Although serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) with herbals drugs are very rare events, the occurrence of side-effects is not a rare phenomenon.
A commonly heard argument in favor of herbal medicines is that these products have a longstanding history of traditional use, resulting in considerable experience with and knowledge about their wanted and unwanted effects.
Of course the traditional experience is a powerful tool for the identification of adverse effects which occur in the majority of users and develop rapidly after the start of therapy [1].
Many studies during the last 2 decades have shown that 20-30% of patients experience unwanted effects of herbal drugs and it seems that in ambulant patients this incidence is even higher.
Though herbal medicines have been used since ancient times there is need of safety evaluation. Proper clinical and phamacovigilance study of traditional medicines can ensure their safer use in the patient care [2].
In-light of these observations we planned to evaluate clinically one formulation from Ayurvedicmedicine‘Triphala’(In-house and marketed).
‘Triphala’ is one of the well known powdered preparation (churna) in Indian system of medicine (ISM), being used in Ayurveda since ancient time.
Triphala consists of equal parts of the Emblica officinalisGaerth, Terminalia chebula Retzr and Terminalia belerica Linn.