Plants have been used throughout human history for their medicinal properties and herbal medicines are popular worldwide. Since, all herbal medicines are mixtures of more than one active ingredient, such combinations of many substances obviously increase the likelihood of interactions taking place. Although herbal medicines have been used as remedies for number of illnesses, many of them have s...

Liver is the largest vital organ in human body and plays a major role in various metabolism and excretion of xenobiotics within the body. Liver dysfunction is a foremost health problem that challenges not only health care professionals but also the pharmaceutical industry as more than 900 drugs are implicated in case of liver injury. Hepatotoxicity is caused by various toxic substances and cert...

Phytochemicals are bioactive compounds obtained from plants and widely applied in the traditional Unani herbal Medicine. Herbal medicine is a practice that includes herbs, material, preparations contain parts of or combinations thereof as active ingredients. These herbs derived plant such leaves, bark, flowers, roots, fruits, seeds. The importance well known to us. kingdom treasure house potent...

418 © Royal College of Physicians, 2013. All rights reserved. are used alone or co-administered with conventional drugs. Most herbal products on the market today have not been subjected to the approval process of the US Food and Drugs Association (FDA) and are not regulated for purity and potency. They may contain toxic substances or other contaminants which may increase the possibility of adve...

Use of herbal drugs in the treatment of liver diseases has a long tradition, especially in Eastern medicine. Standardization has been a problem, and randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials to support efficacy are lacking. Some herbal extracts promoted for gastrointestinal or biliary disorders contain potent hepatotoxic alkaloids and are harmful. However, some of these extracts have yield...

This paper investigates some of the ways that Chinese medicine has been transferred to the Western world and to Islamic territories. During the Golden Age of Islam (8th to 13th century CE), the herbal drug trade promoted significant commercial and scientific exchange between China and the Muslim world. Chinese herbal drugs have been described by medieval Muslim medical scholars such as Tabari (...

The hepatotoxic effects of conventional drugs are well recognised, but herbal medicines are often assumed to be harmless and are advertised as such. The error of this assumption has recently received attention in the press,' but we think that doctors are not sufficiently aware of the potential toxicity of herbal medicines. We report on four women, three from Edinburgh and one from Tyneside, who...

Controlled clinical studies are needed to clarify and determine the clinical importance of drug-herb interactions. However, it is unlikely that this information will be forthcoming except as anecdotal reports. Patients taking drugs with a narrow therapeutic index (cyclosporine, digoxin, hypoglycemic agents, lithium, phenytoin, procainamide, theophylline, tricyclic antidepressants, and warfarin)...

Epilepsy is the second most common neurologic disorder after stroke. Approximately 1% of the world’s population has epilepsy, is a condition where the patient suffers from recurrent seizures. Control to seizures numerous conventional drugs came into existence. Most of the epileptic patients need polytherapy of conventional anticonvulsants and still not 100% cured. The major drawback due to thes...

A 57-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of dyspnea and abnormal shadow on chest roentgenogram. He had received two herbal drugs: Saikokeisikankyou-tou (SKT) for one month and Licium Halimifolium Mil (LHM) for two weeks. After admission, all medication was stopped and his symptoms were gradually diminished. Transbronchial lung biopsy specimens showed interstitial pneumonia. Lympho...