In the European Union, traditional herbal medicines that are regarded as “acceptably safe, albeit not having a recognized level of efficacy” fit into a special category of drugs (“traditional herbal medicine products”) for which requirements of non-clinical and clinical studies are less rigorous. A regulation proposal published by the Brazilian National Health Surveillance (Anvisa) defines a si...

Plants are natural producers of chemical substances, providing potential treatment of human ailments since ancient times. Some herbal chemicals in medicinal plants of traditional and modern medicine carry the risk of herb induced liver injury (HILI) with a severe or potentially lethal clinical course, and the requirement of a liver transplant. Discontinuation of herbal use is mandatory in time ...

Background: The use of herbal remedies has increased despite the lack of scientific evidences about their safety and efficacy during pregnancy. This cross-sectional study aimed to explore the usage of herbal products during pregnancy amongst Iranian women based on their socio-demographic characteristics, assessment of side effects in mothers, and ultimately their possible effects on neonates. M...

Many herbal medicinal products have been found to contain synthetic prescription drugs as chemical adulterants. This has become evident by the number of toxicity cases and adverse reactions reported in which casualties were reported via analytical techniques that detected the presence of chemical adulterants in them, which could be responsible for their toxicity. The adulteration of herbal medi...

This article provides an overview of the clinical evidence of interactions between herbal and conventional medicines. Herbs involved in drug interactions--or that have been evaluated in pharmacokinetic trials--are discussed in this review. While many of the interactions reported are of limited clinical significance and many herbal products (e.g. black cohosh, saw palmetto, echinacea, hawthorn a...

BACKGROUND Ayurvedic formulations are used to treat a wide variety of diseases including diabetes mellitus Standardization of herbal formulation is essential in order to assess the quality of drugs. The present paper reports standardization of eight herbal anti-diabetic drugs-Momordica charantia (seeds), Syzigium cumini (seeds), Trigonella foenum (seeds), Azadirachta indica (leaves), Emblica of...

The increase of herbal medicine use led many scientists to contribute to the research in this field. Also a few pharmacologists, after an initial phase of correct criticisms, today recognize the possibility of investigating the scientific value of medicinal products composed essentially of vegetable extracts. However, it is logical to pose the questions: (i) is there a role for the pharmacologi...

For the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) herbal monograph draft of Cassia angustifolia Vahl. and Cassia senna L. leaves and pods, a safety limitation of aloe-emodin and rhein was proposed, due to toxicological concerns. A quantitative, analytical method of the anthraquinone aglycones in all Ph. Eur. monographed herbal laxatives is of interest. A rational method development for the aglycones al...

Food ingestions generally regulate many physiological functions to maintain a healthy life. Furthermore, herbal medicine is prescribed for the prevention and the treatment of various diseases. There are not a few herbal medicine-derived drugs (phytochemicals) clinically using now. The phytochemicals such as digitalis, curare, morphine, quinidine, atropine, and so on are so much important drugs ...