Immunodmodulation: herbal perspective and investigations-A review

Abstract

Immunomodulation had been in application in medical systems and the traditional Indian systems like Ayurveda. It has various applications in medicine for altering the defence of the body that is immunity. A lot of conditions that require immunomodulation are supported by drugs for immune suppression and immune stimulation. They are often called as immune suppressants and immune stimulants. There are other class of drugs, immune adjuvants. Synthetic drugs are notorious for causing side effects and the herbal alternatives had been investigated for the activity. So the herbs stand as the alternatives for the synthetic drugs in better treating the disease that concern the immune system. The inconsistency of the in-vivo response of the immunity, with the phytochemicals, is also a limiting step for their effective usage as immunomodulatory agents when it comes to practical application. Overall, herbs had been supplying the chemical constituents that can be used directly or in the purified form as immunomodulatory agents. This review is the segregation of the various methods available to perform the screening of the drugs and extracts for immunomodulatory activity. This paper also enlists various herbs used for immunomodulation and had been proven for the same recently from 2010 to date.