[Phytotherapy between traditional medicine and alternative practices: how much safety and how much efficacy?]

Clinical evaluation of modern phytotherapy is mainly carried out today using the method of meta-analysis. These generally reveal a marked contradiction of the results of individual clinical studies. There are various hypotheses to explain this fact: in the first place the products used are often of a different chemical and pharmacological nature. Secondly, there is the problem of the "phytocomplex". According to this concept, all the components of a medicinal plant, and not only its active ingredient, can influence its therapeutic action, but as generally only the active ingredient is standardized, the other ingredients end up by influencing the quality of the individual preparations in a way that is unknown. In the last place, there is the problem of the actual quality of the individual clinical studies and the possibility of taking the indications conveyed by traditional medicine into account when designing them.