Boswellia Serrata: a Review of its Traditional Uses, Phytochemistry and Pharmacology

Abstract

For most of the developing countries, the main issue of public health is still the acute need for basic health care, which is sadly lacking even at the most elementary level. This is true in both the rapidly growing cities and in the rural areas. The World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that more than half of the world’s population does not have access to adequate health care services. This is due to the fact that poor people neither have access to nor could afford the present health care services. Therefore, innovative alternative approaches are needed to solve this problem. Medicinal plants offer alternative remedies with tremendous opportunities. They not only provide access and affordable medicine to poor people; they can also create income, employment and foreign exchange for developing countries. Many traditional healing herbs and plant parts have been shown to have medicinal value, especially in the rural areas and that can be used to prevent, alleviate or cure several human diseases. One of the important traditional plant used in treatment of various types diseases is Boswellia serrata. In this present review we have given emphasis on the traditional uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology of Boswellia serrata, HPTLC method was used to find out boswellic acid from Boswellia serrata