Picrorhiza kurroa Royle ex. Benth (Kutki) is an important medicinal plant used in various herbal drug formulations possessing hepatoprotective activity. Herbal drug industries purchase the raw plant material (dried rhizomes) of P. kurroa from the markets by judging the quality mainly on the basis of physical appearance of the rhizomes rather than the contents of active constituents. This study ...

Teaching of microscopy in the pharmacy curricula in Europe has almost vanished, although adulterations and mistakes in identification of herbal substances have caused several problems during the last decade. Thus, profound knowledge in the macroscopic and microscopic authentication of herbal drugs is an indispensable prerequisite in quality control. This book provides an excellent overview over...

Herbal medicine is used as the primary source of healthcare for approximately 75-80% of the world population and its use is particularly widespread in the developing countries, where it is considered more culturally acceptable, less dangerous and a more natural form of medicine that is compatible with the human body. Herbal products are defined as “herbal preparations produced by subjecting her...

OBJECTIVES Herbal waters are extensively used in most parts of including . Visiting a patient with total blindness due to daily ingestion of around 200 ml of herbal water (Plant forty water) per day for six months was the rational for methanol determination in all herbal waters available in markets. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of two hundred and nineteen bottles of herbal waters were random...

There is a great demand for herbal medicines in the developed and developing countries because of their wide biological activity, higher safety margin than synthetic drugs as a result of this Herbal drugs have a great potential in the global market. Herbal drug technology is used for converting botanicals materials into medicines, where standardization and quality control with proper integratio...

Appearance does not easily identify the dried plant fragments used to prepare teas to species. Here we test recovery of standard DNA barcodes for land plants from a large array of commercial tea products and analyze their performance in identifying tea constituents using existing databases. Most (90%) of 146 tea products yielded rbcL or matK barcodes using a standard protocol. Matching DNA iden...

The substitution of low-cost or adulterated herbal products for high-priced herbs makes it important to be able to identify and trace herbal plant species and their processed products in the drug supply chain. PCR-based methods play an increasing role in monitoring the safety of herbal medicines by detecting adulteration. Recent studies have shown the potential of DNA barcoding combined with hi...

Over the past decade, major advances have been made on development of novel drug delivery systems (NDDS) form plant actives and extracts. Herbal medicines have been widely used all over the world since ancient old ages and have been recognized by physicians and patients for their better therapeutic value as they have fewer adverse effects as compared with modern medicines. Herbal therapeutics c...

The use of herbal therapy for inflammatory bowel disease is increasing worldwide. The aim of this study was to review the available literature on the efficacy of herbal therapy in experimental colitis. All relevant studies published in Medline and Embase up to June 2015 have been reviewed. The results of bowel histology and serum parameters have been recorded. A satisfactory number of published...

UNLABELLED Cannabinoids show promise as therapeutic agents, particularly as analgesics, but their development and clinical use has been complicated by recognition of their botanical source, cannabis, as a substance of misuse. Although research into endogenous cannabinoid systems and potential cannabinoid pharmaceuticals is slowly increasing, there has been intense societal interest in making he...