REVIEW ON TRADITIONAL USES, PHYTOCONSTITUENT & PHARMACOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF EMBELIA RIBES

Abstract

Herbal drugs are in great demand in the developed world for primary health care because of their efficacy, safety and lesser side effects. ? The World Health Organization (WHO) recently defined traditional medicine (including herbal drugs) as comprising therapeutic that have been in existence, often for hundreds of years, before the development of modern medicine and are still in use today. The traditional preparations comprise medicines which primarily use medicinal plant preparations for therapy. Embelia ribes is most widely used in traditional herbal medicine in India. The fruits of Embelia ribes reported to contain mainly benzoquinone derivatives such as Embelin and Vilangin. The dried fruit has been used in India since ancient times as an anthelmintic. Embelia ribes has been shown to possess astringent carminative, stimulant, antioxidant, anti-spermetogenic, anti-bacterial and anticancer activity. The plant Embelia ribes contains embelin, quercitol, and fatty ingredients, christembine, resinoid, tannins and minute quantities of a volatile oil.