Traditional ethnomedicinal weeds: Phytochemical diversity and mechanistic insights

Plants have been used for treating diseases for ages, spanning over 5000 years. In Asian countries, almost 80% of people use plants and their derivatives to treat various ailments. The knowledge of these medicines has been transmitted orally. Drugs derived from plants often face criticism for a lack of scientific evidence and specificity. But at the same time, modern medicine lacks promising effects on chronic diseases like diabetes, hypothyroidism, and Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, in recent years, medicinal plants have been explored for the treatment of these chronic diseases. Often, these plants are wild species or weeds. Moreover, research on the identification of novel compounds from medicinal plants and their mechanism of action is also growing. In this review, an attempt has been made to discuss the medicinal properties of some roadside weeds and their mechanisms of action.