Antibiotics is a medicine used mainly to treat or prevent any bacterial infections by inhibiting the growth of the bacteria or the microorganism. The most commonly used antibiotics are the cephalosporins antibiotic, penicillin antibiotics, tetracyclines and many more. The source of these antibiotics are mainly Fungal species. The related drugs of these antibiotics are then derived synthetically. For example, the Cephalosporin developed from Cephalosporin C. a product of Cephalosporium acreminium whereas Cephamycin are synthetic derivatives. These antibiotics mainly act by inhibiting the cell wall synthesis, inhibits the protein synthesis, inhibiting the nucleic acid synthesis and the metabolic pathways in bacteria.
However, the use of any antibiotic must be limited due to their possible toxic or harmful effects. These day-to-day antibiotics have resulted in drug resistant bacteria and some other micro-organisms evolving faster and making it hard to fight against them. The existing antibiotic drugs can be replaced with biomaterials such as herbal medicine with high antimicrobial, antiviral, and antioxidant activity.
With an ongoing trend, the population has inclined towards the herbal and plant derived medicine and products. The herbal medicines being less toxic and less harmful are a choice. A wide range of herbs and herbal extracts have been tested for their antimicrobial and antibacterial actions. Herbal medicines are found to be potent antibiotics. Herbs can be used in the form of plant extracts or as their active component’s. Herbal drugs like carvacrol, eugenol, cinnamaldehyde, thymol, terpenes are found to be potent antibacterial.
Other than these the day to day food ingredients are consumed as preventive antibiotics for example the garlic offers antibacterial potential against a wide range of bacteria and micro organisms. The other food items like the Honey, Ginger, Clove, Onion etc. are a good preventive antibacterials. The herbal antibiotics also do offers a advantage of being present in different dosage forms like the tablets, syrups, capsule etc.
Along with the antibiotic effect the herbs provides the antioxidant, anti-fungal, anti-viral, effects making them wide range herbal medicines. The herbal medicine offering non-toxicity, effectiveness, stability, and potency are a choice of use for use than the synthetics.
Samriddhi Sandiprao Pachpor
M. Pharmacy ( Sem- 3)
Quality Assurance