In a follow-up to studies of school-children's medical knowledge among the rural Luo of western Kenya, seven mothers were asked for their knowledge of plant medicine, and the 91 plant remedies mentioned by them were collected, 74 of these remedies were identified as 69 different species (in 13 cases, the material did not allow identification of the species, in two cases, only the family could b...

A four-step strategy is described which is aimed at optimizing the separation parameters of the chromatographic fingerprint of herbal medicines. In the optimization procedure, a model is built to predict the retention time of components. The proposed model shows good retention prediction potency with an average relative deviation of 1.78%. The grid search method is used in optimizing gradient p...

BACKGROUND Ophiocordyceps sinensis (syn. Cordyceps sinensis), which is a parasite of caterpillars and is endemic to alpine regions on the Tibetan Plateau, is one of the most valuable medicinal fungi in the world. "Natural O. sinensis specimens" harbor various other fungi. Several of these other fungi that have been isolated from natural O. sinensis specimens have similar chemical components and...

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) has announced that it will design and initiate studies to identify and characterize possible adverse health effects that may be associated with prolonged use or higher doses of some of the most popular medicinal herbs, including Ginkgo biloba, Echinacea angustifolia, and Panax quinquefolius (American ginseng). The NTP studies a large variety of substances t...

China is one of the first countries to use marine materia medica for treating diseases. Ancient books on Chinese herbology, such as Shennong Bencaojing (Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica), Xinxiu Bencao (Newly Revised Materia Medica) and Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica), have detailed more than 110 marine herbs and thousands of marine herbal formulas (including those for Chinese ...

BACKGROUND Hyperlipidemia is one of the important diseases in pregnancy that causes fetal abnormalities during pregnancy and after the birth. Unfortunately, the usual anti-fat drugs are associated with high morbidity in fetus and due to people's inclination towards taking herbs, it is required to identify side effects of medicinal herbs in pregnancy. The aim of this study was to present hypolip...

Herbal medicine has become a popular form of healthcare. Even though several differences exist between herbal and conventional pharmacological treatments, herbal medicine can be tested for efficacy using conventional trial methodology. Several specific herbal extracts have been demonstrated to be efficacious for specific conditions. Even though the public is often misled to believe that all nat...

Medicinal and ornamental plants are one of the most valuable resources in a wide range of natural resources in Iran in the case of scientific knowledge, cultivation, development and proper utilization, can play an important role in public health and employment and increase of non-oil exports This study explores strategies of gaining a competitive advantage of medicinal herbs in Ilam Province ba...

BACKGROUND The dried parts of medicinal herbs are susceptible to the infection of fungi during pre- or post-harvest procedure. This study aimed to investigate the presence of fungi and their metabolites mycotoxins on the surface of medicinal herbs collected from China. METHODS Forty-five retail samples of 15 different medicinal herbs were collected from 3 different regions in China. Then the ...