Medicinal plants used in traditional healthcare in Manipur: Ethnomedical insights into Urolithiasis treatment

Abstract

In the recent year in Manipur, especially among the rural communities, there is considerably high prevalence of urolithiasis, affecting approximately 22.4% of the population. Despite being this high incidence, there has been very less systematic documentation of the traditional herbal practices used by the indigenous healers to manage this condition. Therefore, the current study aimed to document and analyse the ethnomedicinal plants used in traditional practitioners for the treatment of urolithiasis in the selected rural areas of Manipur. The research was conducted over a period of six months in the five villages located in the Imphal West and Bishnupur districts of Manipur. The ethnomedicinal information was collected through semi-structured interviews with the traditional healers and knowledgeable local elders. The plant species mention during the interviews were noted, collected, identified taxonomically by expert taxonomist using standard botanical keys, and preserved as herbarium. The recorded data were quantitatively analysed using Frequency of Citation (FC), Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC), and Family Use Value (FUV). The study documented 15 ethnomedicinal plant species belonging to 15 different plant families. Among the documented plants, Potentilla indica (Andrews) Th. Wolf. was the most cited plant (RFC=0.575; FC=21.83), followed by Plantago major L. (RFC=0.303), Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn. (RFC=0.333), and Allium odorum L (RFC=0.303). The leaves were most commonly used plant part, accounting for 36.84% of total preparations reported by the healers. Demographic analysis revealed that the majority of the respondents were male (75.76%), and a significant proportion were elders above 50 years of age (51.52%), indicating that the knowledge of ethnomedical is primarily pass on orally within the older generation of the healer community. The therapeutic relevance of the documented plants may be attributed to the presence of bioactive phytochemicals such as flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, and saponins, which are known to possess antioxidant, diuretic, and anti-crystallization properties.