Medicinal Plants Related Journals

 Medicinal plants are used all over the world, and the procedures defining their proper use, such as identification of the exact species and authentication of the presence, purity and concentration of the essential chemical compounds, are frequently recognized. Herbal medicines are made from vegetal drugs, the treated products of medicinal species. These treated materials prevailing a number of contests in terms of botanical identification, and giving to the World Health Organization (WHO), the use of improper species is a threat to consumer safety. Identification of the trials in this study by DNA barcoding revealed that the level of replacements may be as high as 71%. Using qualitative and quantifiable chemical analyses, this study recognized conditions in which the correct species was being traded, but the chemical compounds were not present. Even more worrying, some trials identified as substitutions using DNA barcoding contained the chemical compounds from the correct species at the minimum required concentration. This last situation may lead to the use of unknown species or species whose safety for human consumption remains unidentified. This study determines that DNA barcoding should be used in a complementary way for species identification with chemical examines to detect and count the required chemical compounds, thus improving the quality of this class of medicines.