Why Herbalese Remedies for health?

Plants and people share the most essential element of all; the spark of life. This precious thing can neither be measured nor re-created in a laboratory.

Herbs have been used from the time of recorded history for every facet of life - health, healing, energy, creativity, work, love, birth, death, regeneration, survival, and more. Herbs are all encompassing and timeless, as nature itself is infinite and eternal.

Therapeutic herbs have a unique spirit, with wide ranging properties, and far reaching possibilities for medicinal activity. Mankind can look back through thousands of years to herbal medicines as a safe, readily available, gentle means of healing. Because the history of herbal healing is so rich, it allows us to see that herbs are perfectly adaptable to today’s requirements, with the same focused strength and reliability. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of their forgotten truth.

Many informed men and women today realize the value of herbs as therapies that can noticeably improve their lives, and that they themselves can use safely and easily.

Herbs are concentrated foods, with the ability to address both the symptoms and causes of a problem. As nourishment, herbs can offer the body nutrients it does not always receive, either from poor diet, or environmental deficiencies in the soil and air. As medicine, herbs essentially balance the body, and work with the body functions, so that it can heal and regulate itself.

Hundreds of herbs are available in several usable forms and at all quality levels.

Herbs in their whole form are not drugs. Do not expect the activity or response of chemical antibiotics or tranquilizers. These agents only treat the symptoms of a problem. Generally, you have to take more and more of a drug to get the same effect.

How do Herbs work and how fast?

Herbs are foundation nutrients, working through the glands, nourishing the body’s deepest and most basic elements, such as the brain, glands, hormones and metabolism. Results will seem to take much longer. But this fact only shows how herbs actually work, acting as support to control and reverse the cause of a problem, with more permanent effect.

Even so, some improvement from herbs can usually be felt in three to six days. Chronic or long standing degeneration will, of course, take longer. A traditional rule of thumb is one month of healing for every year of the problem.

Are herbs safe?

Herbs are not addictive, but are powerful nutritional agents. Balance is the key to using herbal nutrients for healing. As with other natural therapies, there is sometimes a “healing crisis” which is also know as the “Law of Cure”, and simply means that sometimes you will seem to get worse before you get better.

The body frequently begins to eliminate toxic wastes. There may be some discomfort or weakness as disease poisons are released into the bloodstream to be flushed away. Strength and relief shortly return when this process is over.

Most herbs, as edible plants, are as safe to take as foods. Occasionally a mild allergy type reaction may occur as it might occur to a food. This could happen because herb quality is poor, because it has been adulterated with chemicals in the growing/storing process.

Because of the cleansing ability of herbs, toxins from drugs may come out of the body (ex: rashes) whether from current or previous use.

Herbs work in combination better than singly. There are several reasons for this. Each formula compound contains two to five primary agent herbs that are part of the blend for specific purposes. Since all body parts, and most disease symptoms are interrelated, it is wise to have herbs which can affect each part of the problem, such as Chinese patent remedeies which include a formula rather than a single herb.

For example, in a prostate healing formula, there would be herbs to dissolve sediment, anti-inflammatory herbs, tissue toning and strengthening herbs and herbs with anti-bacterial properties.

Can herbs work with food?

Herbs work better when combined with a natural foods diet. Everyone can benefit from an herbal formula, but results increase dramatically when fresh foods and whole grains form the diet basis. Subtle healing activity is more effective when it doesn’t have to labour through excess waste material, mucous, or junk food accumulation. In addition, rotating and alternating herbal combinations according to changing health needs allows the body to remain most responsive to their effects.

Interestingly enough, herbs can help counter the problems of “civilization foods”. Herbs are rich in minerals and the basic elements missing or diminished in today’s quick grow, over sprayed, over fertilized produce. Minerals are a basic element in food assimilation. Herbs simply pave the way for the body to do its own work, by breaking up toxins, cleansing, lubricating, toning and nourishing.

What does science say?

New scientific evidence supports the benefits of herbal medicines, and more consumers are opting for natural and nontoxic treatments.

“Keep in mind that 25 percent of our conventional prescription drugs are derived directly or indirectly from plants,” explains Varro Tyler, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. “And these 25 percent of drugs furnish the template for 90 percent of modern synthetic drugs.”

Aspirin, perhaps the most common drug for treating headaches, originally came from willow bark. Quinine, used to prevent malaria infections, was once obtained from the bark of a Peruvian tree. Vinblastine, a drug used to treat leukemia, comes from periwinkle plants. And digitalis, a heart stimulant, is still made from pressed foxglove leaves.

