Herbal Antimycotics and Their Prospects in Therapeutics

Abstract

Herbal antimycotics are being researched as antimicrobials to treat antibiotic-resistant fungal infections and as food preservatives (against food spoilage and mycotoxigenic fungi). Several antimycotic herbal compounds including cinnamaldehyde (in cinnamon, camphor, and cassia oils), carvacrol (in oregano, thyme, thymus and ajowan oils) and citral (in lemongrass, verbena, and citronella oils) inhibit yeasts and molds in microgram concentration. Their therapeutic use is still limited because of several biological, chemical, and pharmaceutical reasons. The dearth of long-term toxicity studies, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics data, verifiable clinical trials data (at various stages of drug development), quality control, standard testing and preparation protocols, reference values and pharmacopoeia. Thus, proclaiming herbal antimycotics as future drugs either as an alternative or as a complementary therapeutic agent is still farfetched dream to come true.