ABSTRACT

Cancer is a hyperproliferative disease, and a cascade of events take place in order to cause a full blown disease. The major events include transformation, dysregulation of apoptosis, proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Meticulous research since the past few decades has yielded much information about the biology of cancer. Drugs used in the treatment of most cancers are those

Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 519 Traditional Complementary and Alternative Medicine .................................................................. 520 Why Herbal Medicines are in Demand? ........................................................................................ 521

Catharanthus roseus ............................................................................................................. 521 Azadirachta indica ................................................................................................................ 525 Bauhinia ................................................................................................................................ 526 Podophyllum ......................................................................................................................... 526 Ocimum ................................................................................................................................ 527 Allium sativum ...................................................................................................................... 527 Combretum ........................................................................................................................... 528 Camptotheca ......................................................................................................................... 528 Withania somnifera L. .......................................................................................................... 529 Taxus baccata ....................................................................................................................... 530 Hippophae rhamnoides ......................................................................................................... 530 Curcuma longa ..................................................................................................................... 530 Zingiber offi cinalis ................................................................................................................ 531 Piper Species ........................................................................................................................ 532 Black Tea .............................................................................................................................. 533 Green Tea .............................................................................................................................. 533 Capsicum .............................................................................................................................. 534 Cannabis sativa .................................................................................................................... 535

From Bench to Bedside .................................................................................................................. 536 Indian Herbal Medicine: Weighing the Pros and Cons for the Journey Ahead.............................. 537 References ...................................................................................................................................... 538

that can interfere with cell signalling, like growth factor signalling, prostaglandin production, in ammation, drug resistant gene products, cell cycle proteins, angiogenesis, invasion, antiapoptosis, cellular proliferation and many others (Aggarwal et al., 2006; Arora, 2010; Arora et al., 2010a,b,c). Herbals have been used in nearly every culture on earth for medicinal purposes. This method of medicine was practiced by various ancient civilizations thriving in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. As modern chemistry developed, chemicals and various constituents were isolated from medicinal herbs. These phytoconstituents have served either as drugs that are being used widely today or as starting materials for their synthesis. Many modern day drugs being used widely have been developed as a result of knowledge obtained from studying the mechanism of actions of various chemicals present in the herbal plants. Thus, we can easily infer that medicinal herbs have played a pivotal role in the expansion of modern medicine and continue to be widely used in their native form as well (Matthews et al., 1999; Sharma and Arora, 2006; Arora et al., 2008). Modern medicines derived from herbs are gaining attention throughout the world today. For example, the transformation of foxglove, a folk medicine, going through digitalis, eventually to a modern drug, digoxin, illustrates potential of modern pharmacology that has played a supportive role in making drugs safer and more effective (Goldman, 2001; Tapsell et al., 2006).