The plant Vernonia kotschyana Sch. Bip. ex Walp. (Asteraceae) was renamed according to The Plant List (2012) to Vernonia adoensis var. kotschyana (Sch.Bip. ex Walp.) G.V.Pope. However, the first name is used throughout this thesis, since the new name has never been cited in the scientific literature and it is an unresolved name. Unresolved names are highly likely to be changed in the future (The Plant List 2012). V. kotschyana is a shrub growing in the savannah from Senegal to Nigeria across Africa to Ethiopia (Burkill, 2000). V. kotschyana is highly valued in Mali (West-Africa) for the treatment of gastritis, stomach ulcers and wounds (Diallo et al., 2002; Willcox et al., 2012). The powdered roots of V. kotschyana are commercially available as an ITM, sold under the name “Gastrosedal”. “Gastrosedal” is on the national list of essential drugs in Mali for treatment of gastritis and gastric ulcers. The efficacy of the medicine has been evaluated in two (uncontrolled) clinical trials. The first being an open clinical trial with 16 outpatients with gastric ulcers, 50% of the patients were relieved of symptoms and in 6 patients lesions had disappeared after ingestion of 6g powdered roots per
day for 30 days (Touré, 1989). One year later, 47 patents with gastric ulcer were enrolled; 80% reported symptomatic improvement (Diallo et al., 1990). Furthermore, the herbal medicine also shows good tolerability in Irwing screening and in the brine shrimp assay (Sanogo et al., 1996). An experimental anti-ulcer rat model on various extracts from V. kotschyana roots showed a high protective activity. It was suggested that the steroidal saponins was the active principle (Germano et al., 1996; Sanogo et al., 1996). However, since the roots contain a high amount of inulin and immunomodulating pectins (Nergaard et al., 2005b,c), these compounds are also suggested to explain parts of the activity of the plant.