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eCAM Advance Access published online on September 7, 2006
eCAM, doi:10.1093/ecam/nel058
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© 2006 The Author(s).
Received February 26, 2006
Accepted August 4, 2006

Review

Safety of Traditional Arab Herbal Medicine

Bashar Saad 1 *, Hassan Azaizeh 2, Ghassan Abu-Hijleh 3, and Omar Said 2

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

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Bashar Saad, E-mail: bsaad{at}netvision.net.il; bsaad@gal-soc.org


  Abstract

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.
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