Chapter 10
Herbal Medicine
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Plant-based remedies such as ginger to treat upset stomach and echinacea to treat cold and flu are centuries-old traditions. Herbal medicine is one of the world's oldest healing models, dating back 5,000 years to China, and centuries in the West among Native Americans.
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Herbal remedies are generally safe, effective, and inexpensive alternatives to high-cost synthetic drugs. According to Rob McCaleb, president of the Herb Research Foundation in Boulder, Colorado, clinical studies show that garlic reduces blood pressure, licorice root heals ulcers of the small intestines, and echinacea boosts the immune system. In addition, herbs provide benefits unavailable in human-made drugs. ''For example, modern medicine has no synthetic drug that can save the lives of liver-poisoning victims like the herb milk thistle does. Western medicine has no immune-system stimulant such as the herb echinacea," McCaleb points out.
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Herbal medicine is a consumer-driven revolution, says James Duke, Ph.D., one of America's foremost authorities on medicinal plants and herbs, and author of
The Green Pharmacy.
Pharmaceutical drugs are responsible for approximately 150,000 American deaths per year, he notes. "Three out of every 1,000 people who go to the hospital are killed by the pharmaceuticals they're given. This is obviously causing Americans to look to alternatives such as herbs."
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Indeed, a recent study in the
Journal of the American Medical Association
reported that 3 out of every 1,000 hospital patients are killed by pharmaceuticals each year. While herbal medicine is widely accepted in other parts of the world, Duke believes that the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s
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