Traditional medicine validating

This has stimulated increased scientific study on plants and increased the interest in the validation of traditional medicines and the role that they could play in modem health care systems. The increased public sector pressures to address poverty, illness and disease may give rise to governments recognition that pubhc health care policies and research need to be more inclusive of plants and natural products as vehicles to provide affordable health and nutrition to their citizens in ways that still assure safety and efficacy. 

The chemistry and pharmacology of most African psychoactive plants are unknown. The safety and validation of these plants continues to be assessed with promising outcomes. There remains many opportunities where advances in this field could provide a better understanding of African traditional medicine and the mode of action of these phytochemicals. 

The book is divided into five sections. The overview provides both a foreword and an introduction on the economic value of African Plants and their Products with a focus on Africa. The section Traditional Medicines from Africa provide reviews on the latest uses and medicinal applications of plants mostly from South and West African countries. The section Chemistiy, Pharmacognosy and Validation of Traditional Medicines provides recent advances on science-based validation of traditional uses of African Plants and case studies of African medicinal plants in pharmaceutical preparations and recent new discoveries in natural plant products chemistiy, biology and medicine. The section Quality Control of African Natural Plant Products provides practical information on the quality, chemistiy and proximate analysis, health and nutritional value of a wide array of African plants and products focusing on the development of quality standards. Finally, the last section Applications and Commerciahzation of African Natural Plant Products highlights different uses and apphcations of plants. The book closes with chapters on economic perspectives and models of benefit sharing in Africa. 

According to the WHO, the criteria for evaluating traditional medicines, like those for conventional medicines, are quality (i.e. medicines should be well formulated and possess consistent quality from batch to batch as specified in the official pharmacopoeia chosen as a standard), safety (i.e. medicines should not present risks that are disproportionate to then-benefits) and efficacy (i.e. medicines should be effective for the indications claimed and should be clinically significant and useful). Incidentally, most traditional medicines used in Africa have not yet been subjected to scientific validation vis-a-vis their quality, safety and efficacy. 

YUAN R, LIN Y (2000) Traditional Chinese medicine an approach to scientific proof and clinical validation. Pharmacol Ther. 86 191-8. 

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