Emerging Trends in the Quality Check of Herbal Medicines, Supplements and 'Botanicals'

The field of herbal medicines, supplements, and botanicals is experiencing significant growth due to the increasing global demand for natural health products. This surge in popularity is driven by consumers' perception of the health benefits these products offer. However, the rapid expansion of this market has raised concerns about the quality, purity, and safety of these products. Ensuring these attributes is crucial, as they directly impact consumer health and trust. Recent studies have highlighted the challenges in standardizing quality checks for herbal products, given their complex and varied compositions. While traditional analytical techniques such as High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) have been employed, there is a growing need for more advanced and reliable methods. Current research is exploring the integration of spectrophotometric techniques like UV, IR, and NMR to enhance the accuracy of quality assessments. Despite these advancements, there remains a gap in identifying the most effective techniques for different herbal matrices and the development of sustainable alternatives.

This Research Topic aims to explore and discuss emerging trends in the quality assessment of herbal medicines, supplements, and botanicals. The primary objective is to evaluate various analytical techniques, compare their effectiveness, and identify the best practices for ensuring the quality and safety of these products. Additionally, the research will focus on the identification of quality markers and the exploration of innovative, sustainable techniques. The project will also address the management of data and databases related to herbal medicines, ensuring compliance with established best practices in ethnopharmacology.

To gather further insights in the quality assessment of herbal products, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

- Comparative analysis of chemical and spectrophotometric techniques for quality assessment.
- Identification and validation of quality markers in herbal products.
- Development of sustainable and innovative analytical methods.
- Challenges and solutions in standardizing quality checks for diverse herbal matrices.
- Management and utilization of data and databases in herbal medicine research.

Additionally, please note that all the manuscripts submitted to this project will be peer-reviewed and will need to fully comply with the Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version here). We also expect that the MS follow the standards established in the ConPhyMP statement Front. Pharmacol. 13:953205.