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Interesting to see how many therapeutics are actually derived from plants in one shape or another, up to 70% Page 12

Why shift to natural products? (A brief account on use of
Phytoconstituents as drugs)
The evidence from history of the use of herbal remedies dated back from the era of
Neanderthal man. The decade of 1960s, just after the thalidomide disaster observed an
increase surge in the use of herbal drugs due to common notion of the time that synthetic
drugs may cause iatrogenic adverse effects (37). Approximately, 75% of the plant based
therapeutic drugs used across the globe and it is surprising to note that 70% of drugs used as
modern therapeutics are discovered from natural resources. Either they used in directly in
their native form after isolation and purification or they a number of synthetic analogues have
been developed from architype phytoconstituents derived from plant sources (38).
When we look the statistics, the number tells us the truth of the importance of natural
products:
• 60% of Anticancer drugs available in market or under trails are derived from natural
products
• 80% of immunosuppressants, cardiovascular, antimicrobials are based on plant sources.
• Around, 25-30% of prescription drugs around the world are originally derived from
natural entities.
• Out of 252 drugs 30 drugs found in essential list of medicines of WHO are derived from
natural sources.
• Ayurveda utilizes around 1200-1800 plants
• Unani system consists of 400-700 medicinal plants
• Siddha uses 500-900 plants