Contamination of Asian herbal drugs : Need for its critical evaluation

Herbal drugs have been used as remedies for the treatment of large number of humans, ailments since ancient times as the traditional medicine system; India has a glorious past, having first documented record of fully developed medical science known as Ayurveda written by several ancient Rishi’s. Major groups of indigenous system of medicine are based on herbal drugs. A survey made by WHO indicated that about 80% of the world population relies on herbal drugs. Herbal drugs are becoming more popularized and important even in the developednations with hope of their non-toxicity and may play a role of substitute to overcome the problems of multi drug resistant pathogens. Cultivation of drug plants has been started in large scale without considering the land quality and in certain cases irrigation with waste water. Application of different fungicides, pesticides in that specific field or in neighboring fields may be directly deposited superficially or may be absorbed by the plant system. Therefore in the present situation possibilities of the Asian herbal drugs, contaminated with large number of toxic components cannot be ignored which may severely hurt human life in place of healing or curing.These contaminants may be either alone or in combination and may be originated intrinsically, extrinsically and deliberately. Certain contaminants may be highly toxic and may cause severe adverse effect in the human system. Some of the important contaminants are the heavy metals like lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, copper and pesticides. Adulteration of modern drugs to enhance drug potency and heterogenous microbial population including human pathogens may contaminate both raw and powdered herbal drugs. Among these contaminants, microbial contamination seems more severe and may be due to their dual action on the drug i.e. utilization of medicinally important chemical components as nutrients and in certain cases by producing certain mycotoxins, which may be even carcinogenic under certain conditions . Critical evaluation of both raw and powdered herbal drugs for contaminants is the urgent need of the time in order to provide safety measures in herbal health care medicine

Beneficial effects of spices in food preservation and safety

Spices have been used since ancient times. Although they have been employed mainly as flavoring and coloring agents, their role in food safety and preservation have also been studied in vitro and in vivo. Spices have exhibited numerous health benefits in preventing and treating a wide variety of diseases such as cancer, aging, metabolic, neurological, cardiovascular, and inflammatory diseases. The present review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of the most relevant and recent findings on spices and their active compounds in terms of targets and mode of action; in particular, their potential use in food preservation and enhancement of shelf life as a natural bioingredient

Estimation of micro-flora associated with different stages of Macrobrachium rosenbergii (de Man)

The bacterial flora occurring in muscle, haemolymph, hepatopancreas and gill of brood, juveniles, water, eggs, larvae and rearing water were estimated by selective plate count technique for Entrobacteriaceae, Streptococaceae and Vibrionaceae members. The total viable bacterial count was estimated by total plate count technique on nutrient agar. The total viable counts of bacteria were lowest in water from 6.10x10² CFU/mL) and highest in egg (6.06x10super(8) CFU/g). In brood the total counts were varying from 1.62x10² CFU/g in muscle to 2.20x10super(5) CFU/g in gills. In juveniles, the total plate counts were varying from 2.8x10super(4) CFU/g in muscles to 3.67x10 super(8) CFU/g in hepatopancreas. Selective plate counts show that Enterobacteriaceae members dominate in egg and gills of brood and hepatopancreas of juveniles. Vibrios were found to be dominant in water and larvae of rearing tank. Haemolymph of brood was sterile and did not contain any bacteria while muscle of juvenile was having very low count of total viable bacteria

A review on scientific technologies in practice to innovate plant based molecules and to improve herbal drug quality to overcome health problems

Medicines obtained from drug plants and other sources are commonly called traditional medicines. They have played an important role in the treatment of several human diseases since ancient times. India possessed a great wealth of traditional health care system known as Ayurveda related to the use of plant species. The global market of herbal drugs has a great potential around the world. Demand of plant based medicines is also increasing among western countries because of a general consideration that most allopathic drugs are associated with more or less side effects. Many pharmaceutical companies are now manufacturing Ayurvedic phytopharmaceutical products. However, enough efforts have not been made to get suitable substitute of modern allopathic medicines from these traditionally used drug plants and herbal drugs. This traditional system of healthcare in India still needs extensive evidence-based scientific researches in promoting its therapies. This review paper deals with modern scientific approaches to find out new plant based molecules and to develop new technologies in a continuous process and should be applied in the practice to improve the quality of herbal drugs in Indian pharmaceutical industries. Critical assessment of quality assurance including researches on pharmacognosy, chemistry, pharmacology, antimicrobial activity and clinical studies carried out on various Ayurvedic medicinal plants are also being presented

