The Herbal Internet Companion: Herbs and Herbal Medicine Online

A comprehensive guide to using the Internet for research into all aspects of herbal medicine! This valuable and timely book will help you navigate the sea of information about herbs and herbal remedies on the Internet. In recent years, alternative medicine has come to the forefront of American culture. As editor David J. Owen points out, "It sometimes seems that not a day goes by without the appearance of another newspaper article or television news item about St. John's wort or Ginkgo biloba. Once confined largely to health food stores, herbal preparations are now prominently displayed on the shelves of modern pharmacies and can be readily purchased via the Internet. They are now widely used to treat a variety of conditions, from depression to sexual dysfunction." Today, a great deal of the most reliable information about herbal medicine is available only in scattered sources like trade journals, pamphlets, conference proceedings, and market research reports. Many of these are available online if you know how to find them. The Herbal Internet Companion: Herbs and Herbal Medicine Online will show you how to find the information you need! This book groups the Web sites and other Internet sources it lists based on the type of information you'll find there, providing you with ways to quickly access information about: criteria for assessing the quality of health information on the Internet consumer/patient needs and frequently asked questions mailing lists, chat rooms, and newsgroups providing herbal information laws, standards, and regulations associations and organizations dealing with herbal medicine consumer protection, health fraud, and quackery clinical trials and evidence about specific products Internet resources in specialized health areas such as cancer and AIDS side effects, adverse reactions, and drug interactions online indexes and databases such as MEDLINE . . . and much more! Complete with easy-to-read tables and charts as well as a glossary of terms you'll encounter on these Web sites, The Herbal Internet Companion: Herbs and Herbal Medicine Online is the resource that puts the power of the Internet in your hands!

David J. Owen, PhD, is Education Coordinator/Librarian for the Basic Sciences in the Library and Center for Knowledge Management at the University of California, San Francisco. He also holds an appointment as Assistant Clinical Professor in the UCSF School of Pharmacy