 | Q:
Why should someone who has never tried herbs before try them now?
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| Duke: Pharmaceuticals may be the answer for you if you
have
been diagnosed with Lyme disease, though it's often misdiagnosed; if you
are
getting to talk to your doctor; if you
can
afford his prescription; and if you're
not
deficient in any minerals or vitamins. If you satisfy all those requirements, the silver bullet approach of pharmaceuticals may help you. If not, the herb, which is a potpourri of many useful components, will more likely help you.
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| The medical world is realizing they were wrong twenty years ago when they told us that no one was deficient in vitamins or minerals. The quack busters told us that vitamins just made expensive urine. Now, hardly a day goes by when we don't learn that many of us are deficient in one or another vitamin or mineral. All herbs contain hundreds of useful compounds, from minerals to vitamins to as-yet-unidentified substances. Herbs contain not one but many natural chemicals that might prevent, alleviate, or cure most of our diseases.
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| Critics of herbal medicine say that few or none of them have been proven safe and effective in the half-billion-dollar studies required to meet the FDA standards for a new, approved drug. Well, that's almost true. Herb companies, unlike pharmaceutical firms, do not have that kind of money to prove what empirical common sense tells them and told their ancestorsthat herbs work! Who wants to spend half a billion dollars to prove the safety and effectiveness of an herb that your grandmother took to relieve her migraines? How would the herb companies make their money back? If they paid the $500 million for an FDA-approved drug for feverfew, you and I could still grow it in our backyard and self-medicate.
|
| Q:
But many people think, "If I have an upset stomach, I want to reach for something that I know will work because I've tried it before-like Pepto-Bismol. " It's frightening for some people to try an herbal medicine when they need relief from some type of discomfort. Why shouldn't they just keep using the pharmaceuticals?
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| Duke: Your genes have been exposed to the natural compounds in plants for thousands of years, and your genes have not been exposed to synthetic over-the-counter drugs. This is why we're having problems with synthetics causing so many side effects. In one ten-year period, over half
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