Antiinflammatory activity of herbal bioactive-based formulations for topical administration

Inflammation is a biological response of tissues in response to the external stimuli, which may have physical, chemical, or biological origin. The various deadly diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disorders present a major challenge to the world’s population. The treatment of these inflammatory disorders allows the use of allopathic drugs like nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). But, this category of drugs is associated with numerous side effects like gastric ulcers and increased formation of blood clots leading to stroke and heart attacks. This is the reason why 80% of world’s population is switching to the herbal alternatives. Although there are many herbal bioactives, only few have reached up to the clinical level. This may be due to the academic-oriented research. But, the combination of these herbal bioactives imparts synergistic effects in alleviating the inflammation that is associated with many chronic diseases, with high biological relevance at comparatively low dose have been observed. The increase in the research and growing interest in the health has proved to be an incentive, as this has led to increased production of nutraceuticals. Through this chapter, an attempt has been made to summarize the inflammation process along with these herbal bioactives.