QUALITY CONTROL OF LUK PRAKOP, A THAI HERBAL COMBINATION

Luk Prakop (abbreviated LPK and pronounced “Loo Brah Kope”) is a Thai herbal combination which has been traditionally used to treat a variety of ailments including musculo-skeletal pain, urinary obstruction, skin aging, inflammation and fungal skin infections.
It contains roughly three to fourteen kinds of herbs, depending on the manufacturer.
A cotton bag containing these herbs is placed on a hot steam pot, which activates the herbs.
It is then pressed, or ‘Prakop’ onto a painful site on the human body for the purpose of pain relief.
It is thought that the active ingredients come from the essential oils of the herbs Phlai (Zingiber cassumunar) and Curcuma (Curcuma longa, Curcuma zedoaria). Because of the varying contents and quality of different herbal formulations, modern investigations require some form of standardization, at least for research purposes.
Quality control can be performed by using a gas chromatography (GC) fingerprint of an essential oil formulation.
For this purpose, GC fingerprints were obtained on specific combinations of LPK in Thailand.

III WOCMAP Congress on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants – Volume 5: Quality, Efficacy, Safety, Processing and Trade in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

P. Nandhasri, K.K. Pawa

herbal massage ball, gas chomatography, Phlai (Zingiber cassumunar), Turmeric, Zedoary

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2005.679.15