Pharmacological Properties of Strelitzia Reginae

Despite the whopping dependency of the world population on traditional medicine, some serious challenges need to be addressed. The data currently available on traditional medicine regarding its safety and effectiveness is not really meeting the rigorous standard to support its usage on a global scale. Lack of appropriate health care policies and dearth of adequate, acceptable and rigorous methodology to evaluate traditional medicine have hindered the generation of high-quality research data (Wilson, 2000). Further, the effectiveness of many herbal drugs is not scientifically established, even though they are quite popular. Moreover, many users wrongly believe that herbal medicines are safe just because they have natural origin, even though some herbal ingredients can cause serious adverse effects, e.g., anti-obesity pills made from the herb Aristolochic fangi caused kidney failure in over 100 women in 1998 (Horton, 2011). Lack of standardisation and quality control are the major disadvantages of traditional medicine, also known as Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Randomized controlled trials are needed to evaluate herbal medicines. For instance, in Ghana, most healers administer plant products as decoction. However, these healers could not provide any reliable information about how these treatments could be 'standardised'. It was also observed that the amounts of medication used by them varied from case to case. Hence, standardised clinical trials should be the mode to determine the use of herbal drugs in humans, given the high global dependency on herbal medicines. Only this course will ensure human safety while using herbal drugs. In many instances, improper knowledge about the dosage of herbal medicinal products to be used may cause severe adverse side effects. More scientific experiments are necessary to determine the optimal dosage levels for herbal drugs (Karunamoorthi et al., 2012).

Author: Rajni K. S.
Publisher: Rajni K.S.
Published: 11/21/2022
Pages: 268
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.56d
ISBN: 9781805458098