Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria (32 page)

There have been scores of in vivo studies on the wound-healing actions of honey, with some 600 animals. In the treatment of auricular burn, induced wounds (incision, excision, burn, dead-space wounds), surgical wounds, bacterial infection of burns, burn contraction, and bite wounds, honey was found to be exceptionally effective. Intraurethral honey application healed urethral injury in Wistar male rats. It promotes angiogenic activity in rat aorta. The immune systems of rats fed fennel honey, propolis, and bee venom were more protected against induced staph infection than those of controls. Intraperitoneal honey administration prevents postoperative peritoneal adhesions. Honey promotes intestinal anastomotic wound healing in rats with obstructive jaundice. Following bowel resection, oral honey was effective in stimulating healing and reducing infection.

Honey has been found in vitro to be immune stimulating, skin regenerating, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, antioxidant, free-radical scavenging, immunomodulatory, and antimutagenic. Antibacterial activity has been found effective with as little as a 4 percent honey solution. Full strength is better.

Salves made with honey, beeswax, and olive oil have been found effective against staph and
Candida
organisms.

Note:
Raw wildflower honey should be used,
not
the clover or alfalfa honey readily available in grocery stores. Alfalfa and clover crops are heavily sprayed with pesticides
and
they do not have the broad activity available in multiple-plant honeys. Further, large commercial honey growers may often supplement their bees' food with sugar water, which dilutes the honey's power. Pure wildflower honey should lightly burn or sting the back of the throat when taken undiluted.

Family:
Parmeliaceae, but some people insist the usneas are in their own family, the Usneaceae. Most sources consider that to be unacceptable as well as completely wrong. (Fisticuffs at 10:00
P.M
.)

Common Names:
Old man's beard or a number of similar phrases to do with hair or beard

Species Used:
There are 600 or so species of usnea.
Usnea barbata
and
U. longissima
are the most common, but any
Usnea
species will do. I prefer the smaller, tufted species (generally
Usnea hirta
) rather than
longissima
; I feel they are stronger in their actions; however, due to the larger size of
longissima
, it is the most commonly harvested species. (The others take hours.)
Usnea barbata
is also fairly good-sized, but there is currently some potential for that species to be banned for use in the United States even though it is a very safe plant (see Side Effects and Contraindications,
page 200
).

Whole lichen.

It has taken some time to learn how to properly prepare
Usnea
for use. Ryan Drum, an herbalist in Washington State, was most responsible for providing understanding of how to generate the best immune-stimulating activity of the plant.

Actions

Analgesic

Antibacterial

Antifungal

Anti-inflammatory

Antimitotic

Antineoplastic (cancer)

Antioxidant

Antiparasitic

Antiproliferative (cancer)

Antiprotozoal

Antiseptic

Antiviral

Drug synergist (potentiates clarithromycin against
H. Pylori
)

Immunostimulant

Inhibitor of biofilm formation

Active Against

Primarily Gram-positive bacteria, and very strongly so, both resistant and nonresistant strains:

Bacillus megaterium

Bacillus subtilis

Bacteroides
spp.

Clostridium
spp.

Corynebacterium diphtheriae

Enterococcus faecalis

Enterococcus faecium

Listeria monocytogenes

Micrococcus viridans

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Propionbacterium acnes

Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus simulans

Streptococcus faecalis

Streptococcus mutans

Streptococcus pyogenes

A number of these bacteria cause diseases of the GI tract, others of the skin.

Usnea
species have been found active, in a number of in vitro studies, against a few Gram-negative bacteria:
Helicobacter pylori
,
E. coli
,
Yersinia enterocolitica
, and
Proteus mirabilis
. Interestingly, the first three of these cause infections in the GI tract, for which
Usnea
will be useful as it is not a highly systemic herb. The latter bacteria generally cause urinary infections.

Usnea
is active against a number of viruses: herpes simplex, polyomavirus (a tumor virus), Junin virus, Tacaribe virus, and Epstein-Barr.

It is active against a number of parasitical disease organisms:
Trypanosoma cruzi
,
Echinococcus granulosus
(and its cysts), and
Toxoplasma gondii.
And some yeasts:
Malassezia
yeasts,
Microsporum gypseum
,
Trichophyton mentagrophytes
,
T. rubrum
, and several
Candida
species.

Usnea
and usnic acid are active against a number of cancer cell lines: lung and breast, malignant mesothelioma cells, and vulvar carcinoma cells.

Use to Treat

Resistant Gram-positive bacterial skin infections, vaginal infections (as a douche), resistant Gram-positive bacterial or TB infections of the GI tract and throat, fungal skin infections, resistant bronchial and pulmonary infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria or TB, conjunctivitis (as eyedrops).

In essence, the polysaccharides in the inner cortex of the lichen contain the immune-potentiating compounds. These are much more efficiently extracted by heat. Given that the plant possesses a unique synergism—both immune-potentiating and antibacterial, antiviral, and antimicrobial actions—it makes sense, if you are using the plant to treat disease (rather than infected wounds or vaginal infections), to make sure the immune fractions of the plant are extracted along with the antibacterial fractions.

Additionally, while the polysaccharides are water soluble, many other compounds, including usnic acid, are not. The plant needs to be tinctured for optimum outcomes if you are treating disease conditions.

The plant appears rather delicate, but it is not. The plant must be ground well in a grinder or pestle before tincturing. Once it is ground you will find that you now possess a greenish powder and a bundle of white threads. The white threads are the inner cortex, the green powder the outer sheath.

If you are treating wounds with
Usnea,
run the ground herb through a fine mesh or strainer. You can place the resulting powder directly on the wound or mix with other powdered herbs for a stronger blend. (You will have a bunch of white threads left over.)

