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THE PHARMA REVIEW JUNE 2006 |
Herbal Drugs - Present
Status and Efforts to Promote and Regulate Cultivation |
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Abhishek Kumar, Ashutosh
Mishra and B. N. Sinha |
Abstract: India is one of the richest centers of
origin and crop plant diversity of cultivated plants and
their wild relatives. It is immensely rich in medicinal
and aromatic plants occurring in diverse ecosystems.
World Health Organization has listed over 21,000 plant
species used around the world for medicinal purposes. It
has been estimated that India has 47,000 species of
plants and is No 8 in the world biodiversity, out of
these, medicinal plants comprise of 8000 species. Indian
System of Medicine (ISM) uses around 2500 plant species
belonging to more than 1000 genera, about 800 species
are used by industry of which approximately 20% are
cultivated.
All the oldest cultures of the world have been using
plant medicines both as house hold remedies and for
primary healthcare. This cultural knowledge of India and
China are well documented. There are four well
recognized Indian Systems of Traditional Medicine, viz.
Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga. These systems of
medicine depend largely on plants as source of medicine.
Large scale use of medicinal plants is increasing day by
day both in developed and developing countries due to
growing awareness about the side effects of modern
medicine. The medicinal plants have additional advantage
of being simple and effective which emphasize on
preventive rather than curative action of drugs. Because
of these factors, demand for plant based medicine (phytomedicine
or phytopharmaceuticals) is increasing world wide.
Plants are also found to contain disease curative
properties and extracts of such plants are increasingly
used to manufacture effective drugs for these diseases.
So, the demand for medicinal plants is increasing both
for local use and export as well.
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