A Review on the Recent Advances in Pharmacological Studies on Medicinal Plants; Animal Studies are Done but Clinical Studies Needs Completing

摘要

There is a growing focus on the importance of medicinal plants and traditional health systems in solving the health care problems of the world. Use of plants as a source of medicine has come to new developing world from ancient practices. In this study, the most recent studies published in experimental advances in medicinal plants during January 2010 to April 2011 have been reviewed to indicate the extent of advances using ASCI database. Most of studies addressed antioxidant effects of medicinal plants followed by antimicrobial, anti-diabetic anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, antifungal and anticancer properties. Fabaceae was found to be the most abundantly studied family with a total of twelve studied plants, followed by Lamiaceae, Combretaceae,Euphorbiaceae, Leguminosae, Malvaceae, Asteraceae, Apocynaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Rubiaceae, Zingiberaceae, Apiaceae, Compositae, Anarcadiaceae, Acanthaceae, Asciepiadaceae and Rutaceae. In spite of the fact that tremendous efforts were done by the researchers by providing an alternate with minimum side effects, easy accessibility and excellent compatibility/future clinical trials and standardization are still desired as an important steps in drug discovery.