Again, the immune-stimulating polysaccharides are most efficiently extracted with heat. To do this, when you are making your tincture, heat the herb first in the water you are going to use for tincturing. The best way is in a slow cooker (or, failing that, on low heat, covered, overnight in the oven).

Use a tincture ratio of 1:5 (1 part herb to 5 parts liquid). (See
chapter 8
for more on this.) The liquid should be composed of half water and half pure grain alcohol. So if you have 5 ounces of herb, you will use 25 ounces of liquid—12.5 of water, 12.5 of alcohol.

Put the powdered herb in the slow cooker, add the 12.5 ounces of water, and stir well. It will turn into a kind of mush. Cover and then cook on low heat for 48 hours. Let cool enough to work with it without burning yourself, then pour into a heat-tolerant jar (Mason or equivalent), add the alcohol when the mix is still warm but not hot, and then put on the lid and shake well. Let macerate for 2 weeks, then decant and strain out the herb. Bottle and store out of the light.

Tincture dosage:
30–60 drops, up to 4x daily; or in acute conditions, ½–1 tsp, 3–6x daily.

As a douche:
Add ½ ounce tincture to 1 pint water, and mix well. Use as douche or skin wash. Douche twice daily, upon rising and before retiring, for 3 days.

As a wash:
For impetigo (staph or strep infections of the skin), put the tincture, or a 1:1 dilution of the tincture with water, directly on the site of infection (using a cotton ball or cloth). Wash the site upon rising and before bed.

As a nasal spray:
Combine 10 drops of tincture with water in a 1-ounce nasal spray bottle. Use as needed for bacterial infections of the nose and sinuses.

Combine 1 teaspoon herb with 6 ounces hot water; let steep 20 minutes.

For disease prevention or immune stimulation:
Drink 2–6 ounces, up to 3x daily.

In acute conditions:
Drink up to 1 quart a day.

Note:
Usnea is only partially water soluble. To make the strongest tea or decoction: Grind the herb first, then add enough alcohol to wet the herb and let it sit, covered, for 30 minutes to an hour. Then add hot water and let steep for 15–30 minutes.

Should not be used internally during pregnancy. May cause contact dermatitis.

Usnea has been found to readily absorb heavy metals in potentially toxic amounts. This has been noted as particularly problematic in extreme northern latitudes. Generally, the amount of usnea taken internally will not contain sufficient amounts of heavy metals to present a problem. In order to avoid problems, harvest usnea at least 300 feet (90 m) from roads, factories, polluted areas.

Note:
There has been concern expressed in a number of forums about the toxicity of usnic acid. The problem, once more, has arisen through the improper use of an isolated constituent for weight loss. This has led to calls for the banning of usnea as an herb in the United States.

As usual, the promoters of the isolated constituent for weight loss were engaging in practices that are highly questionable ethically. They sold, and heavily hyped, the isolated constituent of usnea, usnic acid, as a weight-loss product. Unfortunately usnic acid in isolation and in large doses is very toxic to the liver. Several people died, others needed liver transplants. As a result the National Toxicity Program recommended a review of the toxicity of not only usnic acid but also
Usnea barbata
. Unfortunately, given the bias of the FDA, the odds are high that
Usnea barbata
will also be found to be unsafe for general use—when it in fact is not.

Usnic acid should never be used in isolation. The usnea lichens, however, are extremely safe for herbal use. More on the controversy can be found in “Safety Issues Affecting Herbs,” by S. Dharmananda (see the bibliography).

Usnea is synergistic with clarithromycin, increasing its effectiveness.

Usnea grows on trees throughout the world, on every continent. Generally prefers conifers (pine, spruce, juniper, firs), deciduous hardwoods (oak, hickory, walnut, apple, pear, and so on), and the odd variant such as coconut palms.

Usnea
is an extremely prolific though slow-growing, long-lived, gray to yellow-green lichen growing on trees throughout the world. The whole lichen may be harvested at any time. Again, I prefer the small, tiny tufted species that grow in the forests around where I live. They take longer to harvest, but they are not endangered and, I feel, are more potent than
U. longissima
and
U. barbata
.

Endangered status:
While
Usnea longissima
is prolific in some areas, in others (California, northeast United States, Europe, Scandinavian countries) it is endangered. Logging and development have destroyed its main habitat, old-growth forests. It is also very sensitive to pollution and climate change.
U. longissima
is the
Usnea
species most often sold by herbal companies and most commonly wildcrafted because of its size, which ranges up to 3 feet (1 meter) in length. This species should
not
be sold by commercial companies nor bought from them by anyone. It should be harvested only for personal use from regions where it is in abundance. Again,
any
species of
Usnea
will do.

Usnic acid is the main constituent that everyone talks about; it is a potent chemical, highly antibacterial.
Usnea
species contain anywhere from 0.22 to 6.49 percent usnic acid.
U. longissima
is reported to have the most usnic acid content. However, many of the other constituents of the usneas are strongly antibacterial; hirtusneanoside and vulpinic acid are a couple of them.

In addition to usnic acid, usnea contains vulpinic acid, protolichesterinic acid, a number of orcinol derivatives, longissiminone A and B, glutinol, ethyl hematommate, friedelin, beta-amyrin, beta-sitosterol, methyl-2,4-dihydroxy-3,6-dimethylbenzoate, barbatinic acid, zeorin, ethyl orsellinate, 3-beta-hydroxy-glutin-5-ene, oleanolic acid, methylorsellinate, benzaldehyde, dibenzofuran, anthraquinone, hirtusneanoside, menegazziaic acid, stictic acid, glyceryl trilinolate, numerous polysaccharides including isolichenin, raffinose, numerous phenolic compounds, usnaric acid, thamnolic acid, lobaric acid, stictinic acid,
and a lot of other stuff. About 50 percent of the plant is water-soluble polysaccharides.