Metabolomics applications in herbal medicine

Abstract

Metabolomics analytics focuses on the concomitant measuring of a vast array of small molecule metabolites in a biological sample. These approaches are heavily technique-driven, and have recently been increasingly utilized within the context of herbal medicine. Metabolomics analytics has been used to identify composition or origin of an herbal supplement, or to investigate clinical safety and efficacy responses in animals and humans following treatment with herbal products. Two main approaches-mass spectrometry preceded by either liquid or gas chromatographic separation, and nuclear magnetic resonance-are the most widely used techniques, and the development of instrumentation will be the driving force in terms of analytical accuracy when developing “end-points” or “biomarkers” for the clinical use of herbals or any other therapy.