adverse effects. Additive effects occur when the combined impact equals the total individual effects, resulting in better outcomes without increasing risk. Antagonism occurs when a plant ingredient reduces or counteracts the effects of a medicine, thereby jeopardizing treatment. In addition, specific interactions may have no discernible effect. The chemical makeup of bioactive chemicals, medication pharmacokinetics, and individual patient characteristics such as genetics and metabolism all impact the intricacy of these interactions. Conclusions: Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs can be considerably modulated through their interactions with plant bioactive components, which may cause a significant decrease in efficacy or increase in toxicity of therapeutic agents. More studies are needed to clarify mechanisms of action, prove clinical relevance, and create guidelines for safe co-administration. This integrative approach can mitigate those risks and allow for therapeutic optimization by introducing pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine approaches.

The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and use of medicinal plants in the treatment of neurological diseases in the Rif region of northern Morocco. An ethnobotanical survey was carried out in the Rif (northern Morocco) from 2016 to 2018. In order to gather information about indigenous medicinal plants and local ethnomedical knowledge, 625 local traditional herbalists and users of these plants were interviewed. The data were collected through semistructured interviews and group discussions, analyzed, and compared by quantitative ethnobotanical indices such as family importance value, relative frequency of citation, plant part value (PPV), fidelity level, and informant consensus factor (ICF) . Data were collected from 31 medicinal plant species belonging to 14 botanical families. Asteraceae and Lamiaceae were the most commonly reported medicinal plants, with 5 species each. Concerning the diseases treated, epilepsy problems have the highest ICF (0.99). The survey revealed that leaves were the most used part of the plants (PPV= 34.7%), and the most commonly used preparation was an infusion (41.6%). There exists indigenous ethnomedical knowledge of medicinal plants in the Moroccan Rif to treat neurologic diseases. Based on our findings, we recommend that phytochemical and pharmacologic research be considered to discover potential treatments from these documented plants.