Alternative medicine has renewed its growing public interest in recent times due to inequality of patients and healthcare professionals’ ratios with increased workload for the latter, various side effects of modern medicine, lack of complete remission from chronic diseases, high cost of new drugs, and emerging new diseases. Hence, people have become more dependent on treatment systems replying on alternative medicine or herbal medicine from traditional medicinal practitioners. Alternative medicine has grown substantially over time and encompasses several millennia of therapeutic systems. The significant areas of alternative medicine include mind–body therapies, body manipulation, and the therapies based on biological systems. Natural products based biological treatment is the most popular of them as nature has endowed us with abundance of effective pharmacologically active phytochemicals. These phytochemicals possess numerous specific clinical health benefits including antioxidant, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, anti-infectious and analgesic effects. In addition, alternative medicine is easily accessible, affordable, most often noninvasive, and provides favorable benefits during terminal periods of some diseases. However, due to the lack of well-designed clinical trials, the safety and effectiveness of many alternative medicines/therapies remains elusive. This chapter will critically discuss major areas, uses, safety and regulation, current challenges & future perspectives of alternative medicine.

Message The Nature works through herbs to trigger the healing mechanisms of the body and mind to restore health.

 This program discusses modern herbal science practices while considering the influence of different cultures, also cupping therapy traditional and modern techniques

 Herbal recipes are prepared to treat various ailments based on the major systems of the body.

The program also covers the basic principles of growing herbs, how they are dried, stored and cooked, as well as the manufacture of flowers, oils, and ointments. Teaches how to prepare and use herbs to make medicinal substances that can work in harmony with the human system for health and recovery.