Many Americans, not completely satisfied with traditional western medicine, have turned to alternative and complementary medicine which explains the increasing popularity of the herbal products and the Chinese herbal medicine. The lack of government regulations and the increasing advertisements by the manufactures have created an impression to the common public that the natural herbal remedies ...

A body powered hand prosthesis has been developed with a view to meeting some of the more c o m m o n criticisms made against currently available designs i.e. weight and cosmetic appearance. A n overall weight reduction of about 30 per cent has been achieved and the use of silicone rubber as the cosmetic glove material has resulted in greatly improved cosmesis and stain resistance. The prosthes...

Many medicinal herbs and pharmaceutical drugs are therapeutic at one dose and toxic at another. Interactions between herbs and drugs may increase or decrease the pharmacological or toxicological effects of either component. Synergistic therapeutic effects may complicate the dosing of long-term medications eg, herbs traditionally used to decrease glucose concentrations in diabetes1 could theoret...

BACKGROUND Chinese medicine has been proposed as a novel strategy for the prevention of metabolic disorders such as obesity. The present study tested 17 Chinese medicinal herbs were tested for their potential anti-obesity effects. METHODS The herbs were evaluated in terms of their abilities to stimulate the transcription of Apolipoprotein A-IV (ApoA-IV) in cultured Caco-2/TC7 enterocytes. The...

Herbs and botanicals are used by a large number of people in the United States and have been used therapeutically in Europe for decades. Consumers are becoming more interested and subsequently better informed on the use of herbs to self-treat minor illness. Unfortunately, because of conflicting and anecdotal information, variable potency, and the widespread availability of herbs, many home care...

The process of evaluating medicinal herbs is complex, and there is a need to carefully define a research strategy that addresses a solution to safe and efficacious herbal products. Notwithstanding the immense value of distilling the pharmacological activity of an herb into a chemical suitable for drug development, another approach is to develop a standardized herbal extract that yields consiste...

This study is conducted to examine maternal morbidity and the use of medicinal herbs. A total of 181 women, aged 17-45 yrs gave birth in the last 5 yrs preceding the survey, were enrolled. The study was conducted in Marrakech city, Morocco. The rate of maternal morbidity was 38.1%, while 42% of women used medicinal herbs, 48.3% of them after the delivery. Medicinal plants are mostly used by wom...

With the recent increasing demand of herbal drugs among populations worldwide it is important to establish the identity, purity and quality assurance of herbs. Due to various factors such as soil, climatic conditions, human activities, presence and distribution of heavy metals is very likely. The present study reveals the heavy metal profile by atomic absorption spectrophotometry in various sam...