The Everything Guide to Herbal Remedies (2 page)

3.
Visit an herb shop and check out the bulk herb section. Open each jar, give it a good sniff, and go home with at least one bag of dried plant matter (see
Chapter 19
for tips on what to do with it).

4.
Ease yourself to sleep with a massage using lavender essential oil (you might need a partner for this one).

5.
Add some digestion-friendly flaxseeds to your oatmeal.

6.
Take a walk (and some lemon balm) the next time you’re feeling stressed.

7.
Give your hair color a boost with a rinse made with chamomile or black tea.

8.
Substitute a cup of mate or rooibos tea for your usual morning coffee.

9.
Replace your bath bubbles with a few drops of rose essential oil.

10.
Skip the colds this winter with astragalus.

Introduction

HERBAL MEDICINE WAS, until fairly recently, the only kind of medicine. Since human beings started recording their history—and probably long before that—nearly every imaginable remedy came from plants.

Yet somewhere along the line, medicine took a turn away from herbalism, and the two have been running on parallel tracks ever since. While “conventional” once was synonymous with “herbal,” it gradually came to mean something completely different.

As doctors and scientists began to make the connection between chemistry and disease, plants were scrutinized and synthesized and eventually replaced by pharmaceuticals, which could deliver swifter and more powerful results. Herbal remedies fell by the wayside, regarded by most people as quaint and folksy, something left to the fringe of modern medicine.

Yet as we developed more and more powerful weapons against disease—things like chemotherapy and radiation, steroidal painkillers and antibiotics—many people began searching for something else. What if you didn’t need the big guns of conventional medicine? What if you didn’t have cancer or cardiovascular disease and just wanted to avoid getting the flu? Or to stave off problems like cancer and heart disease before they even began?

Enter herbs—again. Unlike conventional drugs and treatments, herbs can treat chronic and acute conditions, but they’re also effective tools for maintaining overall health. Many herbs boost the immune system; others naturally regulate hormone levels or lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

The traditions of herbal medicine are grounded in a basic belief: that the body is naturally healthy and balanced, and that it can remain that way—or be eased back into its balanced position—through the judicious use of remedies like herbs. Like human beings, plants are natural and complete organisms that have adapted and survived over the millennia by developing natural defenses against their enemies. Herbal medicine harnesses those properties to create remedies that can help you, too.

The last several years have seen a resurgence of herbal medicine, as millions of people search for gentle, natural alternatives to conventional medicine. Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 65 percent of people worldwide rely on herbal medicines for some aspect of their primary health care. In Germany, roughly 600 to 700 plant-based medicines are available and are prescribed by approximately 70 percent of German physicians. Herbal remedies are recognized as legitimate forms of medicine in most countries today.

In the United States, herbalism is classified as a type of complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM, a group of practices that can be used as adjuncts to conventional medical care. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) now support clinical trials on specific herbs. Millions of Americans—more than a third of all adults—are using herbs and other types of CAM. NCCAM reports that roughly one-fifth of U.S. adults incorporate herbs and other natural agents into their health care routines. Of the most commonly used products, nine out of ten were herbs (the only nonherb was fish oil).

Yet herbs and herbal remedies are the subject of much debate, as herbal practitioners, medical doctors, scientists, and politicians wrestle with some important questions: How should herbs be treated? Are they drugs, comparable to prescription and nonprescription pharmaceuticals? Or are they dietary supplements, a kind of glorified food product more like vitamins and minerals? Should herbs be completely deconstructed, with each individual compound identified and quantified? Because they contain so many chemicals, each with a specific action that can trigger complex physiological responses—and potentially create side effects or problems when combined with conventional drugs—should herbal products carry warning labels? Officially, herbs are viewed and monitored as supplements, without the requirement for such tight scrutiny or labeling, but the case is far from closed.

Most experts agree that herbs possess unique yet tangible benefits, and that they can be used to complement conventional treatments and enhance overall health. Using herbs safely and effectively means understanding their powers—and limitations—and treating them like the medicines they are.

CHAPTER 1
What Is Herbal Medicine?

