INFIT publishes a guide to complement conventional treatment with herbal medicine.

Madrid, March of 2013. The Center’s research INFIT (phytotherapy) has developed a guide to help the pharmacist to use phytotherapy as a supplement to conventional treatment for minor symptoms. Guide, which will be presented in INFARMA 2013, can be downloaded on the website www.infito.com. The objective is to strengthen the pharmacist as a health agent in a growth area as of the preparations of medicinal plants, which can help to prevent and treat diseases mild and moderate along with the synthesis drugs.

The guide comes at a time of falling revenue of the Office of pharmacy. In 2012, the pharmaceutical market suffered a decrease of 10% due to measures such as the co-payment, the underfunding or lower prices of medicines, according to the latest data published by IMS Health. This consultant has also revealed that the sale of part of drugs with full charge to the patient has increased, while that of the financed part has waned.

The market of phytotherapy, however, “it just reduced with the crisis, and also has an enormous potential for growth from the Office of Pharmacy”, explains Concha Navarro, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Granada and INFIT President. One of every three Spaniards consume medicinal plants on a regular basis to prevent or treat health problems, according to a survey INFIT. “We intend to reach a part of the population that is not a regular consumer of medicinal plants preparations or even not associated them with the pharmacy, despite being the only channel which offers guarantees of efficacy and safety, and the only one that guarantees a health professional trained in herbal medicine Guide”He says.

The Guide INFIT puts at the disposal of the pharmacists contains, simple and practical indications for adjuvant treatment with preparations of medicinal plants with symptoms and pathologies that are consulted at the pharmacy. It is based on monographs of the EMEA (European Medicines Agency), from which the registration of MTP (traditional medicine of plants) has been developed and is in accordance with the new regulation on food supplements according to EFSA (European food safety agency). Patients want safe, effective solutions and the pharmacist can be a cross Council of Medicine of synthesis with other natural source that is compatible, or that pathology and associated symptoms. The pharmacist has studied medicinal plants during his career and this guide allows you to update this knowledge ”, explains the Professor Navarro.

The role of the pharmacist

Pharmaceutical Council “should be aimed to the patient see that the medicinal plant can be useful to complement the activity of the treatment that you are taking or will acquire, to alleviate possible side effects of the same and to prevent and avoid relapse ”, says Teresa Ortega, Professor of Pharmacology at the Complutense University and INFIT Vice President.

“For example, the pharmaceutical preparations of echinacea may be recommended to increase the defenses in case of cold or flu. Also to those persons seeking any treatment to quit smoking, be could offer them herbs like Passionflower to better reconcile the dream, or glucomannan which has satiating effect, before the appetite that causes the let ”,

herbal medicine is consolidated in the pharmacies in countries such as France and Germanyleaders in sales of medicinal plants, “where have given a more complementary than alternative approach, which contributes to strengthening the role of the pharmacist as a health care agent, in which the patient is confident and he is faithful”, says Professor Ortega.