Herbs and botanicals are used by a large number of people in the United States and have been used therapeutically in Europe for decades. Consumers are becoming more interested and subsequently better informed on the use of herbs to self-treat minor illness. Unfortunately, because of conflicting and anecdotal information, variable potency, and the widespread availability of herbs, many home care...

The process of evaluating medicinal herbs is complex, and there is a need to carefully define a research strategy that addresses a solution to safe and efficacious herbal products. Notwithstanding the immense value of distilling the pharmacological activity of an herb into a chemical suitable for drug development, another approach is to develop a standardized herbal extract that yields consiste...

This study is conducted to examine maternal morbidity and the use of medicinal herbs. A total of 181 women, aged 17-45 yrs gave birth in the last 5 yrs preceding the survey, were enrolled. The study was conducted in Marrakech city, Morocco. The rate of maternal morbidity was 38.1%, while 42% of women used medicinal herbs, 48.3% of them after the delivery. Medicinal plants are mostly used by wom...

With the recent increasing demand of herbal drugs among populations worldwide it is important to establish the identity, purity and quality assurance of herbs. Due to various factors such as soil, climatic conditions, human activities, presence and distribution of heavy metals is very likely. The present study reveals the heavy metal profile by atomic absorption spectrophotometry in various sam...

Turmeric (Curcuma longa), java turmeric (Curcuma xanthorrhiza) and cassumunar ginger (Zingiber cassumunar) are widely used in traditional Indonesian medicine. These three herbs have relatively similar rhizomes colour so it is difficult to be differentiated especially if they are in powder form. A rapid and reliable method, thin layer chromatography (TLC) fingerprint, has been developed in order...

H erbs and related products are commonly used by patients who also seek conventional health care. All physicians, regardless of specialty or interest, care for patients who use products that are neither prescribed nor recommended. Some herbs have been extensively studied, but little is known about others. When a patient asks for advice regarding the use of a particular herb, how should a physic...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To provide evidence-based research information about 31 herbs and natural products that have shown potential in early research to decrease cancer growth or as adjuncts with cancer treatment. DATA SOURCES Names of herbs and natural products with potential to decrease cancer growth have been selected from listings in the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database and Lawrence R...

INTRODUCTION Metal elements and their excess intake have significant influence on general health. AIM There is only little information how Far Eastern herbs resemble European's regarding their purity and essential metal element content. The aim of the authors was to determine metal elements in different Chinese and European herbs and extracts. METHOD The studied European herbs included Cale...

The protective effects of two Chinese herbs, astragalus mongholicus, polygonum multiflorum and astragalus mongholicus-polygonum multiflorum in combination against thymus injury induced by cyclophosphamide were evaluated by transmission electron microscopy, image analysis, DNA gel electrophoresis as well as flow cytometry. Results showed that mice pretreated with cyclophosphamide had degenerated...

Chinese Herbal Medicine (CHM) plays a significant role in breast cancer treatment. We conduct the study to ascertain the relative molecular targets of effective Chinese herbs in treating stage IV breast cancer.Survival benefit of CHM was verified by Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression analysis. A bivariate correlation analysis was used to find and establish the effect of herbs in complex CHM...