Standardization

Standardization
Standardization is an important step where the active constituents are known.
However, for many herbs the active constituents are not known. In such cases,
products may be standardized on the content of certain marker compounds. How-
ever herbal medicines rarely meet this standard for several reasons, including the
lack of scientific information about the acting pharmacological principles. The var-
iability in the content and concentration of constituents of plant material, together
with the range of extraction techniques and processing steps used by different
manufacturers results in marked variability in content and quality of commercial-
ly available herbal products [68]. The use of chromatographic techniques and
marker compounds to standardize herbal preparations promotes batch-to-batch
consistency but does not ensure consistent pharmacological activity or stability.
Consistency in composition and biological activity are prerequisites for the safe
and effective use of therapeutic agents. But standardization of correct dosage
forms is not always easy, especially in polyherbal preparations or single plants that
are not cultivated under controlled condition. And there is no guarantee that a
product contains the amount of the compound stated on the label [51].