Ethnopharmacology and Toxicological Profiles of Anti-Inflammatory and Analgesic Herbs

Inflammation in the body might be viewed as a cascade (driven by the immune, vascular, and signaling systems) whenever the body is affected by some foreign agents. This cascade boils and terminates at activated repair mechanisms when the host detects the offending stimulus. The persistence of states of drug resistance and toxicological effects in the human body stimulates the search for new therapeutic agents that can combat inflammation and analgesia. Ethnopharmacological research of plants with traditional uses as anti-inflammatory and analgesic agents demonstrates an extensive variety of bioactive constituents that have been utilized traditionally by various tribal communities to alleviate pain and restrain the inflammatory processes. Phytochemical analysis of these ethnomedicinal herbs has revealed that be contain secondary metabolites such as curcumin, ursolic acid, escin, withaferin A, etc., often showing the ability to inhibit important inflammatory mediators, viz., cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), and pro-inflammatory cytokines, e.g., TNF-α and IL-1β.