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Why Use Herbs?

Why use an herb when we have available to us established, effective treatments for so many medical conditions?

Most herbalists would answer this way: When conventional treatments are both safe and effective, they should be used. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for many chronic medical conditions-chronicity is virtually defined by the fact that pharmaceutical medicine isn’t working.

Herbs represent an additional tool for the toolbox. For some, the fact that animals have been thought to treat themselves using herbs is reason enough to try them. The combinations of chemicals in plants nourish, heal, and kill, but by using rational combinations in the practice of medicine, herbalists believe they attain longer lasting, more profound improvements.

Plants contain many dozens of chemical constituents. Some of these have pharmacologically unique and powerful activity and have been tapped by the drug industry to develop new pharmaceuticals. However, the other ingredients in plants have important activity as well. Consider the vitamins, minerals, flavonoids, carotenoids, sugars, and amino acids contained in a plant-do these assist effector cells in mounting the physiologic response initiated by the “plant medicine”? And do the other constituents of a plant; with lesser pharmaceutical activity than the one “recognized” active constituent play any role? (Veterninary Herbal Medicine by Wynn & Fougere)

The answer is yes and the system the plant uses is called Synergy. That means the entire plants chemical constituents combine to produce a greater effect than each has alone, and that the body extracts the compounds it needs and discards the others. One possible reason that scientific studies sometimes fail to confirm an herb’s traditional use in healing is that the studies often focus only on the isolated compound, not on the whole plant. For instance; ginkgo, which is used to boost brain functions and circulation, has been found to be more effective when used in its whole form instead of its isolated active compounds.

Side Effects

Unfortunately, even when a potent magic bullet drug is right on the mark when it comes to resolving a certain problem, it often creates side effects-new problems. Scarcely a month goes by without a drug being removed from the market because it is harmful. This has helped to let the pendulum swing back and has brought a renewed consideration for our old treasures of experience with herbs.

Herbs produce few side effects, and many of them contain protective compounds that keep their potency in check.

Environmental and Ethical Concerns

Another plus for the herbal medicine is that it is environmentally sound. One person who has considered the relationship between environmental pollution and drugs is English herbalist David Hoffmann. Author of a number of herb books, Hoffmann’s major issue when he ran for Parliament in England was global ecology. He focused on what happens when you regularly take a common drug used to treat stomach ulcers and gastritis: “You become very involved in an ecological cycle that involves all of the pollution produced in the factories that prepare the drug. In the process of healing our ulcers, we buy into killing fish from runoff, into environmental destruction, and we legitimize the destruction of laboratory animals. Is that healing? I suggest not.

Hoffmann also points out that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the biggest practitioners of vivisection (operating on a living animal for research purposes). The research and development of new drugs generally involves killing thousands of laboratory animals. The resulting drugs are then tested on more animals before being declared safe for humans. “You can sip herbal tea without worrying that a rat or a guinea pig had to die to enable you to do so.”

Instead of contributing to destroying the environment, herbs bring us closer to it.

As public opinion begins to sway from complete faith in drugs, interest in herbs is increasing. Perhaps the day is not far off when the designations of traditional and modern medicine will have no significance, and all health care practitioners will feel comfortable working in a new system that incorporates both disciplines. (Using Herbs for Health and Healing by Kathi Keville)