Immunomodulatory Plant Extracts and their Compounds: Evaluation of your Safety

Abstract

Medicinal herbs are being in use for the management of human health and for prevention as well as to cure human diseases since ancient civilization. In recent times, the use of herbal drugs has been increased in both developed and in developing countries, because the huge chemical, pharmacological and clinical knowledge of plant drugs and their derivatives, the development of new analytical methods for quality control, the development of new forms of preparation and administration of plant drugs and their derivatives and finally the relatively wide therapeutic margins with less frequently adverse effects. However, naturals are not a synonym of innocuous as many adverse effects can occur. Because of this, medicinal plants need to be studied and effective and innocuous doses have to be established. Nowadays, immunomodulatory drugs have gained a main role principally as consequence of COVID-19 produced by SARS-CoV-2 virus.Some South American plants frequently used in Argentine folk medicine such as Larrea divaricata and Ilex paraguariensis and other used over the world like Tilia spp. and Coffeea Arabica are known to exert immune enhancing effects. In this review we discussed some reports about the immunological effect of the mentioned plants and their majority compounds focusing in their efficacy and safety.