Herbal remedies can result in indirect health risks when they delay or replace a more effective form of conventional treatment or when they compromise the efficacy of conventional medicines. Herbal remedies can also be associated with direct health risks. Long-standing traditional experience may tell much about striking and predictable symptoms of acute toxicity but it is a less reliable tool for the detection of reactions which are inconspicuous, develop gradually or have a prolonged latency period, or which occur uncommonly. Another reason why safety claims cannot always be based on traditional empiricism is that not all herbal remedies are firmly rooted in traditional medicine. The risk of a herbal remedy producing an adverse reaction depends not only on the remedy and its dosage but also on consumer-related parameters, such as age, genetics, concomitant diseases and concurrent use of other drugs. Another important determinant of the toxicity of herbal remedies is their quality. What is already known about the risks of herbal remedies must be systematically collected, disseminated and acted upon. What is yet unknown must be found out by herbal postmarketing surveillance and experimental research.

Health risks of herbal remedies

Thujone and thujone-containing herbal medicinal and botanical products: Toxicological assessment

Flavonoids of Helichrysum compactum and their antioxidant and antibacterial activity

It may be assumed that plants developed a wide variety of secondary metabolites during hundreds of millions of years of evolution as a means of defending themselves against herbivores, microorganisms, viruses, and other plants (see Chapter 11). Among the more than 50,000 natural products that are known today, over 12,000 are alkaloids.

A Short History of Alkaloids

Toxicological Outlook on the Quality Assurance of Herbal Remedies

Gift‐ und Arzneipflanzen von Mitteleuropa von O. Gessner und G. Orzechowski, X, 582 S., Preis DM 65,–; Carl Winter, Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1974

H. Jork

Papers

Gift‐ und Arzneipflanzen von Mitteleuropa von O. Gessner und G. Orzechowski, X, 582 S., Preis DM 65,–; Carl Winter, Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1974