Evidence-Based Herbal Medicine

Abstract

Rotblatt M, Ziment I, eds. Evidence-Based Herbal Medicine. Philadelphia: Hanley & Belfus Inc, 2002. The volume of literature on herbal medicines can be overwhelming. The authors of Evidence-Based Herbal Medicine state that clinicians are inundated with data from patients, the media, and the internet and that this material is often confusing because it is based on incomplete or biased knowledge. They maintain that few high quality evidence resources tackle this topic. Rotblatt and Ziment have attempted to meet this need by providing a synopsis of evidence in the field of herbal medicine and offering clinicians “more confident answers to patients' questions about self-administered herbal remedies”.Most of the book addresses the use of 65 herbal medications, most of which are well known to clinicians (and patients), including glucosamine, chondroitin, and melatonin. For each herbal remedy, the authors extensively searched the literature for …