Abstract

The green leaves of medicinal plants have immense potential for therapeutic applications, which have been usedas traditional medicines to treat diseases, and where their secondary metabolites are usually responsible for their biological activities. The aim of this work was to review some healthy green leaves of medicinal plants located in Latin America, together with their pharmacological properties and secondary metabolites, which were described and classified by multivariate analysis. Terpenoids, phenolic compounds, alkaloids, and essential oils were the reviewed secondary metabolites in Latin American countries, such as Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. The search strategy was based on the use of search operators (and, or, not, near, same) to combine terms and expand or refine the bibliographic review in electronic databases. The results were tabulated and evaluated using multivariate analysis. The secondary metabolites were classified in three (terpenoids, phenolic compounds and alkaloids) or even two (terpenoids and phenolic compounds) groups. Essential oils and terpenoids showedan opposition in the Cartesian plane, suggesting a negative correlation; this means that as the values of either of the two variables increase, the values of the other variables would be expected to decrease. In summary, the study allowed to describe and classify the secondary metabolites found in green leaves based on their pharmacological properties.