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Plants allow us to make such items as coffee, chocolate, and soda.
Many medicines people take when they are sick are produced from plants.  Caffeine and other stimulants, pain killers, and medicines for migraine headaches and asthma medications are produced from plants.
 

Products made from plants are commonly in use in everyday life.  Oil from the cacao seed is also used in suntan lotions, cosmetics and soaps. The kapok tree produces silky, water resistant fibers used as filling in a number of products, such as life preservers, pillows, upholstery and insulation. A rubber tree product, latex, is used in making tires for cars, trucks and heavy equipment.

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Plants are the greatest chemists in the world, because of this many of the medicines we use come from plants. Curare, from a tropical vine, is used as an anesthetic and to relax muscles for surgery. Quinine, from the cinchona tree, is used to treat malaria. The rosy periwinkle contains an anti-leukemia drug; a person with lymphocytic leukemia has a 99% chance that the disease will go into remission because of the rosy periwinkle.  In addition, more than 1,400 varieties of tropical plants are thought to be potential cures for cancer.

Rosy Periwinkle   http://www.nwf.org/keepthewildalive/images/photos/periwinkle.jpg

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