BACKGROUND Value chain analyses are commonly used to understand socioeconomic and power relationships in the production chain from the initial starting material to a final (generally high value) product. These analyses help in terms of understanding economic processes but also have been used in the context of socioeconomic and socioecological research. AIMS OF THE STUDY However, there is a ga...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is an aggressive cancer with a dismal outcome largely due to metastasis and postsurgical recurrence. Thus, the inhibition of invasion and metastasis is of great importance in its therapies. Medicinal plants or ethnopharmacology used in folklore medicine continue to be an important source of discovery and development of novel or potential therapeutic agents for tre...

One can argue forever what precise percentage of the world's population use local and traditional medicines. These herbal (or mineral or fungal or occasionally animal) medical products form systems of knowledge and practice that have been transmitted over centuries and which continuously change. However, there can be no doubt that the majority of humans either rely on such products (often due t...

Cystone, a polyherbal Ayurvedic preparation, was found to protect rats partially but significantly against cisplatin-induced renal toxicity, when given intraperitoneally 1 hour before cisplatin. At 500 and 1000 μg/ml, it also inhibited lipid peroxidation induced by cisplatin in renal cortical slices by 62.7 and 71.6% respectively. The rats pretreated with Cystone (1000 mg/kg i.p.) had significa...

When thinking about congruence, several synonyms come to mind: similarity, correspondence, equivalence, resemblance, analogy, comparison; certainly the antonym: (dissimilarity) does not. So let us compare two relevant, seemingly parallel ideas, concepts especially in the discipline of integrative and complementary medicine. In recent discussions, it proved useful to examine in some depth, what ...

The era of blockbuster drugs is now ending, the pharmaceutical industry is not as innovative due to shortage of new lead structures. Ethnopharmacology and natural product drug discovery remains a significant hope in the current scenario. Ethno pharmacology provides a divergent approach involving indigenous knowledge with current technology for drug development using new approaches.Natural produ...