Herbalism, also known as phytotherapy, is folk and traditional medicinal practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts.

Finding healing powers in plants is an ancient idea. People in all continents have long used hundreds, if not thousands, of indigenous plants, for treatment of various ailments dating back to prehistory. There is evidence that Neanderthals living 60,000 years ago in present-day Iraq used plants for medicinal purposes.

Some surveys of scientific herbal medicine can be found in Evidence-based herbal medicine edited by Michael Rotblatt, Irwin Ziment; Philadelphia: Hanley & Belfus, 2002, and Herbal and traditional medicine: molecular aspects of health, edited by Lester Packer, Choon Nam Ong, Barry Halliwell; New York: Marcel Dekker, 2004.

Popularity

A survey released in May 2004 by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine focused on who used complementary and alternative medicines (CAM), what was used, and why it was used. The survey was limited to adults age 18 years and over during 2002 living in the United States. According to this recent survey, herbal therapy, or use of natural products other than vitamins and minerals, was the most commonly used CAM therapy (18.9%) when all use of prayer was excluded.

Examples

Examples of some commonly used herbal medicines:

• Artichoke and several other plants reduced
  
  
  
  total serum cholesterol levels in preliminary studies.
• Black cohosh and other plants that contain phytoestrogens (plant molecules with estrogen activity) have some benefits for treatment of symptoms resulting from menopause.
• Echinacea extracts limit the length of colds in some clinical trials, although some studies have found it to have no effect.
• Garlic lowers total cholesterol levels, mildly reduces blood pressure, reduces platelet aggregation, and has antibacterial properties.
• Peppermint tea for problems with the digestive tract, including irritable bowel syndrome and nausea.
• Nigella sativa (Black cumin)is a generalist medicinal plant used for diverse ailments such as cough, pulmonary infections, asthma, influenza, allergy, hypertension and stomach ache. The seeds are considered carminative, stimulant, diuretic and galactogogue. It is often taken with honey. Seed powder or oil is externally applied for eruptions of skin.

Dangers

A common misconception about herbalism and the use of 'natural' products in general, is that 'natural' equals safe. Nature, however, is not benign, and many plants have chemical defence mechanisms against predators that can have adverse effects on humans. Examples are poison hemlock and nightshade, which can be deadly. Herbs can also have undesirable side-effects just as pharmaceutical products can. These problems are exacerbated by lack of control over dosage and purity.

Name confusion

The common names of herbs may be shared with others with different effects. For example, in one case in Belgium in a TCM-remedy for losing

International standards

The legal status of herbal ingredients varies by country. For example, Ayurvedic herbal products may contain levels of heavy metals that are considered unsafe in the US, but heavy metals are considered therapeutic in Ayurvedic medicine.

Medical interaction

Those wishing to use herbal remedies should first consult with a physician, as some herbal remedies have the potential to cause adverse drug interactions when used in combination with various prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Dangerously low blood pressure may result from the combination of an herbal remedy that lowers blood pressure together with prescription medicine that has the same effect. Physicians may not be the best sources of information because most have no knowledge of herbal medicine. There is little known about interactions of herbal remedies with pharmaceuticals because, contrary to pharmaceutical medicine, there is no official system, database, or hotline to report and publish adverse interactions, so even herbalists may not be aware of adverse interactions.

To put the safety issue in perspective, an editorial in the British Medical Journal pointed out, "Even though herbal medicines are not devoid of risk, they could still be safer than synthetic drugs. Between 1968 and 1997, the World Health Organization's monitoring center collected 8985 reports of adverse events associated with herbal medicines from 55 countries. Although this number may seem impressively high, it amounts to only a tiny fraction of adverse events associated with conventional drugs held in the same database." (BMJ, October 18, 2003; 327:881-882).

A meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported the following: "The overall incidence of serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) was 6.7% (95% confidence interval , 5.2%-8.2%) and of fatal ADRs was 0.32% (95% CI, 0.23%-0.41%) of hospitalized patients. We estimated that in 1994 overall 2,216,000 (1,721,000-2,711,000) hospitalized patients had serious ADRs and 106,000 (76,000-137,000) had fatal ADRs, making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death." (JAMA. 1998;279:1200-1205)

See also

• Alternative medicine
• Anesthesia
• Chinese medicine
  • Chinese herbology
• Ethnobotany
• Folk medicine
• Folk remedy
• History of alternative medicine
• King's American Dispensatory
• List of medicinal herbs
• Richard Shulze

References

1.   , National Institute of Health.
2.   , National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Press release. May 27, 2004.
3.   ( table 1 on page 8)
4.   , Thompson Coon JS and Ernst E. 2003 Jun
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