Herbal medicine, also called
botanical medicine
or
phytomedicine,
is the practice of using one or more parts of a plant—its seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark, or flowers—to relieve physical and psychological problems, prevent disease, or just improve overall health and vitality. Although many modern drugs were originally developed from plants, they are based on isolated chemicals, while plants comprise myriad active components, which work together to create their medicinal actions. Herbs have a long history of use and, when used properly, are safe and powerful medicines.

The History of Herbal Healing

Long before doctors in lab coats started writing prescriptions—in fact, even before human beings started writing at all—herbs were being used as medicine. Herbal medicine has prehistoric origins, and it continues today in virtually every culture in the world.

Herbal medicine dates back thousands of years, although no one is exactly sure when the first human used an herb to treat a health woe. In the American Southwest, for example, researchers have found human genetic material on hunks (called
quids)
of the herb yucca, which were chewed and spit out like a kind of ancient chewing gum. The quids are between 800 and 2,400 years old.

The World Health Organization reports that roughly 25 percent of all modern medicines are made from plants that came straight out of traditional medicine. For example, two South American species, the chinchona tree
(Chinchona officinalis)
and the coca plant
(Erythroxylum coca),
have given us the antimalaria drug quinine and several types of anesthetics.

In Europe, researchers discovered what looks to be herbal remedies on the body of the infamous “Ice Man,” the 3,000-year-old mummy discovered in the early 1990s in the Italian Alps. Researchers found walnut-sized lumps of birch fungus, which has laxative and antibiotic properties, on his body. An autopsy revealed that the man had been suffering from an infestation of parasitic whipworms, leading the experts to guess that he had most likely been treating them with measured doses of the medicine.

As civilizations rose up around the world, so did herbal medicine. And although some of the ancients’ remedies have fallen by the wayside, most are still popular.

The Egyptian priest and physician Imhotep, who lived around 2600 B.c. and is often credited with the earliest medical writings, described the diagnoses and treatments—many of them herbal—of more than 200 diseases.

In China, the emperor Shen Nung, in 2735 B.c., wrote what is generally believed to be the earliest treatise on herbs, discussing hundreds of medicinal plants that are still in use. And in India, a manuscript from around 2000 B.c. mentions the herbs cinnamon, ginger, and sandalwood as ingredients in several medical preparations.

To avoid confusion (and language barriers), an herb is usually identified by its common name as well as its scientific (botanical) name, which comprises the Latin words for the plant’s genus and species. That way, if you’re looking for chamomile, you’ll know if you’re getting the popular German or Hungarian variety
(Matricaria recutita)
or the less common Roman or English variety
(Chamaemelum nobile).

Principles and Traditions

No matter where in the world it originated, any school of traditional herbal medicine is based on a simple concept: that herbal remedies can be used to create—or re-create—a state of health within the body. Herbal healers categorize diseases according to a specific set of symptoms, then use their remedies to restore the patient to the state he was in before the disease struck.

A “Humor"ous Approach

Western herbalism evolved from the Greeks, who in turn were strongly influenced by Egyptian and Middle Eastern civilizations. The Greek system uses a system of
“humors,”
which are tied to four dynamic elements (air, earth, water, and fire). The Greeks believed that diseases were caused by an imbalance of these humors. The humors were part of an individual’s nature and weren’t necessarily good or bad. But if they got out of balance, illness would ensue.

The theory of the humors is similar to the basic beliefs of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic medicine, which originated in India at roughly the same time. In Ayurveda, for example, there are three
doshas,
or body types, which correspond to the natural world and also reflect an individual’s innate nature.

Actions Speak Louder

Traditional herbal medicine is also organized around each herb’s physiological actions—what it does in the body. (Not surprisingly, modern herbalists do the same thing.) For example, the Greeks categorized their herbs as warming, drying, cooling, binding, and relaxing. The Chinese have classifications like purging, lubricating, stimulating, clearing, and calming. Not too far from our modern-day classifications, which you’ll see as you walk down the aisle of any drug store: expectorants, laxatives, sedatives, stimulants, and so on.

And while some consumers might scoff at some traditional terminology, modern research shows that, for the most part, the ancients had it right. In fact, of the 100-plus known medicinal plant compounds used today, roughly 80 percent are used for purposes that are identical or very close to their traditional use.

