Nutraceuticals

Herbs, vegetables and fruits are being considered to be the potential source for treating and controlling various ailments. "Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food" the tenet by Hippocrates is presently receiving great interest. In this contest the concept of functional food is highly appreciated. Functional foods are "food or food ingredient which provides both health and nutritional benefits." The purpose of the present study is to formulate and evaluate a formulation containing nutraceuticals for prevention and treatment of peptic ulcers. Factors like H.pylori infection, consumption of NSAID's, alcohol, tumors of the acid producing cells, smoking, chewing tobacco contributes for peptic ulcers. It is affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Conventional treatment includes the drugs which reduce the rate of gastric acid secretion, drugs which protects the mucus membrane that lines the GIT or the drugs which eliminates Helicobacter pylori. In most of these cases adverse reactions and incidence of relapse has been observed. The concern is to introduce safer drugs with maximum therapeutic effect, without adverse reactions.