PHARMACOGNOSY

By Bambang Prajogo E.W., Farmakognosy and Phytochemistry Departement, Faculty of Pharmacy, Unair

Pharmacognosy is the study of medicines from

natural sources.
Derives from the Greek words
pharmakon = drug
gnosis = knowledge
The American Society of Pharmacognosy defines
pharmacognosy as "the study of the physical,
chemical, biochemical and biological properties of
drugs, drug substances or potential drugs or drug
substances of natural origin as well as the search for
new drugs from natural sources".
The study of drugs from plants includes the
subjects of botany, chemistry and pharmacology.
Botany identification (taxonomy), genetics, and
cultivation of plants.
Chemical characterization isolation,
identification and quantification of constituents in
plant material.
Pharmacology is the study of biological effect that
the chemicals in medicinal plants have on cell
cultures, animals and humans.
From a practical perspective, studies in the
field of pharmacognosy includes:
Quality control identity, purity, consistency
Efficacy therapeutic indication, clinical studies,
pharmacological investigations
Savety Adverse reactions, contraindications,
precautions
 PHARMACOGNOSY TODAY
Includes the study of the proper horticulture, harvesting and uses of
the raw medicinals found in nature, identification or authentication
of crude drugs (using macroscopical, microscopical, radiological or
chemical methods), bio-pharmacological and clinical evaluations.
Interdisciplinary broad spectrum of biological and even socio-
scientific subjects:
Botany
Ethnobotany
Marine biology
Microbiology
Herbal medicine
Chemistry (phytochemistry)
Pharmacology
Pharmaceutics
Clinical pharmacy and pharmacy practice related to the evaluation
and clinical uses of medicines from natural sources, as well as their
implications in health care management and public health.
Academic contexts: study of pure, isolated substances of natural
origin, the search for new drugs from natural sources (branch of the
organic chemistry known as "natural product chemistry").
 ISSUES IN PHARMACOGNOSY
Lack of Studies Proving Traditional Uses
United States : the use of herbal medicine has
fallen out of use since the Second World War.
Herbal studies in 20th Century having been
published in languages other than English such as
German, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and
Farsi.
In 1994 the US Congress passed the Dietary
Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA)
 ACTIVE CONSTITUENTS
"active ingredient" phytopharmaceuticals constituent
synergy for their activities.
ginsenosides or hypericin may not correlate with the strength
of the herbs.
poorly characterized or while well-characterized will rely
upon the synergy of otherwise weak principles.
In phytopharmaceutical or herbal medicine the active
ingredient may be either unknown or may require cofactors
in order to achieve therapeutic goals.
standardization to a marker compound.
companies use different markers, or different levels of the
same markers, or different methods of testing for marker
compounds.
Many herbalists believe that the active ingredient in a plant
is the plant itself
 STANDARDIZATION
Providing processed plant material that meets a specified
concentration of a specific marker constituent.
Plant constituents have synergy and even active constituent
concentrations may be misleading measures of potency if
cofactors are not present.
St. Johnswort is often standardized to the antiviral
constituent hypericin hyperforin "active ingredient" for
antidepressant use although there may be some 24 known
possible constituents.
A minority of chemicals used as standardization markers are
known to be active constituents.
Different compounds are chosen as "active ingredients" for
different herbs, there is a chance that suppliers will get a
substandard batch (low on the chemical markers) and mix it
with a batch higher
 QUALITY
Quality in crude drugs or plant medicines depends upon a variety of
factors:
genetically strong seed
correct species
maturity of the plant at harvest
good soils
air quality
Climate
organoleptic factors (intensity of color, flavor and odor)
storage after collection is a factor worthy of study.

In modern times certain constituents are identified and measured.

HPLC, GC, UV/VIS, AAS are used to identify species, measure
bacteriological contamination, assess potency and eventually
creating Certificates of Analysis for the material.
In Germany, the Commission E has produced a book of German
legal-medical regulations which includes quality standards
 SAFETY
"safe" potential dangers to considering the safety of crude
drug a dangerous unknown.
USDA scientist estimates the dangers of herbal medicine
relative to other dangers in the United States as follows:
Herbs 1 in 1,000,000
Supplements 1 in 1,000,000
Poisonous Mushrooms 1 in 100,000
NSAID's 1 in 10,000
Hospital Surgery 1 in 10,000
Car Accident 1 in 5,000
Improper Use of Medication 1 in 2,000
Angiogram 1 in 1,000
Alcohol 1 in 500
Cigarettes 1 in 500
Properly Prescribed Medications 1 in 333
Medical Mishap 1 in 250
Iatrogenic Hospital Infection 1 in 80
Bypass Surgery 1 in 20
 In a 19 year analysis of poison control in the U.S.:
44.6% due to pharmaceuticals
2.4% due to plants (includes exposure to poison ivy,
children eating houseplants and allergic responses). The
vast majority did not involve herbal medicines.
8% of all hospital admissions are due to adverse
reactions to synthetic drugs.
Deaths or hospitalizations due to herbs are so rare that
they're hard to find.
The U.S. National Poison Control Centers does not even
have a category in their database for adverse reactions to
herbs.
Hepatoxicity
where perhaps the strongest case against some herbs lies
the statistic show that over 80% of cases of fulminant
hepatic failure were due to poisoning by freely available
non-prescription NSAID's.
Not one case was due to ingestion of medicinal herbs.
 Poisonous plants :
Which have limited medicinal use are available only to
trained practitioners (Aconite, Arnica, Belladonna,
Bryonia, Datura, Gelsemium, Henbane, Male Fern,
Phytolacca, Podophyllum, and Veratrum)
Secondly, are herbs with powerful actions, often causing
nausea, sweating vomiting,
Third are plants with specific toxicity like hepatotoxic
pyrrolizidine alkaloids like Comfrey or Petasites.
There are other plant medicines which require caution or
can interact with medications including St. Johnswort or
grapefruit.
 HERB AND DRUG INTERACTIONS
Herbs and drugs have been combined for centuries
in Asia and Europe
The disrupted relationship between traditional herbal
medicine and pharmaceutical allopathic medicine in
the United States
Herbal safety show cases that may lack the
appropriate pharmacokinetics to produce the adverse
results inferred.
A study of herb drug interactions indicated that the
vast majority of drug interactions occurred in four
classes of drugs with narrow therapeutic windows,
the chief class being blood thinners, but also
including protease inhibitors, cardiac glycosides and
certain antibiotics like cyclosporin. Antioxidants
interfere with chemotherapy
 St. Johnswort counteracts immunosupressive drugs
and interfere with digoxin and protease inhibitors.
Ginkgo biloba may have anti-platelet effects,
although the results are not clear as it also contains
flavanoids that improve blood function.
Constituents of garlic, peppermint and milk thistle
have been shown to have effects on the CYP3A4
enzymes in vitro.
Many herbs that are listed as "potentiating" merely
have an additive effect, and including laxative herbs
as antagonistic to anti-diarrheal medications is
tautological.
CONFUSION OF CONSTITUENTS
WITH WHOLE PRODUCTS
Crude drug constituents may have an
opposite, moderating or enhancing effect.
When any constituent is isolated it does not
follow that its actions represent the whole herb.
Ephedra has constituents that increase the heart
rate and constituents that decrease it.
The drug ephedrine only used the constituents
that increased the heart rate and had side
effects absent from the traditional preparation of
the herb.
 Studies done Without Proper Identification of
Assay of Plant Materials

