Prunella vulgaris herbal products - diversity and opportunities

The common selfheal, Prunella vulgaris L. (Lamiaceae) is Holarctic in distribution, where the morphological part "spica" is mainly used for treatment of many diseases, e.g., tuberculosis and mastitis. In recent years, interest in the fruit-spike from the medical plant P. vulgaris has been growing worldwide, leading to its inclusion in the European Pharmacopoeia in 2017.

The focus of this study is the products containing herbal drugs and/or herbal preparations of common selfheal, established from publicly available databases [1] [2]. They have been analyzed to determine their diversity, active substances and application.

Over 50 herbal products have been identified. The main application of the established dietary supplements (52%) is as immunostimulants and in the treatment of skin diseases and superficial wounds, which corresponds to part of the experimentally established in the last decade antibacterial, antiviral, immunomodulatory etc. properties. Several types of cosmetic products (41%) have been identified during the study where herbal preparations from P. vulgaris are used as a core ingredient in cleansing gels, hair balsams, in baby herbal cosmetic series with anti-inflammatory and antiallergic properties etc.

The analysis of the data and the absence of registered herbal medicinal products shows Prunella vulgaris as a herb with potential for the development of medicinal products.

The authors declare no conflict of interest

• References

• 1 Bulgarian drug agency www.bda.bg (accessed 10.06.2021).
• 2 Cosmetic ingredient database. https://ec.europa.eu (accessed 10.06.2021)

Publication History

Article published online:
13 December 2021