Herbal Remedies: Use and Demographic and Regulatory Issues

Herbal-based preparations represented about 80% of all drugs in use by the middle of the nineteenth century. At the turn of the century, synthetic drugs dominated as a result of the rapid development in synthetic chemistry and pharmaceutical industry. This expansion of synthetic medicinal chemistry caused the proportion of new drugs based on natural products to drop to about 50%. Today, only about 25% of market drugs are plant based. Nevertheless, herbal-based medicines not only retained their importance, but their popularity has ...