A review on the Standardization of herbal medicines

The world is witnessing an unprecedented growth in the usage of herbal products. India is a mother hub for natural herbs based science. Herbal drug technology is used for converting botanical materials into medicines, where standardization and quality control with proper integration of modern scientific techniques and traditional knowledge is important. For global harmonization WHO specific guidelines for the assessment of the safety, efficacy and quality of herbal medicines are of utmost importance. Standardization of drug means confirmation of its identity, quality and purity throughout all phases of its cycle. An overview covering the different techniques involved in standardization of crude/ finished compound drugs so far, e.g. macroscopic methods, microscopic methods, physical methods, chemical methods, biological methods.The chromatographic methods and comprehensive methods, such as fingerprint and multi-component quantification; hyphenated techniques, like HPLC-MS, GC-MS. and bhasma’s standardization are also discussed.