Pharmacognostical and Physico-Chemical Standardization of Shatavari Churna: An Official Ayurvedic Formulation.

There is increasing awareness and general acceptability for the use of herbal drug in today's medical practice. Standardization is very much important for establishment of consistency in chemical profile and biological activity for production of herbal formulation. Newer guidelines for standardization, manufacture, quality control and scientifically rigorous research is essential for traditional treatments for its global acceptance. Standardization of herbal formulation is essential in order to assess the quality, purity, Safety and efficacy of drug which is based on amount of their active constituents. In Ayurveda Asparagus racemosus (Liliaceae) is traditionally known as Shatavari which is considered as female tonic and official in Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia as Shatavari Churna. Two marketed formulations and one in-house, laboratory formulation is used for the study. All the formulations were standardized on the basis of organoleptic, microscopical, physical characteristic and physico chemical properties. The phytochemical study shows that the commercial formulation matches with the authentic standards as per WHO guidelines. The inference from this study can be used as reference standard in further quality control researches.