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Reserpine

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Natural Small Molecule Drugs from Plants

Abstract

Reserpine is extracted from indole alkaloid, which is one of the most important alkaloids in Rauvolfia. Reserpine has a medium antihypertensive effect, and its initial effect is slow but lasts long. However, due to the insufficient clinical data and the adverse effect of reserpine, such as depression, Parkinson’s disease, dizziness, nightmare, nasal congestion, headache, diarrhea, abdominal pain, inattention, and suicidal tendencies, reserpine has already been eliminated in foreign countries, and in China, it is only used as a second-line antihypertensive drug. In the history of reserpine R&D, large scales of studies about Chinese Rauvolfia as well as the numerous participants promote the rapid progress of natural medicine. It can be taken as the earliest study in plant medicine since the founding of China, providing valuable experience to our later studies.

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Correspondence to Guan-Hua Du .

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© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. and People's Medical Publishing House, PR of China

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Chen, Y., Sun, L., Du, GH. (2018). Reserpine. In: Natural Small Molecule Drugs from Plants. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8022-7_21

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