Commonly treated health conditions
Biodiversity, traditional medicine and public health: where do they meet?
Traditional medicine (TM) is a comprehensive term used to refer both to systems such as traditional Chinese medicine, Indian ayurveda and Arabic unani medicine, and to various forms of indigenous medicine. In countries where the dominant health care system is based on allopathic medicine, or where TM has not been incorporated into the national health care system, TM is often termed "complementary", "alternative" or "non-conventional" medicine [1]. The links between TM and biodiversity are exemplified by a long tradition of healing powers associated with the earth's natural systems, whether this entails medicinal plants and animal species, the ambient salubrious air, spring water or the natural scenery. The pharmacopoeia of folk seties as well as professional medical systems like Chinese, Ayurvedic, Unani and biomedicine contain thousands of medicines made from leaves, herbs, roots, bark, animal, mineral substances and other materials found in nature [2,3].
The interconnections between TM and the biotic environments may be seen in the health benefits derived from the existence of a full complement of species, intact watersheds, climate regulation and genetic diversity, as well as through our fundamental needs for food, water, clean air, shelter and relative climatic constancy [4]. Discussions of the links between TM and biodiversity therefore are imperative [5], particularly when considering the importance of the importance of former as a source of primary health care to 80 percent of the world's population [6].
Connections between environmental and human health have been addressed by authors such as McMichael and Beaglehole [7], who remarked that a) the sustained good health of populations requires enlightened management of our social resources, economic relations, and of the natural world, and b) that many of today's public-health issues have their roots in the same socioeconomic inequalities and imprudent consumption patterns that jeopardize the future sustainability of health. In the same context, Lebel [8] argued that the biomedical approach to health is based on methods of diagnosing and treating specific pathologies: one pathogen = one disease, an approach that does not take into account the connections between disease and socioeconomic factors such as poverty and malnutrition, and even less of the connections between disease and the environment in which sick people live. Read more here...http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/3/1/14