Herbal medicine has long been contrasted to modern medicine in terms of a holistic approach to healing, vitalistic theories of health and illness and an emphasis on the body’s innate self-healing capacities. At the same time, since the early 20 century, the cultivation, preparation and mass production of herbal medicines have become increasingly industrialised, scientificised and commercialised...

Objective. Evaluation of the efficacy of Crest Herbal Crystal Toothpaste in "clearing internal heat." Methods. This was a randomized, double-blind, controlled parallel design clinical test of a product that was already on the market. 72 subjects were randomly assigned to control group (group A with Colgate Herbal Salty Toothpaste) or treatment group (group B with Crest Herbal Crystal Toothpaste...

BACKGROUND Products made from botanicals that are used to maintain or improve health are known as herbal supplements, botanicals, or phytomedicines. Many herbs have a long history of use and claimed health benefits. However, many herbal supplements and botanicals have potent pharmacologic activity that can contribute to adverse effects and drug interactions. The use of herbal supplements by can...

The antioxidant potentials for fourteen multipurpose traditional herbal preparations sold in South Africa were determined using the DPPH radical scavenging, ferric reducing power and β-carotene-linoleic acid model system, the anti-HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) enzyme inhibitory effects using an ELISA kit and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) enzyme inhibition using the microtitre plate assay. Nine...

the use of herbal medicines in diabetes is promising but still far from proven. the purpose of this article is to examine the effect of herbal medicines in the treatment of diabetes, focusing on potential benefits and risks. medline, expert interviews, books, articles and internet searches were used to identify herbal medicines with anti-diabetic properties and their diabetes-related health eff...

The herbal formulation, DRF/AY/5001, elicits hypoglycemic/antidiabetic effects in both normal and experimentally induced hyperglycemic (epinephrine and alloxan) rats. Further, herbal formulation treatment can significantly alter the pattern of glucose tolerance in normal and diabetic rats. It is possible that the herbal formulation may act through both, pancreatic and extra-pancreatic mechanism...

Why Pharmacokinetics? Herbalists have long studied the effect of herbal medicines on the body, but have hitherto paid less attention to the effects of the body on herbal medicines. This dichotomy expresses the distinction in classical pharmacology between pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. For a given dose of any herbal medicine, its physiological effect (or that of its constituents) will b...

People are using herbal medicines from centuries for safety, efficacy, cultural acceptability and lesser side effects. Plant and plant products have utilized with varying success to cure and prevent diseases throughout history. Written records about medicinal plants date back at least 5000 years to the Sumerians and ancient records are suggested earlier use of medicinal plants. Due to side effe...

Dear Editor, We read with great interest the article by Gardiner et al1 discussing adverse events associated with herbal medicine use in children and wish to congratulate the authors on highlighting potentially harmful effects of herbal medicine use. We also wish to raise awareness of the anti-thrombotic properties of commonly used herbal medications such as ginkgo, omega-3 oils, vitamin E, fev...

Within the last decade there has been a dramatic increase in the sale and use of herbal supplements and food supplements by Western populations and within the UK. This increased usage has coincided with a resurgence of interest in nutritional therapy and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, such as herbal medicine, naturopathy and homeopathy, in which therapists may provide d...