Botanical medicines are rapidly increasing in global recognition with significant public health and economic implications. For instance, in developing countries, a vast majority of the indigenous populations use medicinal plants as a major form of healthcare. Also, in industrialized nations, including Europe and North America, consumers are increasingly using herbs and botanical dietary supplements as part of integrative health and complementary and alternative therapies. Moreover, the paradigm shifts occurring in modern medicine, from mono-drug to multi-drug and poly-pharmaceutical therapies, has led to renewed interest in botanical medicines and botanical drugs.
This is due, in part, to a basic underpinning of botanical medicines which is that a complex matrix of multiple compounds within an extract elicits multiple biological actions and the activity of a major compound may be potentiated by multiple minor constituents. In short, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. However, the widespread use and resurgence in the popularity of herbal medicines raises concerns about clinical efficacy, quality, safety, dosing, and the potential for herb-herb, herb-food, and herb-drug interactions.
Pharmacognosy, the study of drugs from natural sources, plays a critical role in the process of ensuring authenticity, purity, and consistency of botanicals, and also for developing tools and models for determining their mechanisms and modes of action, doses, toxicity, and safety. The cross-fertilization of classical pharmacognosy with modern chemical and biological approaches, and their applications in a clinical setting, has led to the Clinical Pharmacognosy series which seeks to disseminate emerging research, and discuss challenges and opportunities on the aforementioned issues.
By Scott D. Mendelson
August 26, 2024
Herbal Treatment of Anxiety: Clinical Studies in Western, Chinese and Ayurvedic Traditions explains the nature and types of anxiety, its neurobiology, the pathophysiology that exacerbates and perpetuates it, and the psychopharmacology of the chemical agents that relieve its manifestations. ...
Edited
By Catherina Caballero-George
March 31, 2021
This unique volume provides the latest information on secondary metabolites obtained from selected organisms (plants or microorganisms) that have beneficial effects in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and an ability to offer protection against their progress. A detailed description of their...
By Scott D Mendelson
October 29, 2019
This unique volume presents new understandings of the neurochemical nature of major depression, and how herbs and their constituent flavonoids and terpenes appear to address some of the mechanisms now thought to be involved. It explores how recent studies of the rapid antidepressant effects of ...
Edited
By Anne Hume, Katherine Kelly Orr
March 15, 2019
The purpose of this book is to focus on major considerations in the clinical use of botanicals as an integrated therapy in current health care. The book uses an organ system approach to presenting clinical evidence on the use of botanicals for common conditions. The chapters include brief sections ...
Edited
By Giacinto Bagetta, Marco Cosentino, Tsukasa Sakurada
November 24, 2015
Recent clinical studies have demonstrated an impact of aromatherapy on the control of symptoms associated with human diseases not fully controlled by conventional therapy. Aromatherapy: Basic Mechanisms and Evidence Based Clinical Use provides an up-to-date compilation of background scientific ...
Edited
By Siva Somasundaram
September 30, 2015
Foods from natural products are a major contributor to contemporary dietary needs. The knowledge of interactions of specific natural products on genes is accumulating due to recent scientific advancements. Natural Products Interactions on Genomes focuses on recent developments in understanding ...
Edited
By Giacinto Bagetta, Marco Cosentino, Marie Tiziana Corasaniti, Shinobu Sakurada
September 29, 2011
The deregulation of dietary supplements and natural products marketing by the FDA has widened the natural products market in Europe and worldwide. While the discussion about the validity of the plant approach to nutrition and diseases treatment continues, the explosion of the use of whatever is ...