Growing interest in natural products and concerns about safety

While the interest in natural products has increased rapidly in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics sectors in recent years, the safety of these products has also become an important issue. Altınbaş University Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Botany, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ebru Özdemir said, “Just because a product is natural does not mean that it has no toxic effects. It has been scientifically proven that products prepared with effective methods from the right plant can only be beneficial when used in the right dose.” Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ebru Özdemir stated that the perception that herbal products are always safe is misleading, “Herbal products obtained from nature contain different chemical compounds in their content. Unconscious or uncontrolled use of these substances can lead to serious health problems. Our citizens need to be very careful, especially against unsupervised products sold over the internet.”

Misuse of herbal products can cause serious harm

Stating that attention is drawn to this issue in the Pharmaceutical Botany and Pharmacognosy courses given at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Özdemir warned that herbal products that are professionally marketed with commercial concerns but are not reliable can cause serious health problems. “For example, in a research we conducted in our laboratory, the toxicity of helichrysum species, known as “immortal flower”, which has anti-aging and cell regenerating effects and is popularly used, was high when we investigated it with some formulation dosages available in the market. Therefore, while preparing our formulation, we tried to find an effective but non-toxic dose according to the results of our cell culture studies.” However, he pointed out that these toxicity tests are not performed in most of the cosmetic products sold in the market and underlined that these products, which are regularly used externally, can also enter the systemic circulation and cause toxic effects in the long term. For this reason, Özdemir reminded that toxicity tests are extremely important in the creation of new herbal product formulations and warned manufacturers to pay attention to this.

From tradition to modern product: Anatolia's herbal heritage

Stating that Anatolian people benefited from the plants found in natural areas before the widespread use of modern medicines, Özdemir said, “The oldest information about the medicinal plants of Anatolia is found in the Materia Medica written by Dioscorides of Anavarza in the first century.” Emphasizing that ethnobotanical research is of great importance for the preservation and transfer of this traditional knowledge, Özdemir added, “Identifying the right plant species and herbarium studies are the basic stages of the natural product development process.” “As Altınbaş University Natural Products Research and Development Center (DÜAGEM), we aim to transform the natural wealth of our country into reliable products,” he added.

Herbarium studies and natural cosmetic products

Providing information about HERA, an internationally indexed herbarium within Altınbaş University Faculty of Pharmacy, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Özdemir said, “The plants that are researched on the way from traditional use to natural products are kept in HERA, an internationally indexed herbarium. We have 2000 different plant species that have been studied for different national and international projects.” Noting that this plays an important role in the protection of herbal richness and research, Özdemir drew attention to the increasing demand for herbal cosmetic products. “As DÜAGEM, we focus on effective and non-toxic formulations of herbal cosmetic products. We aim to obtain reliable and effective natural products with enzyme inhibition studies and toxicity tests, especially in anti-aging products.” Lastly, Özdemir emphasized the importance of scientific researches in order to present natural resources to humanity in the modern age and stated that the studies in this field will continue without slowing down.