Chemical Constituents of Labisia pumila (Kacip Fatimah)

Labisia pumila (Blume) Fern.-Vill., a short herbaceous plant belongs to a small genus of the Myrsinaceae family. It grows widely throughout the Malaysian rain forest and is locally known as Kacip Fatimah. The traditional practitioners have used L. pumila to maintain a healthy female reproductive system, to cure delayed fertility and to regain body strength. Kacip Fatimah is also used to reduce excessive gas, treat flatulence, dysentery, dysmenorrheal, gonorrhea and bone sickness [1]. The extract of the plant is also used as a drink to gain energy. There is a remarkable boom in the market for Kacip Fatimah, unfortunately there is no scientific report on its chemical constituents to support these claims. In this study we explored the chemistry of L. pumila for the first time. A multi-class of natural products belonging to phenolic compounds containing long chains, glycerogalactolipid, cerebrosides, alpha-tocopherol, sterols and lipids were isolated from the methanolic extract of L. pumila. Their structures were determined by chemical and extensive spectroscopic methods including NMR and HRESIMS techniques. Acknowledgement: The work was supported by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Specific Cooperative Agreement No. U01 FD 002071-07. References: [1] Effendy AWM, et al. (2006), Journal of Sustainability Science and Management, 1: 40–46.