UNAIR NEWS – Herbal ingredients can be easily found around us at low prices, making them one of the best choices to cure human and animal diseases.
Prof Dr. Iwan Hamid drh MSi revealed the potential of herbal ingredients for animal cancer during the scientific oration under the title Veterinary Ethnopharmacology Studies as Chemopreventive Carcinogenesis. He was inaugurated as the professor of Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (FKH) Universitas Airlangga on Wednesday, December 28, 2022, at Garuda Mukti Hall of Management Building, UNAIR MERR (C) Campus.
Animal cancer
Every animal has a risk of developing cancer. Cancer occurs due to abnormal and uncontrolled cell growth. Animals can develop the disease due to virus or microorganism infection from interaction with their mothers before or during birth or interaction with other animals.
Animal sickness causes substantial financial losses to the owners. “Some types of animal have a high economic value. If it got infected, it would inflict losses to the owners,” said the Veterinary Pharmacology professor.
Benefits of herbal medicine
Malignancy cases like malignant tumors or cancer in animals require chemoprevention treatment. The treatment will prevent, slow down, or stop the growth of cancer cells. Nowadays, herbal medicines are popular in the community.
One example of herbal medicine is the use of turmeric to treat foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), which spread some time ago. This encourages Prof Iwan to conduct research on herbal ingredients to cure cancer in animals. The research reveals three herbal ingredients that can be used for cancer medicine, sambung nyawa leaf, white turmeric, and fig leaf.
Benefits of Sambung Nyawa leaf
Sambung Nyawa leaf is good against breast cancer in animals. The research was conducted on laboratory mice. “The research revealed that sambung nyawa leaf extract is effective in decreasing tumor incidence and multiplication,” Prof Iwan said. At the same time, white turmeric inhibits the increase in cell number and cell formation in lung tumors.
On the other hand, the fig leaves used on the embryo chicken eggs aged 8 to 9 days for the anti-cancer medicine in animals. “I found that fig leaves inhibit the growth of new blood vessels, which is called anti-angiogenesis,” he said. When the growth of new blood vessels is inhibited, the cancer cells hardly get oxygen and nutrients, killing them in the process. (*)
Author: Icha Nur Imami Puspita
Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh
