Traditional & Alternative Medicine

The increasing use of herbal medicines has raised concern with regards to the effi cacy and safety of the products. Several examples on the harmful eff ects of herbal preparations have been reported. Several other medical issues were such as the compatibility of one herbal preparation with other drugs or herbal preparations, dosages, as well its true medical values, since very few comprehensive clinical evaluations were done on these products. In order to help the public understanding on the true benefi ts or potential harmful eff ects from the herbal products, suitable analyses method of the contents need to be established. Several methods have been in use to standardize herbal products such as the use of High Performance Th in Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) and High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). New paradigm and perhaps new technology are required in ensuring the safety and effi cacy of these herbal products. In this presentation the author wishes to discuss a simple, fast and precise quantitative TLC method which has been developed for quantitative estimation of mangostin in young and ripe pericarp extract of Garcinia mangostana. Early study on the approaches taken up by the Pharmaceutical Research Laboratory in developing towards this goal will be highlighted.