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A time-honored source of new drug discoveries is the folk remedies of peoples around the world. Modern combinatorial chemistry, crystallographic mapping of active sites, and robotic screening techniques have not completely replaced talking to practitioners of folk medicine. In south central inland Italy — a rough, rural land built on volcanic ash — a diverse population of Albanian and Greek ancestry ekes out a hardscrabble existence from farming. The inhabitants have the highest life expectancy and, interestingly, the lowest use of allopathic medical services in Italy. Might their use of traditional remedies be responsible for their good health?
A team including ethnobiologists conducted 112 interv…