The history of modern medicine cannot be forgotten, especially when Nutraceuticals have been a trigger point for many modern medicines. Think Fenugreek (Methi), for instance. People used it for diabetes - traditionally for ages! Similarly, the spiny structure at the core of the Sunflower had a long tradition of consumption to treat respiratory infection! This is today extracted as Echinacea… a good natural antibiotic (consumed to prevent flu attack, including Corona!).

Modern medicine is grouded on evidences that are direct, brought out through designed clinical experimental set-up, usually intended to establish treatment outcomes as an end point. However, a notion that has prevailed for long is that Nutraceuticals are no different from Herbal/Ayurveda. Their usage is mostly driven by ‘experience’, with no organized clinical evidence! But, that’s no more true!

The last decade has seen a surge of interest and rising clinical evidences on Nutraceuticals.

“In the thirty-year period from 1977 to 2007 the number of articles dealing with pharmacological and human clinical research on herbs and phytomedicines rose from an annual total of 739 in 1977 to 6,364 in 2007, with a significant number of these papers being review articles and randomized controlled clinical trials”. ¹ For example, on Curcumin, "according to the pubmed database, the first study on its biological activity as an antibacterial agent was published in 1949 in Nature and the first clinical trial was reported in The Lancet in 1937. Although the current database indicates almost 9000 publications on curcumin, until 1990 there were less than 100 papers published on this Nutraceutical”. ²

Thus, modern science is trying to rediscover the wealth of phytomedicines / Nutraceuticals through organized clinical studies to build the confidence of clinicians!

As an example … volume of publication on Curcumin can be exemplified by the following coveted article

Abstract: The current study aimed to provide a comprehensive bibliometric overview of the literature on curcumin, complementing the previous reviews and meta-analyses on its potential health benefits. Bibliometric data for the current analysis were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection database, using the search string TOPIC=(“curcumin*”), and analyzed by the VOSviewer software. The search yielded 18,036 manuscripts. The ratio of original articles to reviews was 10.4:1. More than half of the papers have been published since 2014. The major contributing countries were the United States, China, India, Japan, and South Korea. These publications were mainly published in journals representing the following scientific disciplines: biochemistry, chemistry, oncology, and pharmacology. There was a significant positive correlation between the total publication count and averaged citations per manuscript for affiliations, but not for countries/regions and journals. Chemicals that were frequently mentioned in the keywords of evaluated curcumin publications included curcuminoids, resveratrol, chitosan, flavonoids, quercetin, and polyphenols. The literature mainly focused on curcumin’s effects against cancer, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Cancer types most frequently investigated were breast, colon, colorectal, pancreatic, and prostate cancers.