Essential Oils and Extracts from Epazote (Dysphania ambrosioides): A Phytochemical Treasure with Multiple Applications

Abstract

Dysphania ambrosioides, commonly known as epazote, is a medicinal plant of great relevance in traditional Latin American medicine. Its cultural roots and pharmacological properties have made it an object of study for phytochemical research. An artificial intelligence (AI) tool was utilized to assist in reviewing scientific information regarding D. ambrosioides. An initial search was conducted in the Scopus database using the keywords epazote, D. ambrosioides, anti-helminthic, antioxidant, and antimicrobial, which yielded a total of 814 publications. To select the most relevant articles, this AI tool based on natural language processing (available online and free of charge) was applied, which analyzed the keywords that appeared in the titles and abstracts of the works and clustered them, leading to a reduction of 86.73% in the number of studies. D. ambrosioides stands out for its rich composition of bioactive compounds, which give the plant a wide range of therapeutic properties, including antiparasitic activity, through which it is effective against several parasites, such as helminths and protozoa, due to its schistosomicidal, nematocidal and antimalarial action. Additionally, it has shown antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anticancer properties as it contains compounds that help fight cell damage caused by free radicals. Epazote represents a rich source of compounds with a wide therapeutic range. However, much research is required to understand the mechanisms of action of these compounds and to evaluate their safety and efficacy in clinical trials.