Synergy Research: A New Approach to Evaluating and Rationalizing the Efficacy of MultiherbalDrug Combinations

Many years of therapeutic experience with herbal drug combinations have shown that they possess in many cases a better efficacy and reduced or no side-effects in comparison with single herbal drugs or single isolated constituents thereof. Molecular biological assays using Berenbaum's isobol-method [1] have revealed that this better efficacy must be due to overadditive or potentiated synergy effects caused by polyvalent and multi-target constituents of the plant extracts, as demonstrated with the phyto-monoextracts of Ginkgo, Hypericum or Cannabis extracts and some multi-extract combinations. The molecular mechanism underlying these synergistic effects can now be elucidated using genomic and proteonomic technology [2]. The same technology can be also useful for the standardization of plant extracts and the proof of their toxicological potential. Synergy research may also promise a future causal therapy for diseases which until now have been treated only through chemotherapy alone. Some examples are given of how such herbal drug combinations, alone or together with synthetic drugs, can be composed for the treatment of cancer and antibiotic-resistant infections. References: [1] Berenbaum M (1989) Pharmacol. Rev. 41: 93–141. [2] Ulrich-Merzenich G, et al. (2007), Phytomedicine, 14: 70–82.