It depends on your purpose of study or use. For a particular biology activity use of activity guided fraction or isolated phytochemicals will be more beneficial.

Thanks

Amit

At start of research ,parts of plants but at later stage phytochemicals (for publication and commercial production) 

It depends on the biological activity. We can not say yes to the use of the part or the molecule ca depends on the situation.

A phytochemical screegnin of the part of the plant is necessary if all the constituents of the part of the plant exerts a synergy to exert a good biological activity so it is better to use all the part. If there is an antagonistic or other effect it is better to fraction and test the activity of the molecule of interest individually.

Sometimes medicinal herbs in raw forms stem,bark, leaves, root works better until suitable method for the indestructible isolation/extraction of the plant active principles is developed. Again, some phytochemicals work synergestically in the presence of a reactor or an activator chemical in order to elicit pharmacological response.

Probably raw as I am working in nutrition and food science. Rutin, quercetin and other flavonoids are available in pharmaceutical forms as well.

It really depends on the activity...in some cases we loose activity when we fractionate.. some chemicals in extract may be synergistic others antagonistic, so it really depends. I would recommend that you start with plant part or fraction known for activity that you study and then depending you may recommend the plant as a functional food or investigate if you can purify active ingredients for drug industry..

Is well-known that certain combination of secondary metabolites in term of biological activity are better than the effect of the same compounds separately. Is quite common to find such synergistic effect when selected parts of plants are used in traditional medicine.

Salam Alaikum Mazhar Hussain,

look what the evidenced based medicine tells you how the plant material is used: normally the material is not ingested like it is but as a infusion, decoction, as tincture, in milk and so on. The most stringent application over time and cultures will give you an idea how it should be prepared in the best way. Medicinal plants contain a orchestra of ingredients: some acting as pharmacodynamic principles, others influencing the pharmacokinetic of actives but are themself not directly active, other keeping ingredients stable, preventing degradation increasing the solubility and absorption of others and so on. I know not a single plant which can be reduced on a single phytochemical substance. I give you an example: Green Tea was classified as a coffein drug (1950s) and thus dissappeared in most of the Pharmacopoes of the world, replaced be Coffein. Today we know that beside the purine alcaloids (Coffein, Theobromin, Theophyllin) also Theanin (Glutaminic acid ethylamide) and Phenylchromanderivatives (the EGCG family) are important for the overall benefits of Green Tea ( unfermented Camellia sinensis leaves). In this case we have at the moment the situation that many scientists doing the same mistakes with EGCG as Scientists did 70 years ago: To claim a single ingredient as the active principle of a plant. Have a look in the Canon of Medicine,(Avicenna), study the historical use of a plant, compare it with the actual knowledge and you get the right ideas. In my opinion the best way to develop a good product out of a plant is to prepare a extract containing the absorbable secondary plant metabolites contained in the fresh prepared traditional applications. This allowes you all the time a identical dosage (dosis facit venenam !) and a good shelf life to make the medicine available all over the year.

Thats my recommendations for you.

Best regards

Matthias

Phytochemical are available in root, seed, stem, leaves, flower, bark, gum, and flesh of the plant depending on plants. However, some of the plant species have similar extracts in the whole plant. Better use of plant depends on your purpose and extract you want to obtain. 

Return to the literature to see which plant part has more phytochemical concentration, and this depends on the plant you are studying and the place and many other things.

All parts of the plants are having different phyto chemicals, the % varies in parts. The actives are Phyto Chemicals either you use plant parts or Phyto-chemicals in pure form. The parts are used in many dosage forms like Powder, Juice, Latex, Decoction, Hot infusion, Cold Infusion, Tablet, Medicated Oil, Medicated Ghee and many more forms. The extract may be from any part of plant either Water, Alcoholic, Hydro-Alcoholic, Super critical etc. all these contains Phyto-Chemicals. Isolated Phyto Chemicals alone are also used like Curcumin and many more. The dosage of Extracts or Phyto chemicals is less than any other form, the shelf life is also more. Both are having some advantages and disadvantages also. The uses are depends on situation, diseases, duration, availability etc.

Herbal formulations are a combination of different phytochemicals. Most times they work synergistically to trigger pharmacological response. In the absence of synergistic actions, the best is to isolate, characterize, determine appropriate dosage and administer in its pure form.

Regards.

Thank you for invitation, unfortunately this topic is out of my knowledge domain, so I can not post a scientific comment, good luck.

Regards, Emad

The parts of medicinal plants and their preserved phytochemicals both have their own values. Parts of medicinal plants have mostly multi targeted action, however phytochemicals are target specific. Parts of medicinal plants may more potent while changing in dosage forms. Similarly, phytochemicals may show adverse effect, if not use judicially. 

Regards,  

Better you follow the traditional method instead of using phytochemical directly. Because a particular part of the plant has different chemicals with a different combination. It gives synergic effect and will yield a good result. 

Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages. It is really touch to make a choice between the two. Synergistic effects, additive effects and antagonstic effects of various chemicals from medicinal plants should be studied for  their desired pharmacological activity, side effects and toxic effects.

I agree with Dr. Alemu,

Each has its own advantage. The synergistic and antagonistic effects needs to be studied. The one that offers better curative potentials need be adopted.

Thanks.

Every part of plant is having phytochemicals, and biological action is due to phytochemicals. The use of Part of plant having many chemicals and overall  action is synergetic / conjugate acting on many targates but comparatively weak. Using a selective phytochemical, the action may be strong and on limited target specific. In acute condition an isolated phytochemical is desirous and in chronic condition plant specific part or whole plant preparation is desirable.

All views have their own values i appreciate all views, i want to get a suggestion that phytochemicals are specific and  the use of parts of plants has broad action. If we use the whole plant or the parts of plant on demand by potentization method in potencies what will be the effect?   

Phytochemicals is better to use because particular phytochemicals cure the disease not the plant part (it contains so many phytochemicals having different activities). In some cases when it is impossible to isolate the particular phytochemicals the plant part is better to use.

Raw plant material is with lot of fibers, more quantity is required for therapeutic effects but extract is devoid of fibers so less quantity is required in comparison to raw material. The percentage of Phyto chemicals in raw and the same plant extracts are not much differ. In some cases raw is advantages but in most cases extract is having more advantages.

Sir,

If you want to run with contemporary system of research, you study the solvent extracted parts of the medicinal plants following already standardized analytical procedures. If you want to validate actual efficacy of the reported medicinal effects of a plant part/s, or combination of plant parts, you may target some study of the actual usable form of those plant parts ( succulent or dry root/stem/leave/latex/juice or their combinations as per ethnomedicinal reports). It depends on you only.

With thanks and regards,

Dr.S.Pattanayak

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