BACKGROUND Worldwide, herbs and spices are much used food flavourings. However, little data exist regarding actual dietary intake of culinary herbs and spices. We developed a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for the assessment of habitual diet the preceding year, with focus on phytochemical rich food, including herbs and spices. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the intakes of herb...

*Corresponding author: Azam Asgari; PhD, Medical Plants Research Center, Shahrekord University of Medicine Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran. E-mail: [email protected] Herbal products have been widely used around the world since ancient times. Herbal products are complex of organic chemicals that may come from any naive or processed part of a plant, including leaves, stems, roots, flowers, and seeds....

Herbal formulas of traditional Japanese (Kampo), Chinese and Korean medicines usually comprise multiple herbs in a single formula. These medicines are expected to show their clinical effects by chemical, pharmacological and pharmaceutical combination effects of multi-herbs. However, little effort has been made so far to scientifically clarify the nature of such combination effects. Interestingl...

What is herbal therapy? Herbs are plants that contain ingredients with active therapeutic properties. These active ingredients may be present in the whole plant or only in a specific part. Other parts of the same plant, or other plants in the same genus may have no activity or may in fact be toxic. An herb may be used in various forms, including teas, granular extracts (Chinese medicine), fresh...

Kampo formulations comprise a number of crude natural drugs/herbs as constituents. The crude drugs/herbs have been traditionally classified by their traditional classifications or efficacies in Kampo medicines; however, it has been difficult to establish the scientific link between experimental evidence and traditional classifications in Kampo medicine. To clarify such traditional conceptions, ...

Many herbs have been used as therapeutics in Korean traditional medicine. In view of their clinical indications, anti-oxidant activity may contribute to their pharmacological effects. However, anti-oxidant information on these plants has not been available. In this study, seventy herbs which have been used in Korean traditional medicine were selected and screened for anti-oxidant activity using...

Transcriptomics using DNA microarray has become a practical and popular tool for herbal medicine study because of high throughput, sensitivity, accuracy, specificity, and reproducibility. Therefore, this article focuses on the overview of DNA microarray technology and the application of DNA microarray in Chinese herbal medicine study. To understand the number and the objectives of articles util...

OBJECTIVES To assess the effectiveness and safety of Chinese medicinal herbs for treating uncomplicated acute bronchitis. DATA SOURCES We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), which includes the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group's specialized register; The Chinese Cochrane Centre's Controlled Trials Register; MEDLINE; EMBASE; and the Chinese Biomedic...

A Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) formula is a collection of several herbs. TCM formulae have been used to treat various diseases for several thousand years. However, wide usage of TCM formulae has results in rapid decline of some rare herbs. So it is urgent to find common available replacements for those rare herbs with the similar effects. In addition, a formula can be simplified by reduci...