Botanical Drug Interactions

This book provides a timely overview of important issues related to concurrent consumption of prescription drugs and botanicals especially during the treatment of chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer and arthritis. Few studies have reported increased incidence of botanical-drug interactions (BDIs), which can be beneficial or harmful. This book provides an update of potential BDIs and their consequences during treatments with traditional Chinese medicines, Ayurveda, Japanese, Korean and Western herbal medicines. Recent research account on pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies is also provided. This book provides illustrative case studies and interesting results of research on BDIs between Ayurveda based botanical Tinospora cordifolia and prescription drugs like metformin, cyclophosphamide and methotrexate. This book advocates need for evidence based research on BDIs and highlights major challenges including regulatory perspectives. Biomedical researchers working in the field of pharmaceutical medicine, clinical research, ethnopharmacology, nutraceuticals and therapeutic drug monitoring will find this book very useful.