Abstract

ETHNOMEDICAL HERBS AND VARIOUS APPROACHES IN DEVELOPMENT OF NEW DRUGS

Dr. Ravindranath M Jaganathan*, Dr. Little Mahendra, Dr. Jaideep Mahendra, Dr. Vijayarani Kumanan and Dr. Kumanan Kathaperumal

Abstract

Medicinal herbs and their derived phytocompounds are being increasingly recognized as useful complementary treatments for various diseases. A large volume of clinical studies have reported the beneficial effects of herbal medicines on the survival, immune modulation, and quality of life for various diseases. So far 122 compounds of defined structure, obtained from only 94 species of plants, which are used globally as drugs and demonstrate that 80% of these have had an ethnomedical use alike or associated to the existing use of the active elements of the plant. In this article we discuss advantages and disadvantages of using plants as starting points for drug development, plants as a source of therapeutic agents, specifically those used in traditional medicine and also various approaches in selecting a plant for new drug development with the greatest likelihood of success.

Keywords: Medicinal plants, Ethnomedicine, Drug Discovery, Phytomedicine, Herbal drugs.