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What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Herbal Medicine

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Introduction:
Along ago, Plants were used as a source of vegetables and fruits only ,but with time it’s leaves, flowers, seed, stems ,bark roots, rhizomes were found to have extracts that can be used for treatments as medicines known as “herbal medicine” or “herbalism”.
It was found that herbal medicines were majorly used by patients suffering from chronic diseases like:
 Cancer
 Diabetes
 Asthma
 Chronic renal disease
Advantages over conventional ones:
 They are cheaper.
 Less side effects
Ex: St. John’s wort herb which is used for its anti-depressant effect has less side effects than most prescriptive anti-depressants.
 One herb can treat more than one condition.
Disadvantage:
 Allergy reaction
 Medication interactions
 Poison …show more content…

Echinacea is of family (Asteraceae).
Active constituents and actions:
The parts of Echinacea plant which are above ground, have less oils and pyrrolizidene alkaloids, as “tussilagine and isotussilagine” than the root parts. The main costituents of the upper plant are thought to be “caffeic and ferulic acid derivatives” (such as cichoric acid and echinacoside) and complex polysaccharides, such as “acidic arabinogalactan, rhamnoarabinogalactans, and 4-O methyl-glucuronyl-arabinoxylans”. The roots of Echinacea are helpful in treatment of snake poisoning, blood poisoning, syphilis, rabbis and skin disease.
- There are polysaccharides and fractions of polyacetylenes which activate the phagocytosis of macrophages and produce TNF alpha factor and cytokines like interleukine-6, interleukine-1, and interleukine-10. These actions are immune system stimulatory [1].
- Polysaccharides of Echinacea purpurea also have a bactericidal effect, so used in the treatment of respiratory tract and lower urinary tract infections.
- There are also, alkylamides which have effects on the immune …show more content…

Generally, Echinacea is a safe herbal medicine, as it has mostly no severe side effects. There is no report of overdosing. A report of interactions with other medication is with
“Immunosuppressant medications and Warfarin”. It is also safe to be taken during pregnancies (with consultation of a physician) and safe for long term use.
Echinaforce® has a prophylactic effect in athletes: 71% of athletes had no cold episodes when it. Conclusion:
In short these herbal plants are used due to their marked importance in treating various kinds of cases naturally from the active constituents extracted from them. but some storage techniques must be taken into consideration because they are affected by some factors that might deteriorate them and make them uneffective and toxic. .from these medicinal herbs Echinacea plant which happened to be classified as a medicinal herb due to it’s several medicinal importance that has proved its effectiveness in the following cases such as urinary tract and respiratory infections , common cold , coughs ,bronchitis . as well as it has anti-oxidants ,anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory and anti-immunosuppressant activities. and those activites can be attributed mostly to polysaccharides , alkylamides , caffeic acid as chicoric acid active

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