A phytopharmaceutical generally consists of a complex mixture of several plant constituents. Under pharmaceutical law (according to § 10 AMG), the totality of the ingredients is the active ingredient of a phytopharmaceutical. By definition, phytopharmaceuticals contain exclusively herbal preparations as active ingredients. Phytopharmaceuticals are the basis of rational phytotherapy.
It makes sense to subdivide the ingredients according to the following criteria:
- Main active ingredient (=effector), which is clearly responsible for the clinical efficacy alone (e.g. atropine in belladonna)
- Active substances and secondary active substances with only efficacy-determining character (e.g. chamazulene in chamomile flowers)
- Accompanying substances (= co-effectors) that are not directly involved in the effect but can have a positive or negative influence on the pharmacokinetics of the active ingredients (e.g. saponins in digitalis leaves)
- Scaffold substances for the structure of the plant cell, which are derived from substances of the primary metabolism e.g. (cellulose)
- Leading substances: substances that are important for phytochemical quality testing are defined as leading substances (regardless of whether they are involved in efficacy)