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“Horchata” drink in Southern Ecuador: medicinal plants and people’s wellbeing

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, March 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#10 of 749)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (94th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (90th percentile)

Mentioned by

twitter
58 tweeters
facebook
1 Facebook page
wikipedia
4 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
2 Google+ users

Citations

dimensions_citation
27 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
130 Mendeley
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Title
“Horchata” drink in Southern Ecuador: medicinal plants and people’s wellbeing
Published in
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, March 2017
DOI 10.1186/s13002-017-0145-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Montserrat Rios, Fani Tinitana, Pablo Jarrín-V, Natalia Donoso, Juan Carlos Romero-Benavides

Abstract

The "horchata" is a herbal mixture infusion consumed in Southern Ecuador. It remains unknown how vendors group the plant species to sell them at traditional markets. This research documented the following: 1) a list of medicinal plant species sold for the drink; 2) the culturally important medicinal plant species; 3) the agreement among vendors regarding the medicinal plants species and their therapeutic use; and 4) the groups of medicinal plants sold for the preparation of "horchata." Interviews were made to 185 vendors at 31 traditional markets in Loja province. Bunches of medicinal plants were purchased to identify the species and to prepare voucher specimens. Culturally important medicinal plants species were established with the Fidelity Level (FL) index. Agreement among vendors on the therapeutic use of medicinal plants was measured with the Factor of Informant Consensus (FIC) index. A cluster analysis was made to determine the groups of medicinal plants sold by market vendors to prepare the "horchata" drink. In Loja province, the "horchata" drink is consumed for its therapeutic uses. This study registered 33 families with 58 genera and 71 medicinal plant species, 50 of which are herbs and three are endemic to the Andean highlands of Ecuador. The FL index (46.1-96.3) determined 20 culturally important medicinal plant species. The highest FIC value (1.00) among vendors corresponds to four plant species employed each for a different therapeutic use. The cluster analysis identified a core group of 16 plant species which are essential to the drink and which likely interact to provide wellbeing. The "horchata" is a heritage drink in Loja province. The 71 medicinal plants species registered for this drink is the largest number reported to date, and they have a total of 32 therapeutic uses. The combined results of the FL and FIC indices, the cluster analysis, and the field observations reveal an agreement among vendors on 16 medicinal plant species and their therapeutic use. This core group of plants requires bioactivity and bioassays analyses to determine biomedicine benefits that would be based on their pharmacological properties.

Twitter Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 58 tweeters who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 130 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 130 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 20 15%
Researcher 16 12%
Other 10 8%
Student > Ph. D. Student 10 8%
Student > Master 10 8%
Other 29 22%
Unknown 35 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 29 22%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 14 11%
Chemistry 8 6%
Engineering 7 5%
Medicine and Dentistry 6 5%
Other 26 20%
Unknown 40 31%

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 51. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 January 2023.
All research outputs
#729,638
of 23,510,717 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
#10
of 749 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#16,427
of 309,110 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
#2
of 10 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,510,717 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 749 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 309,110 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 10 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 8 of them.