Increased use of herbal medicinal products highlighted

National and foreign scientists said at the 14th Eurasia Conference on Chemical Sciences (EuAsC2S-14)that around 80 per cent of people around the world rely on herbal medicinal products for primary healthcare. They said on Friday that some plants had therapeutic potential to cure the diseases such as Alzheimer.
Tea plays important role in health and nutrition areas and considerably modulate taste feelings. Garlic also has a number of beneficial properties for human health as it possess anticancer and antioxidant activity, according to the scientists who spoke on the second consecutive day of the 4-day international "14th Eurasia Conference on Chemical Sciences (EuAsC2S-14)," being held at the H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi (UoK).
Professor Dr Anwar-ul-Hasan Gilani, Chairman of the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology, said in his lecture that currently many pharmacological classes of drugs included a natural product prototype, which included aspirin, morphine, quinine, reserprine, vincristine etc.
"The use of herbal medicinal products and supplements has increased tremendously over the time," he said, adding that some plants had therapeutic potential in various diseases such as Alzheimer. However, there was sufficient room in therapeutics for newer drugs with better efficacy and safety profile.
Professor Dr Nessar Ahmed (United Kingdome) said that garlic had a number of beneficial properties and reportedly possess hepatoprotective, anti-carcinogenic and antioxidant activity. He said that aged garlic extract protects against a number of disease processes and its ability to protect against doxorubicin-induced toxicity is a major area of investigation in our laboratory.
"Aged garlic extract deserves more attention as it may have therapeutic potential and protect cancer patients from doxorubicin-induced cardio toxicity," he said. Professor Dr Erick J. Dufourc (France), in his plenary lecture, said that Tannins and polyphenols are compounds found in wine and tea, which play important role in health and nutrition areas and considerably modulate taste feelings. Professor Dr Michael Duszenko (Germany), Professor Dr Bruno Figadere (France), Professor Dr Tong-Bu Lu (China) and Professor Dr Macello Iriti (Italy) also delivered lectures; many scientists delivered lectures on different issues.