Are Herbal Products an Alternative to Antibiotics?

Abstract

Medicinal plants have been widely used in the management of infectious diseases and by now, many of the ancient remedies have proven their value through scientific method-ologies. Although the mechanisms underlying most plant-derived remedies are not well understood, the success of herbal medicine in curing infectious diseases shows that many plants have beneficial effects in various bacterial, fungal, viral or parasitic infections. The modern methodologies in the isolation, purification and characterization of the active compounds, has been a great impact for advancing in vitro and in vivo research, this step being crucial for further application in clinical trials. Many plant-derived compounds, for example, quinine and artemisinin, have been already successfully used in healing life-threatening infectious disease. The main limitations of plant medicine healing are lack of standardization and reproducibility of plant-derived products. Despite the paucity of clinical trials evaluating their efficacy, phytotherapy, adult plant uses and gemmo-therapy, the use of embryonic stem cells should be reconsidered as valuable resources in finding new active compounds with sustained antimicrobial activity.