Contamination of Asian herbal drugs: Need for its critical evaluation
Journal Title: Journal of Applied and Natural Science - Year 2009, Vol 1, Issue 2
Abstract
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 developed nations with hope of their non-toxi City 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.
Authors and Affiliations
K. Gupta, G. Prasad, A. Chopra, D. Khanna
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP110268
- DOI 10.31018/jans.v1i2.74
- Views 97
- Downloads 0
Effect of rate of application on degradation of imazethapyr in groundnut and soil under tropical Indian condition
Pesticides though formulated to be biologically degradable, few herbicides reported to cause surface and groundwater contamination which needs the monitoring of herbicide residues in environment continuously. Thus, to mo...
Stomatal Index of a few common tree species in the Kishangarh Marble Slurry Dump-yard area, Ajmer (Rajasthan): A case study
The size and number of the stomata present on the foliar epidermis of Tree species is directly influenced by the Suspended Particulate Matter. Marble dust is a very fine powder having approximately 40% particles below 75...
Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) genetic resources for climate change intervention and its future breeding
Linseed or flax (Linum usitatissimum L.), a multiple purpose crop valued for its seed oil, fibre, probiotic and nutraceutical properties, is adapted to different environments and agro-ecologies. Modern breeding technique...
Effect of cold stress on boro rice seedlings
Cold stress at seedling stage is a major constraint in boro rice production. Nine boro rice lines were crossed in diallel fashion excluding reciprocals to obtain 36 crosses. All the 36 crosses along with parents were gro...
Urban ecosystems of Kurukshetra, India, an amalgamations of eco-friendly, historical as well as archaeological adverse facades: A case study
Kurukshetra, a state of India is a historical place having global significance linked with its multifaceted aspects concerning education, science education, engineering colleges, museums and above all some sites and spot...