Present status, Standardization and safety issues with herbal drugs

Traditional medicine is an important component of the health care system throughout world. Herbal medicine is the use of medicinal plants for prevention and treatment of various diseases. It ranges from traditional and popular medicines of every country to the use of standardized and analyzed herbal extracts. Although therapies involving these agents have shown promising potential with the efficacy of a good number of herbal products clearly established, many of them remain untested and their use are either poorly monitored or not even monitored at all. Herbal-derived remedies need a powerful and deep assessment of their pharmacological qualities and safety issues due to the large and growing use of natural-derived substances all over the world. Based on the current situation, worldwide research on herbal medicine safety is still not broad or deep enough. For next step, more attention should be paid to researches on the toxicity and the herb-drug interaction of commonly used herb medicines, which are the most necessary and urgent work. For clinical safety monitoring, spontaneous reporting system or active pharmacovigilance is effective in identifying therapeutically relevant safety issues. In this paper, an attempt has been made to summarize the information described in scientific research conducted about Present status, Standardization and safety concerns of herbal drugs

Present Status, Standardization and Safety Issues with Herbal Drugs

Traditional medicine is an important component of the health care system throughout world. Herbal medicine is the use of medicinal plants for prevention and treatment of various diseases. It ranges from traditional and popular medicines of every country to the use of standardized and analyzed herbal extracts. Although therapies involving these agents have shown promising potential with the efficacy of a good number of herbal products clearly established, many of them remain untested and their use are either poorly monitored or not even monitored at all. Herbal-derived remedies need a powerful and deep assessment of their pharmacological qualities and safety issues due to the large and growing use of natural-derived substances all over the world. Based on the current situation, worldwide research on herbal medicine safety is still not broad or deep enough. For next step, more attention should be paid to researches on the toxicity and the herb-drug interaction of commonly used herb medicines, which are the most necessary and urgent work. For clinical safety monitoring, spontaneous reporting system or active pharmacovigilance is effective in identifying therapeutically relevant safety issues. In this paper, an attempt has been made to summarize the information described in scientific research conducted about Present status, Standardization and safety concerns of herbal drugs

Effectiveness of Unani regimen in management of over active bladder: An open labelled, single arm clinical study

Purpose: To study the efficacy of Unani pharmacopoeial formulations viz Jawarish Zarooni, Majoon Kundur and Arq e Badiyaan as a treatment regimen in patients of overactive bladder and evaluate its effect on their quality of life. Materials and Method: This open labeled, single arm clinical study was conducted at Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine (RRIUM), Srinagar. Patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study after signing the informed consent form. Jawarish Zarooni and Arq e Badiyaan were prescribed orally in the dosage of 7g and 30 ml respectively twice a day along with 7g single oral dose of Majoon Kundur. The duration of treatment was for 82 days. The patients were followed up on first, fourth, eighth and twelfth week. The results were expressed as Mean ± SEM. Symptomatic relief was assessed as percentage change in terms of presence of any symptom at baseline and at 82nd day. Results: Of the 36 patients enrolled 31 patients completed the study. The study demonstrated highly significant results (p<0.001) for nocturia and QOL as measured by patients perception of bladder control (PPBC), urinary incontinence and daytime micturation whereas very significant results were observed (p<0.01) for urgency. Conclusions: The Unani regimen was highly effective in managing the symptoms of OAB as the regimen has an array of phyto-constituents which demonstrated muscuranic antagonism, Ca2+ channel blocking, K channel opening, neuro-protection, neuro-toning and anxiety relieving properties. About 50% of the ingredients of the regimen were Ca2+ blockers. The synergism of these phyto-constituents probably made Ca2+ blockers effective in OAB. Keywords: Over Active Bladder, Ca2+ blocker, antimuscuranic