Natural product to modern discovery of their active ingredients and eventually to the development of new drugs. A large number of currently prescribed drugs have been either directly derived from or inspired by natural products. A few representative examples are listed below. Some of the oldest natural product based drugs are analgesics. The bark of the willow tree has been known from antiquity to have pain relieving properties. This is due to presence of the natural product salicin which in turn may be hydrolyzed into salicylic acid. A synthetic derivative acetylsalicylic acid better known as aspirin is a widely used pain reliever.
Hyodeoxycholic acid animal study determined that oral administration of HDCA leads to a decrease in LDL-cholesterol concentration, a strong stimulation of hepatic cholesterol biosynthesis and an excessive loss of cholesterol in feces. Unlike ursodeoxycholic acid, which is an approved drug for the treatment of gallstones, HDCA is not marketed for any medical condition. In supramolecular chemistry a molecular tweezer based on a hyodeoxycholic acid showed a high selectivity the towards the fluorine radical. Hyodeoxycholic acid Hyodeoxycholic acid, also known as 3α,6α-Dihydroxy-5β-cholan-24-oic acid or HDCA, is a secondary bile acid, one of the metabolic byproducts of intestinal bacteria. It differs from deoxycholic acid