Decline in pharmacognosy education herbal research be

done on plants that have not been botanically identified.
Echinacea has been "debunked" in studies where no
attempt had been made to ensure that the species was
proper, the correct part of the plant had been used or that a
standard dosage had been used.
Inaccurate spelling of herb names is not uncommon in
medical literature as all herbalists can attest, but more
frequently there is a complete failure to use proper scientific
nomenclature for botanicals.
Without a validated description of a herb by its binomial
name, the identity of the herb cannot be established.
 Studies Done with Non-Inert
Placebos
The loss of knowledge about the effects of plant
materials clinical trials being done with plant
material designated as "placebo" when in fact it
is not inert.
The placebo was chosen to match the color,
aroma or flavor of an herb when color, aroma or
flavor may be correlated with biochemical
constituents of similar activity.
Example : yellow color correlates with the
presence of berberine, an antimicrobial
compound found in plants ranging from
goldenseal to phellodendron to yellow root
 Standards for Random Clinical Trials
The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) group came
up with standards for random clinical trials (RTC) of herbs in 1996, revised
in 2002.
The tittle/abstract should include the Latin binomial for the plant species
from which the herbal medicine originated, the part of the plant, and the
type of preparation.
The description must include the herbal medicinal product name,
manufacturer, plant part used, type of preparation, source and
authentication of the herbal material, pharmaceutical quality, dosage
regimen and qualitative testing (purity). Also, reporting of the rationale
for the control/placebo used in the trial is recommended.
Report of an RCT of an herbal medicinal product comprising crude
herbal material leaves, stems, root) prepared as a tea or decoction
does not require reporting of the "type and concentration of solvent
used and the plant to plant extract ratio".
with these exceptions, all information outlined in these
recommendations are suggested to be reported for all herbal medicine
interventions
RCTs of herbal medicine interventions report any concomitant
medication, herbal medicinal product, or other CAM use; how the
product used in the trial generalizes to products used in self-care
and/or in clinical practice.
 Indexing Issues and Megastudies

With the rise of megastudies and the advent of

computerized researching
The purported interaction effects are well-known
side effects of phenelzine alone
Significant by tertiary analyses are deemed to be
validated real effects
 Loss of Species
One major source of species loss is the rate of habitat
destruction.
Plant, animal and microbial species are themselves the
sources for some of today's most important medicines and
make up a significant proportion of the total pharmacopoeia.
Scientists have analysed the chemistry of less than 1% of
known rainforest plants for biologically active substances even
smaller percentages of known animals, fungi and microbes.
A high proportion of nonnative species seen as invasive
(kudzu, Japanese knotweed, mimosa, lonicera, St. Johnswort
and purple loosestrife) be harvested for the domestic herbal
medicine market.
Traditional Chinese Medicine crude drugs of plant and
animal origin are used with increasing demand.
 Sustainable Sources of Plant and
Animal Drugs
As species face loss of habitat or
overharvesting, there have been new issues to
deal with in sourcing crude drugs. These include
changes to the herb from farming practices,
substitution of species or other plants altogether,
adulteration and cross-pollination issues.
Pills and capsules are the preferred method of
ingesting medication as they are cheaper and
more available than traditional
The farming of medicinal species has difficulties :
One solution is to farm medicinal animals and plants as a
way of guaranteeing supplies as well as protecting
endangered species.
Farming alone can never resolve conservation concerns, as
government authorities and those who use Chinese medicine
realise.
One alternative to farming involves replacing medical
ingredients from threatened species with manufactured
chemical compounds. Most TCM uses compounds which
may act synergistically.
Tauro ursodeoxycholic acid, the active ingredient of bear
bile, can be synthesised and is used by some Western
doctors to treat gallstones, but many TCM consumers reject
it as being inferior to the natural substance from wild animals.
Thank you