Microbials, kept subjected to several under-doses (mostly) and over-doses from herbal medicine use, are likely to develop resistance to particular drug molecules, which could also be the principle active compounds in some conventional antimicrobials. How far could this be true? Is the future any good? What interventions can be put in place. Please let me know your views
The doses and side effects must be determined for herbal drugs as practiced for english drugs
It is difficult to find information on this subject. A significant majority of research focuses on searching for plant compounds that increase the effectiveness of antibiotic therapy.
Intuitively, it seems that phytochemicals could promote resistance to antibiotics if the target of both substances was the same. Plant extracts are a mixture of compounds with various activities and different target sites, hence the generation of such resistance is less likely. The use of a single substance (e.g. one specific compound with the highest activity, taken from plant extract) seems to be a higher threat.
It is also possible that plant compounds used in unsuitable, too low concentrations (especially before applying antibiotic therapy) could induce the development of microorganisms with physiologically reduced sensitivity to antibiotics, e.g. VBNC (viable but non-culturable) status or formation of persister cells.
More research is being carried out to determine the efficacies of several herbal preparations. In line with answer provided by Mushtaq Ahmad , the optimal doses and side effects for each preparation need to be determined
Good question ;
I think that medicinal plants don't contribute to drug resistance because most antibiotics have microbial or chemical synthesis origin and just few of them come from medicinal plants.
In the other hand, plant extracts act on multi-targets which may avoid or prevent microbial resistance.
No, in fact inappropriate use of medicines such as antibiotics are responsible for anti-microbial drug resistance.
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