European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

A PHARMACOLOGICAL APPRAISAL ON TRADITIONAL HERBS WITH CARDIOPROTECTIVE POTENTIAL

*J. Nisha, Jeeva Gladys R. and Indu Purushothamman

ABSTRACT

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the challenging disease and it is increasing at an alarming rate due to changes in lifestyle and dietary habits, lack of physical exercise, environmental changes, increased physical and mental stress. The main risk factors of cardiac disease include anxiety, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis. Siddha system of medicine highly emphasise upon the principle of ―Prevention is better than cure‖. According to American Heart Association, cardio vascular disease like heart attack and stroke are considered to be no.1 killer diseases of both men and women and death rate is about 36% per year. According to WHO, herbal medicines are safe, effective and possess easily available products for the management of cardiac diseases. More than 2000 plants have been mentioned in traditional system of medicines and providing better results for cardiovascular diseases. Hence, the present review focuses on scientific evaluation of selective herbs that have been mentioned in traditional Siddha literature towards alleviating cardiac disease.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease, Atherosclerosis, Herbal medicine, Cardioprotective action, Traditional medicine.