ABSTRACT
Plants have provided man with all his needs in terms of shelter, clothing, food, flavors and fragrances and not the least, medicines. Plants have thus formed the basis of sophisticated traditional medicine systems such as Ayurvedic, Unani, Chinese, and African amongst others (Gurib-Fakim 2006). These systems of medicine have led to some important drugs still in use today. Among medicinal plants some are those with nutritional properties which constitute food in certain parts of the world, while others are just for medicinal use. Some of these plants are used for reproductive purposes by women as well as men since they are endowed with estrogenic properties. This estrogenicity is due to the presence of non-steroid compounds which are structurally and functionally similar to endogenous estrogens found in these plants (Burton and Wells 2002). These estrogenic plant compounds, known as ‘phytoestrogens’, have a mode of action depending on the presence or not of endogenous estrogens. Therefore, they can act either as antiestrogens or as weak estrogens, hence they are named adaptogens (Andersen 2000). This estrogenic and/or antiestrogenic
Department of Animal Biology and Physiology, Faculty of Science, University of Yaounde 1, P.O.Box 812 Yaounde, Cameroon. E-mail: dnjamen@Gmail.com
activity of phytoestrogens may have an impact on normal biological processes which can be beneficial or adverse for human health.
