Bhanu Kumar

By Bhanu Kumar, Ankita Misra and Sharad Srivastava

Ayurveda is an age old system of medicine which utilizes thousands of medicinal plants, rich in secondary metabolites for their therapeutic benefits and phenolic compounds are important one. Plant phenolic compounds are one of the major group of phytomolecules having tremendous therapeutic and nutraceutical potential. Indian medicinal plants like Emblica, Terminalia spp., Withania, Tinospora etc. are some of the potential source of bioactive phenolics and had been used from ages in various Ayurvedic formulations and were scientifically validated too. In this contribution, a brief account of some common Indian medicinal plants rich in bioactive phenolics are summarized along with their therapeutic action on human health and disease. The vast array of phenolics in these plants makes them a suitable candidate for modern medicine, nutraceutical supplements, immuno-modulatory formulations etc. With the advent of modern separation tools and techniques, it is now possible to identify, isolate and purify desired phytoconstituents from plant extracts. This further opens the avenues of utilizing medicinal plants or plant constituents/metabolites as super food for strengthening the body and maintaining the healthy work-life balance. The need of the hour is to identify therapeutically potential phenolics rich plants and development of herbal formulations for human welfare.

Part of the book: Phenolic Compounds