BACKGROUND Alopecia areata (AA) is a common immune-mediated hair loss disorder. AA has a reported incidence of 0.1-0.2% with a lifetime risk of 1.7%. Histologically, AA is characterized by the accumulation of mononuclear cells around the bulb of the affected hair follicles. Corticosteroids are the most popular drugs for the treatment of this disease. Despite its high prevalence, currently avail...

The use of alternative therapies including Herbal medicines is rapidly escalating in both the developed as well as in the developing countries. It is generally believed that ‘natural’ herbal medicines are better and safer than conventional medicine; herbal medicines are in fact associated with serious toxic effects. The current study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Panax Gi...

Pancreatic cancer is a type of common malignant tumors with high occurrence in the world. Most patients presented in clinic had pancreatic cancer at advanced stages. Furthermore, chemotherapy or radiotherapy had very limited success in treating pancreatic cancer. Complementary and alternative medicines, such as natural products/herbal medicines, represent exciting adjunctive therapies. In this ...

Herbal medicine (phytomedicine) uses remedies possessing significant pharmacological activity and, consequently, potential adverse effects and drug interactions. The explosion in sales of herbal therapies has brought many products to the marketplace that do not conform to the standards of safety and efficacy that physicians and patients expect. Unfortunately, few surgeons question patients rega...

An estimated 27 million South Africans use indigenous medicines (Mander, 1997, Medicinal plant marketing and strategies for sustaining the plant supply in the Bushbuckridge area and Mpumalanga Province. Institute for Natural Resources, University of Natal. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa). Although herbal remedies are freely available in amayeza stores, or Xhosa chemists, for self-medication, li...

Polygoni Multiflori Radix (PMR), Cynanchi Wilfordii Radix (CWR), and Cynanchi Auriculati Radix (CAR) are very popular herbal medicines in Traditional Korean Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Kampo Medicine. However, the plant origins, efficacies, and traditional uses of these herbal medicines differ. In Korea, PMR is called Ha Su O (He Shou Wu in China), and CWR is called Baek Ha Su O...

To the Editor Pregnant women using herbs is common in Taiwan and mainland China, but relatively little is known about the safety of taking herbal medicines during pregnancy. Our previous study showed a possible link between the use of specific herbal medicines during the first trimester of pregnancy and an increased risk of specific congenital malformations. Thus, this analysis was conducted to...

To date, a number of significant herbal drug interactions have their origins in the alteration of cytochrome P450 (CYP) activity by various phytochemicals. Among the most noteworthy are those involving St. John's wort and drugs metabolized by human CYP3A4 enzyme. This review article is the continued work from our previous article (Part 1) published in this journal (Wanwimolruk and Prachayasitti...