Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence to: Sanjay Gupta, Ph. Chamomile is one of the most ancient medicinal herbs known to mankind. The dried flowers of chamomile contain many terpenoids and flavonoids contributing to its medicinal properties. Chamomile preparations are commonly used for many human ailments such as hay fever, inflammation, muscle spasms, menstrual disorders, insomnia, ulcers, wounds, gastrointestinal disorders, rheumatic pain, and hemorrhoids.
Essential oils of chamomile are used extensively in cosmetics and aromatherapy. Many different preparations of chamomile have been developed, the most popular of which is in the form of herbal tea consumed more than one million cups per day.
In this review we describe the use of chamomile in traditional medicine with regard to evaluating its curative and preventive properties, highlight recent findings for its development as a therapeutic agent promoting human health. The interplay of plants and human health has been documented for thousands of years 1 — 3. Herbs have been integral to both traditional and non-traditional forms of medicine dating back at least years 2 , 4 — 6.
The enduring popularity of herbal medicines may be explained by the tendency of herbs to work slowly, usually with minimal toxic side effects. One of the most common herbs used for medicinal purposes is chamomile whose standardized tea and herbal extracts are prepared from dried flowers of Matricaria species. Chamomile is one of the oldest, most widely used and well documented medicinal plants in the world and has been recommended for a variety of healing applications 7.
Chamomile is a native of the old World and is a member of the daisy family Asteraceae or Compositae. The hollow, bright gold cones of the flowers are packed with disc or tubular florets and are ringed with about fifteen white ray or ligulate florets, widely represented by two known varieties viz.
