CRC Press The Role of Phytoconstitutents in Health Care: Biocompounds in Medicinal Plants (Innovations in Plant Science for Better Health)

This informative volume provides new insights with scientific evidence on the uses of medicinal plants in the treatment of certain diseases. It reviews various therapies with herbal phytoconstituents for certain types of disorders, modes of action, and pharmacological screening. It focuses on potential benefits of herbal extracts and bioactive compounds for human health care, provides a comparative phytoconstituent analysis of selected medicinal plants using GCMS/FTIR techniques, and discusses the role of herbal medicines in female genital infections. It goes on to look at the health-boosting properties of cabbage and the functional properties of milk yam (Ipomoea digitata L.). About the Author Megh R. Goyal, PhD, PE, is a Retired Professor in Agricultural and Biomedical Engineering from the General Engineering Department in the College of Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayaguez Campus. He received many awards and honors during his professional career of 45 years for his pioneering work on micro irrigation, evapotranspiration, agroclimatology, and soil and water engineering. A prolific author and editor, he has written more than 200 journal articles and several textbooks and has edited over 60 books. Hafiz Ansar Rasul Suleria, PhD, is the McKenzie Fellow at the School of Agriculture and Food in the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia. He was formerly the Alfred Deakin Research Fellow at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Diamantina Institute, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Australia. He was a research associate in the PAK-US Joint Project funded by the Higher Education Commission, Pakistan, and Department of State, USA, with collaboration of the University of Massachusetts, USA, and the National Institute of Food Science and Technology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan. Dr. Suleria has published more than 80 peerreviewed scientific papers in professional journals and has co-edited several books. Ramasamy Harikrishnan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology at Pachaiyappa’s College for Men (affiliated with the University of Madras), Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, India. He formerly worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology at Bharath College of Science and Management, Tamil Nadu, India; as Research Associate at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Government of India; as a postdoctoral scholar at the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation, South Korea; and as a Research Professor at the College of Ocean Science, Jeju National University, South Korea. He prepared the first cDNA library in a marine kelp grouper, Epinephelus bruneus, and identified 2000 mRNA sequences, and some of which have been submitted to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.