Herbal medicines have been used to treat psoriasis for many years with anecdotal reports of efficacy which have attracted public attention. We seek to assess the effects of systemic herbal medicine in the treatment of psoriasis. Medical database PubMed/MEDLINE, AMED, CINAHL, and CENTRAL were searched. Randomised controlled trials of systemic herbal medicine used in the treatment of psoriasis in...

Quality control standardizations of the natural products such as medicinal plants getting more attention in recent years since the commercialization of herbal formulations increased dramatically. A wide range of methods can be applied for standardizations of herbal products. However, advancement in the microscopy technique could help to achieve the goal of standardizations of the herbal product...

Herbal medicines are being increasingly used for treatment of variety of disorders. Herbal medicines are generally thought to lack severe side effects. Despite of the general belief, herbal medicines are known to cause serious side effects and toxicities. On the other hand, physicians’ knowledge of herbal medicines and their potential toxicities are generally limited. Neurotoxicity, cardiac tox...

This Technical Report compiles and analyzes the current scientific knowledge on herbal medicine and highlights the practical ways for ensuring the safety of herbal preparations and evaluating their claimed efficacy. Emphasis has been given to the methods for standardization of herbal medicine and the ways and means for moving forward to achieve the difficult goal of preparing herbal medicines o...

BACKGROUND Traditional herbal therapies have been used for a long time to treat gastrointestinal disorders including irritable bowel syndrome, and their effectiveness from clinical research evidence needs to be systematically reviewed. OBJECTIVES To assess the effectiveness and safety of herbal medicines in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched the following el...

The significance of herbals and herbal products is gaining worldwide recognition. The concept of complementary or alternative medicine is becoming much more widely accepted, and there is an increasing belief in the efficacy of herbal remedies. Recently, the role of herbal drugs, herbal products and certain phytochemicals in the control of ageing has been documented using modern scientific appro...

BACKGROUND There is a growing public interest in complementary and alternative treatments. The attitudes and perceptions regarding herbal therapies have not been evaluated amongst physicians-in-training. OBJECTIVE This pilot study aimed to assess the self-perceived competence and attitudes of physicians-in-training in dealing with herbal medicines in clinical practice. METHODS A survey was ...

The prevalence of herbal medicine use during pregnancy is between 7% and 55%, depending upon the geographic area surveyed and the surveyed group's socio-cultural aspects and ethnicity. Why are women taking natural health products (NHPs) in pregnancy? Women who learn they are pregnant are concerned about the safety of their fetus and may turn to NHPs rather than prescription medication. Use of N...

The study was aimed at the experimental assessment of the efficacy of heparin as radioprotector in condition of acute whole body γ-ray irradiation. The efficacy of the product was based on the 30-day survival rate and average life expectancy of dead irradiated animals. To reveal possible mechanisms of radioprotective effects of heparin the thymus mass, the number of leukocytes and colony format...

Owing to the increase in price of cigarettes in Korea, herbal cigarettes have received increasing attention as a non-smoking aid; however, its safety has hardly been studied. We analyzed some of the toxic components in the mainstream smoke of herbal cigarettes, performed a mutagenicity test on smoke condensates for safety assessment, and compared the results with the corresponding values of a g...