Overview

Antibiotics are used to kill or inhibit bacteria growth. Although you might think of antibiotics as modern medicine, they've actually been around for centuries. The original antibiotics, like a lot of today's antibiotics, are derived from natural sources. Certain plant extracts, essential oils, and even foods have antibiotic properties. For example, some food and vegetable extracts can prevent the growth of bacteria in food. Sometimes, these properties extend beyond the food and can aid in your personal hygiene. Cranberry extract contains both antibacterial and antioxidant compounds, making it a home remedy for urinary tract infections (UTIs). Herbs can be antibiotics, too. A small sampling study of 58 Chinese plants found that 23 had antibacterial properties and 15 had antifungal properties. A 2014 found that an herbal therapy was just as effective as a chemical antibiotic in treating a small intestine bacterial overgrowth disorder. Viruses are responsible for a number of human pathogeneses including cancer. Several hard-to-cure diseases and complex syndromes including Alzheimer's disease, type 1 diabetes, and hepatocellular carcinoma have been associated with viral infections. Moreover, due to increased global travel and rapid urbanization, epidemic outbreaks caused by emerging and re-emerging viruses represent a critical threat to public health, particularly when preventive vaccines and antiviral therapies are unavailable. Examples include the recent emergence of dengue virus, influenza virus, measles virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, and West Nile virus outbreaks. To date, however, many viruses remain without effective immunization and only few antiviral drugs are licensed for clinical practice. The situation is further exacerbated by the potential development of drug-resistant mutants, especially when using viral enzyme-specific inhibitors, which significantly hampers drug efficacy. Hence, there is an urgent need to discover novel antivirals that are highly efficacious and cost-effective for the management and control of viral infections when vaccines and standard therapies are lacking. Herbal medicines and purified natural products provide a rich resource for novel antiviral drug development. Identification of the antiviral mechanisms from these natural agents has shed light on where they interact with the viral life cycle, such as viral entry, replication, assembly, and release, as well as on the targeting of virus-host-specific interactions. In this brief report, we summarize the antiviral activities from several natural products and herbal medicines against some notable viral pathogens including coronavirus (CoV), coxsackievirus (CV), dengue virus (DENV), enterovirus 71 (EV71), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), herpes simplex virus, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), influenza virus, measles virus (MV), and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)

Full Product Details

9798596878554

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available