Today, the world's only hope for fighting cancer comes from the great forests

Yew, also known as red yew, is a rare and endangered plant in the world left over from the glaciers of the Quaternary century. It is rarely found naturally in the world and is listed as a national first-class key protected plant. Its wood is fine, bright red, tough and durable, making it a precious timber species. It is particularly precious because it contains paclitaxel, a special anti-cancer drug. This magical drug is the best anti-cancer drug in the world after doxorubicin and cisplatin. It is the best-selling and most popular new anti-cancer drug in the international market to date. It is also the last line of defense for patients with advanced cancer and has extremely high development and utilization value.

Taxus effects: diuretic and anti-edema, treatment of kidney disease, diabetes, nephritis edema, urinary problems, gonorrhea, etc. It has effective effects on warming the kidney and promoting menstruation, treating irregular menstruation, postpartum blood stasis, and dysmenorrhea.

Medicinal value

New source of cancer drug: Taxol is an effective and commonly used cancer drug, but it is currently only available from the needles of an endangered plant, and demand for the drug may outstrip the tree's ability to produce it. The researchers announced recently at a meeting of the American Chemical Society that they have isolated the compound from hazel trees and fungi. The discovery could provide an abundant new source of the drug and potentially significantly reduce its cost. Taxol, also known as paclitaxel, is one of the best-selling cancer drugs in the world. It is used to treat uterine and breast cancer, and many breast cancer survivors still take the drug to prevent cancer recurrence. Although supplies of the drug remain plentiful now, demand may soon increase: Investigators are testing the drug for Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and other cancers.

The medicinal value of yew is mainly reflected in its extract - secondary metabolite derivative - paclitaxel. According to the research results of Dr. Fang Weishuo (Fang Weishuo, who graduated from Peking Union Medical College in 1997 and studied pharmaceutical chemistry under Professor Liang Xiaotian), paclitaxel was first isolated as an anti-tumor active ingredient from the bark of Taxus brevifolia. It is one of the best drugs for treating metastatic ovarian cancer and breast cancer. It also has significant therapeutic effects on lung cancer and esophageal cancer, and has a significant inhibitory effect on nephritis and parvovirus inflammation. The anti-cancer mechanism of paclitaxel is that paclitaxel can bind to trace proteins and promote their aggregation, inhibit the mitosis of cancer cells, and effectively prevent the proliferation of cancer cells.

In order to reduce the damage to wild yew resources, people began to use the branches, stems and leaves of yew to extract the precursor compound 10 - deacetylbaccatin III, and then use a semi-synthetic method to prepare medicinal paclitaxel. Paclitaxel is currently recognized in the world as a broad-spectrum, highly active, anti-cancer drug with a unique anti-cancer mechanism.