Unani medicinal herbs as potential air disinfectants: an evidence-based review.

IF 3 4区医学 Q2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Reviews on Environmental Health Pub Date : 2021-08-12 Print Date: 2022-06-27 DOI:10.1515/reveh-2021-0087

Shaista Mahfooz, Malik Itrat, Hamid Uddin, Tariq Nadeem Khan

{"title":"Unani medicinal herbs as potential air disinfectants: an evidence-based review.","authors":"Shaista Mahfooz, Malik Itrat, Hamid Uddin, Tariq Nadeem Khan","doi":"10.1515/reveh-2021-0087","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Objectives: Indoor air quality has a significant impact on our health and quality of life, as people spends 80-90% of their time indoors. Fumigation of several medicinal herbs has been recommended by Unani scholars to improve air quality, but their efficacy in air purification is still unknown. Hence, this article aims to discuss the applicability of proposed medicinal herbs in the light of current researches.Methods: A manual literature survey of classical Unani texts was conducted to collect information about the herbs recommended for air purification. In addition, research databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect were extensively searched for evidence on the efficacy and mechanism of action of the suggested herbs in air purification.Results: In classical Unani texts, authors have found descriptions of 26 herbs that have been recommended for improving air quality. In-vitro studies have confirmed the antimicrobial activity of 19 of these herbs. Moreover, the efficacy of Styrax benzoin, Commiphora myrrha and Acorus calamus fumigation on aerial microbes have also been validated by studies.Conclusions: The findings of the literature review clearly demonstrated that the herbs recommended by Unani scholars for air purification have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity, indicating that these herbs could be a potential candidate for air disinfectant. Therefore, authors recommend the further researches on proposed herbs to validate their efficiency against airborne pathogens in the vapour phase.","PeriodicalId":21165,"journal":{"name":"Reviews on Environmental Health","volume":"37 2","pages":"155-168"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Reviews on Environmental Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2021-0087","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/6/27 0:00:00","PubModel":"Print","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 1

Abstract

Objectives: Indoor air quality has a significant impact on our health and quality of life, as people spends 80-90% of their time indoors. Fumigation of several medicinal herbs has been recommended by Unani scholars to improve air quality, but their efficacy in air purification is still unknown. Hence, this article aims to discuss the applicability of proposed medicinal herbs in the light of current researches.

Methods: A manual literature survey of classical Unani texts was conducted to collect information about the herbs recommended for air purification. In addition, research databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect were extensively searched for evidence on the efficacy and mechanism of action of the suggested herbs in air purification.

Results: In classical Unani texts, authors have found descriptions of 26 herbs that have been recommended for improving air quality. In-vitro studies have confirmed the antimicrobial activity of 19 of these herbs. Moreover, the efficacy of Styrax benzoin, Commiphora myrrha and Acorus calamus fumigation on aerial microbes have also been validated by studies.

Conclusions: The findings of the literature review clearly demonstrated that the herbs recommended by Unani scholars for air purification have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity, indicating that these herbs could be a potential candidate for air disinfectant. Therefore, authors recommend the further researches on proposed herbs to validate their efficiency against airborne pathogens in the vapour phase.

查看原文本刊更多论文

Unani草药作为潜在的空气消毒剂:基于证据的审查。

室内空气质量对我们的健康和生活质量有重大影响，因为人们在室内度过了80-90%的时间。乌干达学者建议用几种草药熏蒸来改善空气质量，但它们在空气净化方面的功效尚不清楚。因此，本文旨在结合目前的研究，讨论所提出的中药的适用性。方法:对乌纳尼经典文本进行手工文献调查，收集推荐用于空气净化的草药信息。此外，PubMed、Google Scholar和ScienceDirect等研究数据库也进行了广泛的搜索，以寻找有关这些草药在空气净化中的功效和作用机制的证据。结果:在经典的乌纳尼文本中，作者发现了26种草药的描述，这些草药被推荐用于改善空气质量。体外研究证实了其中19种草药的抗菌活性。此外，苯安息香、没药、菖蒲熏蒸对空气微生物的杀灭效果也得到了研究的验证。结论:文献综述结果清楚地表明，Unani学者推荐的空气净化中草药具有广谱抗菌活性，表明这些中草药可能是空气消毒剂的潜在候选者。因此，作者建议进一步研究所提出的草药，以验证其对气相空气传播病原体的有效性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Reviews on Environmental Health Social Sciences-Health (social science)

CiteScore

7.20

自引率

2.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： Reviews on Environmental Health (REVEH) is an international peer-reviewed journal that aims to fill the need for publication of review articles on hot topics in the field of environmental health. Reviews on Environmental Health aims to be an inspiring forum for scientists, environmentalists, physicians, engineers, and students who are concerned with aspects of human health, including quality of life, that are determined by physiological and psychosociological interactions between man and physical, chemical, biological, and social factors in the environment. Reviews on Environmental Health is an important niche served by no other journal, that’s being a site where thoughtful reviews can be published on a variety of subjects related to both health and environment. One challenge is to bridge the research on environmental causes of disease with the clinical practice of medicine. Reviews on Environmental Health is a source of integrated information on environment and health subjects that will be of value to the broad scientific community, whether students, junior and senior professionals, or clinicians.