Medicinal Plants in the Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Diseases

摘要

Since the dawn of human civilization, human beings have found remedies within their habitat and have adopted different therapeutic strategies depending upon climatic, phytogeographic, sociocultural, floral, and faunal characteristics. Traditional systems thus contain beliefs and practices in order to avoid, prevent, or avert ailments, which constitute traditional preventive medicine. The use of medicinal herbs and herbal medicine is an age-old tradition and the recent progress in modern therapeutics has stimulated the use of natural product worldwide for diverse ailments and diseases. The educated public and health care professionals have enormous interests in the medicinal uses of herbs, but there is a great deal of confusion about their identification, effectiveness, therapeutic dosage, toxicity, standardization, and regulation. According to WHO, traditional medicine is popular in all regions of the world and its use is rapidly expanding even in developed countries. For example, in China, traditional herbal preparations account for 30-50% of the total medicinal consumption and now the annual global market for herbal medicine is over 60 billion USD. Thus, Western trained physicians should not ignore the impact of traditional medicine on their patients.