Quality Standards of Indian Medicinal Plants- Volume-2

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There has been global resurgence of interest in the area of medicinal plant health care products, as a result of which, a number of national and international organizations such as World Health Organization, European Scientific Cooperative, German Commission E. Japanese and Chinese organizations, have taken initiative to prepare and publish monograph un medicinal plants. All such monographs lay special emphasis on quality standards of the plant material. India is one of the twelve mega biodiversity centres rich in medicinal and aromatic plants occurring in diverse ecosystems. Out of the 45,000 known plant species nearly 1500 plant species are being used in the Indian System of Medicine. In the draft of the National policy on the Indian System of Medicine, priority is being given to research on standardization besides pharmacology, toxicology and clinical trials of herbal drugs>

The Indian Council of Medical Research took initiative to lay down quality standards of important medicinal plants involving reputed research institutes. The collection of monographs published in 2003 as "Quality Standards of Indian Medicinal Plants Vol. 1" was the outcome of these efforts. The current publication is the second volume of the above series. We are happy to note that the first volume was greatly appreciated and received well by all those involved in different activities related to herbal drugs in India and abroad. I hope that just like the first volume, the second volume will also be of great help to medicinal plant based drug industry, drug regulatory authorities, researchers and academicians involved in work on medicinal plants.

I greatly appreciate the efforts of the Chairman and the members of the Scientific Advisory Group, Task Force and the Technical Review Committees and the contributions made by the participating institutions.

Worldwide interest in multifaceted potential of plants has resulted into gradual transition of the traditional medicine from being a personalized one to the present state where the plant based drugs are commercially produced in large scale and sold as OTC drugs or as prescription medicines Furthermore in India where almost 90 percent of the raw material for in the genuine raw material. In such a scenario proper quality control herbal medicinal products is procured by the industry from wild sources, there is every possibility of vast variation of chemical constituents in the material collected from different geographical sources, in addition there is a possibility of deliberate adulteration or substitution of the herbal raw material as well as finished products becomes essential. Thus, the need for development of quality standards and preparation of monographs there on, can not be over emphasized.

In an effort to address this problem, the Indian Council of Medical Research initiated a programme on evolving standards for the medicinal plants involving reputed research institutes in the country. Under this programme the first volume of "Quality Standards of Indian Medicinal Plants covering 32 plants was published in 2003. This is the second volume in the series and contains quality standards of another set of 32 medicinal plants. As with the first volume. the second volume in the series is also expected to be well received and useful to the herbal drug industry, practitioners of Indigenous System of Medicine, academicians, researchers and health professionals including regulatory authorities.

We are deeply indebted to Prof. S S. Handa, Chairman and Group for their We are deeply indebted tater and the Scientific Advisory of this book we Technical Review Commit to the contents of each chapter of this book. We thank them for their enormous help in addressing to delicate issues. Task Force :

It has been a challenging task and could not have been completes of the out the critical inputs of the Principal Investigators and facilities provided by the heads of the various participating Institutions for carrying out the project.

The meticulous assistance by the project staff, particularly Dr. Anjali Chadha and Dr. Renu Dixit is gratefully acknowledged. The help of Dr. M. Rajani, BVPERD Centre, Ahmedabad for assisting in making the monographs uniform and their finalization is acknowledged with thanks. Ms. Jyoti Bageja provided excellent secretarial assistance.

The Council thanks each one of them for their untiring efforts, support and co-operation in bringing out this volume.

Introduction

World Health Organization promotes and encourages the use of herbal medicinal products in the national health care programmes of various countries as 3/4 of the world population relies on traditional systems of medicine, largely medicinal plant based, to meet their primary health care needs. Lack of or inadequacy of quality standards of the herbal material has been an impediment in the wider acceptance of the herbal medicinal products as well as a discouraging factor for many reputed herbal drug manufacturers and also a handicap in regulating herbal drug market. In an effort to address this problem, the Indian Council of Medical Research initiated work on the preparation of standards for herbal raw material involving several reputed research institutes in the country. This endeavour resulted in publication of the first volume on "Quality Standards of Indian Medicinal Plants" in 2003. In continuing efforts in this direction, this is the second volume in the series containing monographs on the raw material from 32 medicinal plants. The approach being followed for executing this work is as follows:

Authentic plant material is procured from three geographical locations. Details of pharmacognostic features, quantitative standards and phytochemical profiles are generated by the participating institutions. Information on the distribution of the plants, vernacular names, chemical constituents, pharmacological activity, adulterants/substitutes, therapeutic claims, safety aspects and dosage is derived from the published literature and classical books. Literature search for each plant is made, reviewed and only the relevant information is incorporated from original articles.