Herbal Drug Adulteration: A Hindrance To The Development Of Ayurveda Medicine

Ayurveda has gained popularity in recent years. People have developed an interest in traditional medicine due to the side effects of synthetic drugs. Herbal drugs being the base of traditional medicine and are useful in medicine and cosmetics preparations. With the increase in demand of herbal preparations malpractice and problem of adulteration is also increased. Adulteration is both accidental and intentional. Accidental adulteration is due to wrong identification of drug, whereas intentional adulteration is to earn more profit. Among these intentional adulteration is more troublesome regarding the safety issue. Examples are Japanese ginger (Zingiber mioga) used to adulterate medicinal ginger (Zingiber officinale), Kampillaka powder is adulterate with brick powder etc. Extinction of many species due to deforestation and incorrect identification of plants are the main reason for adulteration. Adulteration of herbal drug has become hindrance to the further development of Ayurveda medicine. It affect the trust of people in Ayurveda medicine by reducing the efficacy of drugs. Hence this paper is an attempt to understand all the ways of adulteration and different measures to overcome these problems thereby, farmers of our country will get economic benefit by cultivating original species which will help to increase the safety of herbal preparations.