Meyler's Side Effects Of Herbal Medicines

Description:
Elsevier now offers a series of derivative works based on the acclaimed 'Meylers Side Effect of Drugs, 15th Edition'. These individual volumes are grouped by specialty to benefit the practicing physician or health care clinician. Herbal Medicines are popular with consumers and patients who often assume that they are natural and therefore safe. However, herbal medicines undoubtedly have adverse effects and patients often do not discuss their use of herbal medicines with their doctors, and the risks are not always addresses. This book summarizes the adverse effects of a large range of herbal medicines and the active ingredients that they contain. It includes extensive lists of the families of plants that are used as herbal medicines, including the Latin names of genera and species as well as the common names of individual plants. It features not only herbal medicines but information on important compounds such as tropane alkaloids, cardiac glycosides, nicotine, and pyrolizidine alkaloids. The material is drawn from the 15th edition of the internationally renowned encyclopedia, 'Meyler's Side Effects of Drugs', and the latest volumes in the companion series, 'Side Effects of Drugs Annuals'. This volume is critical for any health professional or homeopathic practitioner with an interest in herbal medicines. It surpasses the 'Physician's Desk Reference[copyright] by including: clinical case studies and independent expert analysis; complete index of drug names; and, most complete cross referencing of drug-drug interactions available. The book is divided into three separate sections: Family - each monograph is organized under a family of plants (For example Liliaceae); Genera - the various genera that are included under the family name are tabulated (For example the family Liliaceae contains 94 genera); and, Species - in each monograph, some species are dealt with separately. For example, in Liliaceae, four species are included under their Latin names and major common names. Each monograph includes the following information in varying amounts: alternative common names; active ingredients; uses - both traditional and modern; adverse effects; and referencese. Drug names have usually been designated by their recommended or proposed International Non-proprietary Names (rINN or pINN); when those are not available, clinical names have been used. In some cases, brand names have been used.

Review:
Increasing global interest in herbal medicines creates a serious need for truly objective data, not only on their efficacy, but also their side effects and interactions. The encyclopedic Meyler's Side Effects volumes and their associated Annuals have since 1977 done much to meet this need. Now, with the publication of Meyler's Side Effects of Herbal Medicines this unbiased evidence is made available to a much broader audience - superbly documented and indexed. Wherever herbal medicines are widely used, this volume deserves to be readily accessible. - Prof. M.N. Graham Dukes University of Oslo, Norway. This edition gives a systematic view of adverse effects of herbals and has been published as a reference to health professionals and homoeopathic practitioners in understanding the effects of herbal Drugs. The book is up to now the only drug guide that includes clinical case studies and expert analyses. The volume contains monographs on individual herbal products structured in the following manner: Plant family, Genera, Species, Alternative common names, Active ingredients, Uses (including traditional and modern uses), Adverse effects and References. The material collected from clinical case reports and some systematic clinical studies shows, that herbal medicines have the potential to elicit the same type of adverse reactions as synthetic drugs. 'Side Effects of Herbal Medicines' is a book which can be recommended as a valuable reference book for all pharmacists, doctors in private praxis and hospitals, health professionals and homoeopathic practitioners. Further this book offers extensive information on herbal medicines for anyone with an interest in scientifically solid phytotherapy. --Prof. Dr. Hans D. Reuter, Koln

Author Biography:
Dr Jeffrey K. Aronson is a consultant clinical pharmacologist and physician in the Department of Primary Health Care in the University of Oxford and a consultant physician in the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust. He has been associated with the Meyler series since 1977 and has published many research papers on adverse drug reactions. He is also the editor of Meyler's Side Effects of Drugs and the Side Effects of Drugs Annual series. He is President of the British Pharmacological Society and serves on many committees concerned with drug therapy, including the Technology Appraisal Committee of the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the Joint Formulary Committees of the British National Formulary and the British National Formulary for Children.