One of the most powerful chemotherapy agents existing today comes from the Pacific yew
(Taxus brevifolia).
Yew trees were routinely discarded in logging enterprises until 1967, when somebody discovered a compound called
taxol
that could inhibit the division of cancerous cells. Today, taxol is used to treat breast, ovarian, and lung cancer.

The Chemistry of Plants

Although people have been using herbs for centuries, we don’t know a whole lot about the pharmacology, or chemical makeup, of many of them. Unlike pharmaceuticals—drugs created in a lab from a precise chemical recipe—herbs are often chemical mysteries.

Unraveling the Mysteries

In recent years, scientists have been deconstructing herbs to determine the chemical compounds—called
phytochemicals
—behind their actions.

For example, researchers have determined that garlic
(Allium sativum)
owes much of its antibacterial and cholesterol-lowering action to a phyto-chemical called allicin. Ginger
(Zingiber officinale)
apparently gets its stomach-settling powers from two chemicals, 6-gingerol and gingerdione. And cayenne peppers
(Capsicum annuum, C. frutescens)
contain capsaicin, which dulls pain and produces a warming sensation.

Primary and Secondary

In most cases, the compounds that are so helpful to humans are actually secondary to the plant’s survival. The most important things, at least as far as the plant is concerned, are the
primary constituents,
which are used in the plant’s primary metabolic processes (like photosynthesis) and include things like sugars and chlorophyll.

Secondary constituents
are things that the plant developed over the course of its evolution to defend itself against animals, insects, disease, or environmental stresses such as changes in temperature or water levels. Quite often these compounds—which include vitamins, minerals, essential oils, and phytochemicals—are key to both the plant’s viability and its bioactivity (the effect it has on another living organism or tissue).

According to the latest estimates, there are 122 scientifically identified plant compounds being used as drugs throughout the world, which are drawn from just 94 plant species. With several thousand known medicinal plants now in use, scientists still have quite a few more chemicals to name.

Luckily, the chemicals that make a plant unappealing to microbes can serve as antimicrobial agents in humans, too. And the neurotoxic chemicals that a plant uses to defend itself against foraging deer can work as sedatives, muscle relaxants, or anesthetics in people.

Most of the secondary constituents in plants can be lumped into three categories: terpenoids, alkaloids, and polyphenols.

Terpenoids

Many terpenoids are either toxic or just unappetizing to grazing animals; others make a plant more appealing to pollinating insects. Feverfew
(Tanacetum parthenium)
and chamomile
(Matricaria recutita)
contain medicinal terpenoids.

Alkaloids

Alkaloids can have potent medicinal activity. Examples are nitrogen, caffeine, quinine, morphine, and nicotine. The Chinese herb ma huang
(Ephedra sinica)
contains the alkaloid ephedrine. Cocaine is found in the leaves of the coca shrub
(Erythroxylum coca).

Polyphenols

Polyphenols include tannins and flavonoids. Tannins are astringent chemicals (once used to tan animal hides) found in the seeds and stems of grapes
(Vitis vinifera),
the leaves and bark of trees or shrubs like witch hazel
(Hamamelis virginiana),
and tea leaves
(Camellia sinensis).
Flavonoids are a broad class of compounds that act as
antioxidants
(agents that counteract the process of oxidation, which can damage cells and trigger disease). They are found in ginkgo
(Ginkgo biloba),
hawthorn
(Crataegus monogyna, C. oxyacantha),
and milk thistle
(Silybum marianum),
among others. Iso-flavones are one type of flavonoid that act as
phytoestrogens
(plant compounds that mimic the effects of estrogen in the body). Isoflavones are found in soybeans
(Glycine max).

The Sum Versus the Whole

But while scientists have identified the active constituents in many herbs, many more remain a mystery, in part because the chemicals in the plant appear to work synergistically instead of individually.

That means that, in most cases, we don’t know which ingredient in a plant is causing a therapeutic effect, or if that ingredient is acting alone or in combination with other ingredients. Moreover, because it’s a natural thing, an herb’s biochemical composition is inherently variable and can change from year to year or crop to crop.

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