Pacific Yew- Taxus brevifolia

Last week Dr. San Franciso mentioned the Pacific Yew tree (Taxus brevifolia)as an example of a species that has been used to provide chemicals that are useful in medicine.

One of your classmates, Jeffrey Chen, did a little research about the Pacific Yew, so I thought that we would share it with you. Thanks to Jeffrey for organizing this material! You are all invited to send us any info that you think might be interesting to the class and we will post it to the site.

Pacific yew (found in Pacific Northwest: from southern Alaska, to central California, ot even Idaho)
Uses:
1) native inhabitants: used for its hardiness Ex: digging sticks, harpoons, war weapons
2) native inhabitants: medicinal uses:
a) rub branches of tree against body to enhance potency
b) compress fresh yew leaves and soak in water (used to bathe infants and elderly): helps rid them of physical defects
c)crush the yew leaves, soak in water, then boil the water before drinking the misture to help alleviate internal pains and wounds
d) chew up the yew leaves and then spatter them on the wounds

2) modern day uses for cancer treatment
-the drug paclitaxel (chemo drug) extracted from bark of pacific yew tree

-has been shown effective in

a) prostate cancer

b) ovarian cancer

c) breast cancer

- paclitaxel's complex structure is hard to synthesize, so since discovery of its anticancer properties, the pacific yew tree has been heavily harvested


Readings- If you want to learn some more check out-

http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_pacific_yew.htm

http://toptenhealthproducts.com/yewimmune5-free-report.html

http://www.prostate-cancer.com/prostate-cancer-glossary/pacific-yew-tree.html

Thanks again to Jeffrey!!!