Why Pharmacokinetics? Herbalists have long studied the effect of herbal medicines on the body, but have hitherto paid less attention to the effects of the body on herbal medicines. This dichotomy expresses the distinction in classical pharmacology between pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. For a given dose of any herbal medicine, its physiological effect (or that of its constituents) will b...

Ten years have passed since Directive 2004/24/EC regulating herbal medicinal products across the EU were published. The directive created the Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products within the European Medicines Agency whose remit includes the creation and publishing of official EU monographs on herbal medicinal products. These monographs include the official uses of the products and their evide...

Anxiety and insomnia are two of the most prevalent mental health conditions a significant contributor to disability worldwide. We all experience feelings anxiety, fear, worry at many point in our lives. These can have negative impact on every individual’s physical if they persist for an extended period time. Clinical anxiety disorders result from this. be treated with variety methods also herba...

Pregnane and Xenobiotic Receptor (PXR), a vital xenosensor, acts as master regulator of phase-I (cytochrome P450) and phase-II enzymes (glutathione S-transferases, sulfotransferases, and uridine 5’-diphosphate glucuronosyltransferases) as well as several drug transporters (multi-drug resistance protein, and multidrug resistance-associated protein). PXR can bind to a variety of chemically distin...

In recent years we have witnessed the widespread use of herbal and traditional medicines. In many cases, people use traditional treatments arbitrarily and without consultation with a qualified person (1). As a teacher, I have frequently seen a number of my colleagues and others use herbal medicines and traditional methods for their medical problems. Looking at the papers published in this journ...

EFFICACY It is important that health professionals adopt a non-judgemental approach with regard to parents who use CAM for their children. Many herbal medicines may be effective as we know that many plant derived chemicals are the basis of conventional drug therapies. Parents will often use a herbal medicine for their children on the basis that it is more ‘‘natural’’ and safer. One third of par...

The hepatotoxic effects of conventional drugs are well recognised, but herbal medicines are often assumed to be harmless and are advertised as such. The error of this assumption has recently received attention in the press,' but we think that doctors are not sufficiently aware of the potential toxicity of herbal medicines. We report on four women, three from Edinburgh and one from Tyneside, who...