Local herbs for medication ‘Agbo’, the Yoruba name for herbal medicines, is a concoction prepared from a variety of herbs and; it is one of the most popular herbal preparations taken for various ailments, especially by the native Yoruba people.
There is no doubt that ‘agbo‘ has been in existence for donkey years and has worked various wonders in the human system. The use of herbal medicine is prevalent among Nigerians because it is efficient, acts fast, resistant to pathogenic organisms, cheap and readily available
Herbal medicines are perceived as being natural and therefore safe; however, they are not free from adverse effects, which may be due to factors such as adulteration, contamination, misidentification, lack of standardization, incorrect preparation and dosage
Herbs clean the system but the truth is that this concoction people are taking, some of them have bad effect on the kidney. It can damage the kidney
It is a lot cheaper to prevent kidney damage because once you have kidney damage there is no going back; even those who are rich can’t maintain, afford or keep up with dialysis.
Other causes of kidney disease to include high blood pressure which is the number one causes of kidney disease in Africa and of which many people don’t know that they have it. Apart from blood pressure, diabetics and anyone who has long standing high blood sugar can come down with complications; one of the complications is kidney disease
By their origin, herbs are subjected to contamination by pathogenic microorganisms from the soil, air and water. In addition, microbial contaminants may also be introduced during harvesting, handling, preparation and storage of herbal medicine.
Heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, chromium and iron are constituent of the environment like air, water and soil. Furthermore, they are produced by technical and industrial processes, thus medicinal plant growing in nature may bioaccumulate toxic heavy metals to a certain extent depending on their individual properties and concentration of the heavy metals in soil, air and In addition, high levels of heavy metals can be found in plants when agricultural expedients such as cadmium fertilizers, organic mercury or lead pesticides are used
Pathogenic microorganisms and heavy metals can occur in herbal medicines when prepared with contaminated herbs. The contamination of these herbal medicines reduces the effectiveness and also poses serious health hazard to the consumers. Heavy metals if consumed can accumulate in different organs of the body leading to unwanted side effects while pathogenic microorganisms cause various diseases
Source: Physicochemical and Microbiological Evaluation of Agbo (herbal decoction) Sold in Some Parts of Warri Metropolis, Delta-State, Nigeria Ejukonemu E. Francis, Isiosio O. Isaac
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