Abstract
The trend of consuming herbal medicines has been increasing over the past three decades. No less than 80% of the world's population has used herbal medicines as a treatment. One of the problems in herbal medicine is the high level of microbial contamination caused by raw materials and production processes. Various attempts have been made to overcome these problems, one of them is the gamma irradiation method. Although irradiation has been widely used for food sterilization, the use of irradiation for sterilization on herbal medicines is still debated. It is because irradiation may affect the composition of active compounds of herbal medicines. This review aimed to discuss the applications of gamma irradiation for herbal medicines by emphasizing the chemical constituent stabilities of herbal medicines.
Highlights
Microorganism contaminations canThe consumption of herbal medicines and supplements has been increasing rapidly over the past three decades
In 2014, the total global market of herbal products and medicinal plants were estimated at USD 33 billion with an annual average growth rate (AAGR) of 2.4% in volumes and 9.2% in values of export (Vasisht et al, 2016)
Gamma irradiation has the following advantages, namely cold process and strong penetrative power; it may be performed on the product as a final technological stage or final packaging; avoiding the possibility of recontamination or re-infestation; it can be applied to products through any type of packaging materials including paper, plastic, wood, etc.; environmentally friendly process; it leads to safe products by effective expulsion of biological indicators; cheap and fast treatment (Ghisleni et al, 2016)
Summary
The consumption of herbal medicines and supplements has been increasing rapidly over the past three decades. Since 2017, Irradiator Gamma Merah Putih, one of the government irradiator facility in Indonesia, has provided food irradiation services at an average of 1,000 tons per year including food, spices and herbal products. The use of gamma irradiation for preserving herbal has been increasing, while it can reduce the level of microbial contamination effectively. Gamma irradiation has the following advantages, namely cold process and strong penetrative power; it may be performed on the product as a final technological stage or final packaging; avoiding the possibility of recontamination or re-infestation; it can be applied to products through any type of packaging materials including paper, plastic, wood, etc.; environmentally friendly process (no use of pollutant agents, no generation of undesirable residual products, no penetration of toxic substances in treated products); it leads to safe products by effective expulsion of biological indicators; cheap and fast treatment (Ghisleni et al, 2016). This review aims to discuss the applications of gamma irradiation for herbal medicines with an emphasis on the chemical constituent stability of herbal medicines
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