In the course of screening natural products to find novel anti-inflammatory drugs as TNF-α inhibitors we found that S. indicus extract and 7-HF, one of its active constituents, characterized as a sesquiterpene lactone, suppresses the cytokine production in a concentration-dependent manner from LPS-stimulated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells as well as from synovial cells obtained from rheumatoid arthritis patients undergoing knee replacement surgery. Here, TNF is linked to rheumatoid arthritis.