An Ayurvedic formulation 'Trikatu' and its constituents.

'Trikatu' is an Ayurvedic preparation containing black pepper, long pepper and ginger, which is prescribed routinely for a variety of diseases as part of a multidrug prescription. These herbs along with piperine (alkaloid of peppers) have been shown to possess diverse biological activities in mammalian systems. A review is presented of these studies and it has been suggested that their use in the Indian system of medicine could be due to their bioavailability enhancing action on other medicaments.