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Abstract
The longstanding, successful use of herbal drug combinations in traditional medicine
makes it necessary to find a rationale for the pharmacological and therapeutic superiority
of many of them in comparison to isolated single constituents. This review describes
many examples of how modern molecular-biological methods (including new genomic technologies)
can enable us to understand the various synergistic mechanisms underlying these effects.
Synergistic effects can be produced if the constituents of an extract affect different
targets or interact with one another in order to improve the solubility and thereby
enhance the bioavailability of one or several substances of an extract. A special
synergy effect can occur when antibiotics are combined with an agent that antagonizes
bacterial resistance mechanisms. The verification of real synergy effects can be achieved
through detailed pharmacological investigations and by means of controlled clinical
studies performed in comparison with synthetic reference drugs. All the new ongoing
projects aim at the development of a new generation of phytopharmaceuticals which
can be used alone or in combination with synthetic drugs or antibiotics. This new
generation of phytopharmaceuticals could lend phytotherapy a new legitimacy and enable
their use to treat diseases which have hitherto been treated using synthetic drugs
alone.