Influence of Terrain on Modern Tactical Combat: Trust-based Recommender System

In Army Services, there are a number of valuable decisions that have to be taken for mission accomplishment. These decisions are very important and the choice of a weapon may be able to alter the outcome of a battle decisively. Among several such decisions one is to decide which weapons to deploy/assign over a given terrain. Recommender systems are intelligent applications to assist users in a decision-making process where they want to choose one item amongst a potentially overwhelming set of alternative products or services. This paper proposes the design of recommender system that automates the process of finding the appropriate type of weapon(s) that can be deployed over a terrain having certain characteristics. The user agent seeks recommendations, which are in the form of intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS), from trustworthy peers and produces aggregated order of recommendations taking degree of trust on recommenders into consideration. Trust on recommender is also updated based on importance of recommendation given to the user. A prototype of the trust-based recommender system for modern tactical combat system has been designed and developed through which the user can get the recommendation to use a specific kind of weapon or a set of weapons that would be best-suited in a given type of terrain.Defence Science Journal, 2010, 60(4), pp.405-411, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.60.49

Scenario of solid waste management in present Indian context

A trend of significant increase in municipal solid waste generation has been recorded worldwide. This has been found due to over population growth rate, industrialization, urbanization and economic growth. Consumerism speed has been found very high covering around more then 50% of total population since last decade due to higher economic growth, which has ultimately resulted in increased solid waste generation. Municipal solid waste generation showed different trend and a positive correlation with economic development in term of kg/capita/day solid waste generation at world scale. Municipal solid waste generation has been recorded much higher in western and some eastern developed countries. Solid waste generation kg/capita/day was found 2 kg in USA, 1.89 kg in Australia, 1.8 kg in Canada, 1.83 kg in Ireland, 1.1 kg in Belgium and Switzerland, 0.99 kg in Spain, 0.96 kg in Italy, 0.85 kg in Mexico and Greece during 1992 as per report and expected to be increased at least 25% by 2005 due to population and economic revolution. Similarly solid waste generation in several developing countries and cities has been found in South East Asia region. Some important data can be mentioned such as 1.2 kg in Changging (1997), 0.6 kg in Shanghai (1993), 0.88 kg in Beijing (1991), 1.17 kg in Hong Kong residential cities and 3.9 kg commercial (1994), 1.5 kg in Tokyo, 2.7 kg in Osaka, Japan (1993), 0.66 kg in Jakarta, Indonesia (1993), 1.29 kg in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1989), 0.53 kg in Metro Manila Philippines (1995), 0.5 kg in Khulana, Dhaka, Chittagong, 0.4 kg Sylhat, Bangladesh (1991). Total Solid waste generated in Tons/day would be proportionate to the population of specific city in that specific/mentioned year. Population growth and solid waste generation in India has varying trend and correlation between population and solid waste generation of specificity is not necessary to be applicable. Population growth and solid waste generation in India has varying trend and correlation between population and solid waste generation of specific city is not necessary to be applicable. Population increased from 8.2 to 12.3 million in Mumbai during the period of Ten years (1981-97) at the rate of 49%. Similarly the population growth has been found to rise exponentially in other Indian cities; however, the growth rate may be varying. Trend of urbanization played significant role in enhancement of solid waste generation and in India it was 27.8% in 2001 and expected to reach 41% by 2021. In certain Indian cities, Solid waste generation has been found in 1995 was 0.64 kg in Kanpur, 0.52 kg in Lucknow, 0.4 kg in Varanasi, 0.59 kg in Ahemadabad and 0.44 kg in Mumbai. Currently total solid waste generated in India is around 42 million tons annually. Waste generation varies from 200-600 kg/capita/day and collection efficiency ranges from 50-90%

Alternative Economic Technology For Treatment Of Distillery Effluent To Prevent Surface and Ground Water Pollution

The present study was conducted to find out pollution reduction potential of Sand intermittent filtration bed in term of physico-chemical and microbiological characteristics of distillery effluent. The distillery effluent was filtered through Sand intermittent filtration beds of mixture of sand and soil at different ratio i.e. 1:1, 1:3, 3:1 and one set of 100% of each sand and soil were also taken. Results revealed that there was a significant pollution reduction in various physico-chemical and microbiological parameters of distillery effluent treated with sand and soil filtration. In general filtration bed containing sand and soil have shown better performance than filtration bed containing only sand or soil for distillery effluent. Maximum pollution reduction was found in the bed containing sand and soil ratio of 3:1 at 2 ft depth than all other ratios and depths. However declined trend of pollution did not remain same for several parameters in the same conditions. Maximum reduced value of pollution load for maximum parameters was recorded at 2 feet dept in sand soil bed of 3:1 ratio i.e. BOD 82.49%, COD 78.96%. Total alkalinity 75.32%, Turbidity 68.94%, Total solids 94.97%, Total dissolved solids 95.29%, Total suspended solids 94.16%, MPN 95.14% and SPC 67.21%. Maximum percentage of reduction in Temperature 59.55% was found at 2 ft depth in soil only. Maximum percentage of reduction in CO2 73.39% was found at 2 ft depth in sand soil mixed bed of 1:3 ratio. Minimum reduction ability was found in 100% sand bed