What you should know about herbal medicines

Herbal medicine involves the use of plants, leaves, shrubs, and roots to cure diseases.The increasing use of herbal medicines has raised concerns about the competence, reliability and safety of these unconventional herbs. Because herbal preparations are usually not evaluated for dosage, purity and consistency of active compounds, they often contain contaminants, inclusion of incorrect but […]

Herbal medicine involves the use of plants, leaves, shrubs, and roots to cure diseases.The increasing use of herbal medicines has raised concerns about the competence, reliability and safety of these unconventional herbs.
Because herbal preparations are usually not evaluated for dosage, purity and consistency of active compounds, they often contain contaminants, inclusion of incorrect but toxic species. Moreso, scheduled poisons whether intentional or unintentional have been cited as the causes of herbal adverse reactions or toxicities.
Daily,  people visit or are  being taken to emergency units of hospitals because of reactions to herbal medicines such as  kidney failures/damages, liver cirrhosis, miscarriage among others.
 Patients also substitute conventional medicines for more herbal remedies without informing their doctors. Some herbal medicines reduce the effects of conventional medicines.
Proper documentation of adverse effects of herbs should be initiated and patients should be asked about their use of herbal products in order to evaluate the potential of these products to interact with concurrent prescription medications. The public should be made aware of the adverse effects of herbal products.
Godwin, is a 300 level student of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Maiduguri.