Pharmacognostical, Physico-Chemical and Phyto-Chemical Standardization of Cichorium intybus L. seed

Alternative and traditional medicines, largely herbal in nature, are now regarded as important but underutilized tools against disease. WHO recognized this fact and encouraged governments to effectively utilize local knowledge of herbal medicines for disease prevention and health promotion. Herbal medicines, however, suffer from a range of shortcomings. These include insufficient and unacceptable evidences of safety, efficacy, standardization and inconsistent production practices. There is a growing concern for documentation of research work carried out on traditional medicines needed for regulatory control. With this backdrop, it becomes extremely important to make an effort towards standardization of plant material used for therapeutic purposes. The process of standardization can be achieved by stepwise pharmacognostical, phyto- and physico-chemical studies and minimizing the inherent variation of natural product composition through quality assurance practices. WHO recommends various physicochemical and phyto-chemical evaluation parameters for standardization and quality control of herbal medicinal plants. In view of ethnopharmacological importance of Cichorium intybus Linn, preliminary phyto-chemical screening and quantitative estimation of seed were performed along with morphology and microscopy to establish the salient diagnostic characters. The characteristics evaluated will be helpful for establishing quantitative and qualitative standardization of herbal preparations containing Cichorium intybus seed.