Herbs pharmaceuticals

Additional commercial processes are available for extraction of tea, hops, oriental herbs, tobacco leaves, and pharmaceuticals C02-enhanced oil recovery environmental appHcations such as extraction/flocculation of aqueous wastes reactions with iategrated separations such as aminations (ethylene... 

They may be of pharmaceutical interest as the Japanese herb semburi in which they occur is used in... 

As the sensitivity and selectivity of the above GC/MS methods are for many analytes around 1 pg injected into the GC system, cleanup by SiOa fractionation can be omitted when larger sample sizes (25-100 g) are possible. For difficult dry (e.g. hops, pharmaceutical herbs) or oily (e.g. rape seed, fat, liver) materials which start with smaller sample sizes (5-10 g) and tend to overload the chromatographic cleanup systems, however, cleanup is still an important requirement as the GC injection system is vulnerable when the ratio of co-extracted material to analyte is too high. 

More than 4,000 years old, traditional Chinese medicine continues to be widely practiced in China and in western countries. Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that good health is the result of harmony and balance between five basic elements earth, water, fire, wood and metal. Also important to health are the two types of energy Yin and Yang, constituting a vital substance that circulates through the body. Drug therapy has been one of the means used in Chinese medicine to keep these elements and the flow of energy in balance. Many of the same herbs used thousands of years ago in China could be the source of new pharmaceuticals in Western medicine... 

To make a rational decision about a herbal product, it would be necessary to know what it contains, whether it is safe, how it interacts with drugs or other herbs, and whether it has been demonstrated to be as good or better than pharmaceutical products available for the same purpose. For most herbal ingredients this information is incomplete or unavailable. 

Tyler V. (1994). Herbs of Choice. New York Pharmaceutical Products Press. 

The use of herbs has also been fueled by the increased awareness of clinical depression and its treatment as a result of the marketing efforts of major pharmaceutical companies. That effort has transformed prescription antidepressants into one of the largest dollar sales category in pharmaceuticals such that the sales for a block buster antidepressant can be more than 2 billion dollars per year. Not surprisingly, then, herbal remedies or phytomedicine has also become a multibillion dollar industry in the United States with an estimated one in ten Americans having used herbal agents within the past year, with or without their physician s knowledge. 

This book is an authoritative and comprehensive reference guide to a very large number of significant Chinese medicinal herbs. A gold mine of information is available on their chemical constituents and therapeutic applications. This will be extremely useful to a wide range of health-care professionals who deal in one way or another with medicinal plants. The current heated debate regarding the comparative values of traditional herbal preparations and physician-prescribed pharmaceuticals should in no way detract from the value of this book, since Chinese medicinal herbs are not simply useful in herbal form, but also have immense potential for contributing to the development of new pharmaceuticals. 

As herbal remedies grow in popularity, it becomes increasingly important to understand potential interactions between herbs and prescription drugs. Many herbs have powerful effects which may be increased or counteracted by pharmaceutical drugs and vice versa.399 This is equally important to Chinese herbs. However, a major handicap is the lack of sufficient knowledge of chemical components involved in Chinese herbal preparations. 

In the text, herb names are given in Pinyin. The pharmaceutical name of the herb follows the first mention of the herb. 

These are made by extracting the active ingredients of herbs, and preparing and sterilizing them to modern pharmaceutical standards for subcutaneous, intramuscular or intravenous use. 

---