“So there's ample precedent for natural products having health benefits,” adds Tyler.

Are Herbs Antioxidants?

Herbal medicines may be steeped in folklore, but in recent years, methodical research has borne out many of their traditional health benefits. Contributing to the growing acceptance of herbal medicines is the “free radical” theory of aging.

Free radicals are hazardous molecules found in pollutants and also produced when the body converts food to energy. These molecules oxidize, or damage, normal cells. In doing so, they accelerate the aging process and set the stage for most degenerative diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Free radicals, however, can be quenched by antioxidants, of which the best known ones are probably vitamins C and E.

As the free radical theory of aging gained momentum in the scientific community, researchers began investigating the antioxidant properties of plants. It turned out that the lion’s share of antioxidants in fruits, vegetables, herbs, and other plant foods aren’t in the form of vitamins. Most of the antioxidants occur as phenols, polyphenols and flavonoids, three large and related families of antioxidant compounds, according to Ronald L. Prior, Ph.D., a researcher at Tufts University, Medford, Mass.

All of these compounds protect plants from free radicals, which are generated by sunlight, pollutants, and weather-related stresses. When people eat plant foods, they acquire the protective benefits of these antioxidants. Some polyphenols and flavonoids also influence the function of genes and have hormone-like properties, much the way some vitamins do.

James A. Duke, Ph.D., a respected medical botanist and author of The Green Pharmacy (Rodale, 1997) believes that many phenols, polyphenols, and flavonoids are practically essential nutrients, based on the fact that people and other animals regularly consumed these compounds over millions of years of evolution.

While all plants contain polyphenols and flavonoids, genetic differences between plants lead to distinctly different chemical "fingerprints" of these compounds. That's why one herb may have certain health benefits, while another has very different effects. For example, the distinctive chemical structure of ginkgolides, found in ginkgo, exert their effect primarily on blood vessels in the brain. In contrast, the echinosides and other compounds in echinacea have different chemical structures, which turn on disease-fighting immune cells.

Herbs and Metabolism?

In addition to being antioxidants, herbs also work in other important ways-providing near-essential compounds that normalize the body's activities. For example, the berries of saw palmetto, a small palm tree that grows in the southeastern United States, inhibit the activity of an enzyme involved in causing benign prostate enlargement. St. John's wort lifts mood partly by blocking the activity of monoamine oxidase, an enzyme that promotes feelings of depression.

Recently, molecular biologists have begun unraveling the most basic details of how some herbs work. Rajesh Agarwal, Ph.D., and his colleagues at the AMC Cancer Research Center, Denver, have investigated how silymarin, an antioxidant extract from milk thistle seeds, inhibits the growth of breast, prostate, and skin cancer cells.

In one experiment, Agarwal looked studies defects in the cell cycle of breast cancer cells. Cell growth and replication are controlled by what is, in effect, a biological clock, and growth takes place in well defined steps in the cell cycle. However, cancer cells often have defects in this cell cycle.

Agarwal found that silymarin inhibited the growth of breast cancer cells by stopping the cell cycle-essentially by stopping the clock-when cancer-causing DNA was about to be replicated for news cells. The cancer-halting effect of silymarin was related to the dose of the herb, and larger amounts were more effective than smaller amounts in stopping the growth of breast cancer cells.

Are Herbs Drugs or Foods?

So, are herbal medicines drugs or foods?

Many of the phenols, polyphenols, and flavonoids found in herbal medicines are also found in fruits and vegetables, and they are a big part of the reason why such foods reduce the risk of cancer and other diseases. These compounds have been part of the diets of humans and primates for millions of years.

Pharmaceutical drugs and herbal medicines work in very different ways, says Tyler. Most drugs are based on single, or “mono,” compounds. Even when these compounds are derived from herbs, they have a singular action in the body. In contrast, “herbs seem to work in many different ways,” and generally have a low risk of side effects, according to Tyler.

The other advantage to herbs, points out Duke, is that their multiple compounds tend to act in a synergistic fashion; the sum benefits are greater than those of any single part.

Herbs, then, are more similar to a dinner salad in chemical composition than to a modern pharmaceutical drug. In a sense, herbal medicines provide a concentrated dose of natural antioxidants and other important health-promoting compounds. While herbal medicines should never substitute for a wholesome diet, they can provide and replenish many biologically active compounds that contribute to health.

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