Adaptogen
Adaptogens or adaptogenic substances are used in herbal medicine for the claimed stabilization of physiological processes and promotion of homeostasis. The European Medicines Agency stated in a 2008 reflection paper that the concept requires additional clinical and preclinical research, and is therefore not accepted into current terminology in the EU.
The concept of adaptogens was originally created in 1947 to describe a substance that may increase resistance to stress. Adaptogenesis was later applied in the former Soviet Union to describe remedies thought to increase the resistance of organisms to biological stress.
Most of the studies conducted on adaptogens were performed in the Soviet Union, Korea, and China before the 1980s, and have been partially dismissed for various methodological flaws. The term is currently not accepted in pharmacological, physiological, or mainstream clinical practices in the European Union as it requires further studies and more data. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning in 2013 to a Washington-based company for illegal advertising and false health claims concerning use of the word "adaptogen" for one of its products.
