Opšta Medicina (Jan 2020)
Phytotherapy: An alternative way of treating diseases on scientific basis
Abstract
Plants are one of the main sources of nutrition, cosmetics, and medical supplements and drugs. Certain characteristics of plants make them suitable for phytotherapeutic use: easy to access, low cost, and the common perception that they are natural and safe. Although conventional medical therapies have a reliable scientific basis and widespread use, there are several countries, from different socioeconomic levels, where the use of plant-based remedies is legally regulated. Traditional complementary and alternative therapeutic methods (TCAM) or remedy use is prevalent in both acute and chronic health conditions, in about one-third and two-thirds of cases, respectively. Additionally, about one-third of individuals who use phytotherapeutics do not inform their physicians about it. Phytotherapy is the most frequently used TCAM method. If plant secondary metabolites - phenols, polyphenols, tannins and flavonoids, glycosides, terpenes, triterpenoids and saponins, essential oils and resins, fixed oils and alkamides, polysaccharides, alkaloids are used in certain doses for a particular duration of time to counteract certain metabolic processes, we may describe the process as conventional medical practice. On the other hand, plants are also used as remedies in TCAM procedures, according to humoral pathology theory; the contemporary medical method used until the 18th century. Still, we can not describe the process as a conventional medical method because phytochemicals are used to intervene in certain metabolic processes in order to rebalance the humoral disorder and certain elements may repair the disbalance that leads to disease.
