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eCAM Advance Access originally published online on September 7, 2006
eCAM 2006 3(4):433-439; doi:10.1093/ecam/nel058
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© 2006 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commerical use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Safety of Traditional Arab Herbal Medicine

Bashar Saad1,2, Hassan Azaizeh1, Ghassan Abu-Hijleh2 and Omar Said1

1 The Galilee Society R&D Center (Affiliated with Haifa University Haifa, Israel), PO Box 437, Shefa-Amr 20200, Israel, and 2 Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, Arab American University Jenin, PO Box 240, Jenin, Palestine

Herbal remedies are widely used for the treatment and prevention of various diseases and often contain highly active pharmacological compounds. Many medicinal herbs and pharmaceutical drugs are therapeutic at one dose and toxic at another. Toxicity related to traditional medicines is becoming more widely recognized as these remedies become popular in the Mediterranean region as well as worldwide. Most reports concerning the toxic effects of herbal medicines are associated with hepatotoxicity although reports of other toxic effects including kidney, nervous system, blood, cardiovascular and dermatologic effects, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity have also been published in the medical literature. This article presents a systematic review on safety of traditional Arab medicine and the contribution of Arab scholars to toxicology. Use of modern cell biological, biochemical, in vitro and in vivo techniques for the evaluation of medicinal plants safety is also discussed.

Keywords: Arab herbal medicine – complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) – in vitro – in vivo – toxicity tests

For reprints and all correspondence: Prof. Dr Bashar Saad, The Galilee Society R&D Center, PO Box 437, Shefa-Amr 20200, Israel. Tel: +972-4-950-45-23/4; Fax: +972-4-950-45-25; E-mail: bsaad{at}netvision.net.il/ bsaad{at}gal-soc.org


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