Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria (37 page)

The root cuttings should be planted in late fall or early spring. No direct sun locations. Plant the cuttings 2 to 3 inches (5–10 cm) deep with the bud upward.

The plants need a lot of water, so don't let the soil dry out. Mulch them thickly. They hate dry air. The leaves die back in 8 to 10 months, and that is when the roots should be harvested. The roots will last a long time before they dry out.

Several hundred constituents, including gingerols, zingiberol, zingiberene, shogaols, 3-dihydroshogaols, gingerdiols, mono- and diacetyl derivatives of gingerdiols, dihydrogingerdiones, labdadiene, and so on. The volatile oils such as the gingerols are very potent but much reduced in the dried roots. They are present at levels 6 to 15 times higher in fresh roots. Many constituents convert to shogaols as the root dries. The volatile constituents are the most antiviral.

Actions

Analgesic

Anthelmintic

Antiarthritic

Antibacterial

Antidiarrheal

Antiemetic

Antifungal

Anti-inflammatory

Antispasmodic

Antitussive

Antiviral

Carminative

Circulatory stimulant

Diaphoretic

Elastase inhibitor

Hypotensive

Immune stimulant

Synergist

Active Against

Acinetobacter baumannii

Angiostrongylus cantonensis

Anisakis simplex

Aspergillus niger

Bacillus subtilis

Campylobacter jejuni

Candida albicans

Candida glabrata

Coliform bacilli

Dirofilaria immitis

Escherichia coli

Fusarium moniliforme

Haemonchus contortus

Haemophilus influenzae

Helicobacter pylori
(cagA+ strains)

Hepatitis C

HIV-1

Human cytomegalovirus

Influenza A

Klebsiella pneumoniae

Listeria
spp.

Porphyromonas endodontalis

Porphyromonas gingivalis

Prevotella intermedia

Proteus vulgaris

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Rhinovirus
spp. (especially 1B)

Salmonella typhimurium

Shigella dysentariae

Shigella flexneri

Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus epidermidis

Viridans streptococci

Use to Treat

Ginger is a synergist, increasing the actions of other herbs and boosting their effectiveness by relaxing blood vessels and increasing circulation, thus carrying the active constituents of the other herbs more efficiently throughout the body. It is an effective circulatory stimulant, calms nausea, reduces diarrhea and stomach cramping, reduces fever (by stimulating sweating), reduces cold chills, reduces inflammation in bronchial passageways, thins mucus and helps it move out of the system, reduces coughing (as much as codeine cough syrups), ameliorates anxiety, and provides analgesic relief equal to or better than ibuprofen.

The herb can also be used in some bacterial diarrheal conditions, especially where there is cramping (cholera, dysentery,
E. coli
, etc.), for reduced circulation with coldness in the extremities, for migraine headache if accompanied by cold hands or feet, and for a sluggish constitution.

It has been used every place it is grown as a medicine.
Everyone
not trapped in a technological culture uses it as a synergist for healing for colds and flu, nausea, poor circulation, and so on.

In Burma, fresh gingerroot is boiled in water (with palm sap as a sweetener) to get a hot infusion for treating colds and flu. In Congo, ginger is crushed and mixed with mango tree sap for colds and flu. In the Philippines fresh chopped ginger is boiled with water, and sugar added, to treat sore throat. It is used similarly in China and India. (There is a reason it is done this way.)

Ginger has a long historical tradition in warm climates as a food additive. Like many culinary spices it possesses strong antibacterial activity against a number of foodborne pathogens—especially against three of those now plaguing commercial foods:
Shigella, E. coli,
and
Salmonella
.

Two of the best ways to take ginger as food are the pickled ginger often served along with sushi in Japanese restaurants or candied gingerroot slices. Both make great snacks, can be eaten in large quantities, and are a healthy stimulant for the system.

Ginger has a very long history in Ayurveda, which calls it
srangavera
and about 50 other names depending on where you go. It is used for dyspepsia, flatulence, colic, vomiting, spasms of the stomach and bowels attended by fever, cold, cough, asthma, indigestion, lack of appetite, diarrhea, fever. The fresh juice (aha!), mixed with sugar and water, is a common form of preparation.

Fresh root:
sheng jiang
. (Dried root:
gan jiang
—a very different medicine.) Considered pungent and warm in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), it is used as a diaphoretic, antiemetic, mucolytic, antitussive, detoxicant, anti-inflammatory. It is considered specific to warm the lungs, for pathogenic wind-cold conditions (i.e., severe intolerance
to cold), slight fever, headache, general ache, nasal congestion, runny nose, cough, vomiting. It is usually prepared by decoction in water or pounded and the juice added to warm water. Ginger is generally combined with other herbs in TCM as it is considered to be a “guide” drug that carries the other herbs where they need to go. Ginger is also considered to be specific for ameliorating the toxic effects of other drugs or herbs. Estimates are that up to half of all Chinese herbal formulas contain it.

Everyone in the West has used ginger in much the same ways, though, historically, most of them tended to focus on its use for stomach and bowel complaints.

The research on ginger has been problematic in that distinctions haven't been made (or looked for) between the actions of the fresh root and the dried root. (Common among scientists.) Nor has there been clarity about
how
the herb is prepared or what effect that might make on outcomes. (Common among scientists.) It is very rare that fresh preparations have been tested. (Ridiculous since that is the
primary
form of the medicine the world over.) Water extracts of the dried roots show very little antimicrobial activity—though they remain potently anti-inflammatory. If you don't understand the problems inherent in the journal papers, the outcomes found—which vary all over the place—are hard to understand. Sigh. Plants possess very different medicinal actions depending on: when they are harvested, how they are harvested, if they are dried or fresh, how they are prepared as medicines, how often they are taken, how much is taken, and if they are taken in isolation or in combination. Scientists coming from a reductionist orientation have a hard time understanding all that; they don't understand that herbal medicine really
is
rocket surgery.

As an overview: There have been some 30 clinical trials with 2,300 people using gingerroot. Following is just a sampling of a few of those and of a few in vivo and in vitro studies.

Anti-inflammatory action:
Gingerol and its related compounds are potent inhibitors of lipopolysaccharide-induced PGE2 production in vitro. Inhibit both COX-1 and COX-2 in vitro through inhibiting several genes involved in the inflammatory response (acting on cytokines, chemokines, 5-lipoxygenase, and COX-2). Of 56 people (28 with rheumatoid arthritis, 18 with osteoarthritis, 10 with muscular discomfort) who took dried ginger, 75 percent reported relief from pain and swelling. In a doubleblind,
randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial with 102 people with osteoarthritis, ginger was found to be as effective as ibuprofen in relieving pain and swelling. Numerous other in vivo studies have shown that ginger-root has both anti-inflammatory and analgesic actions; some used the essential oil massaged into the affected area—it works really well.

Antiemetic/antinausea:
Various clinical studies have found that gingerroot is especially effective for treating severe morning sickness in pregnant women. The dried root was used, of course, and was found more effective in severe cases. (The fresh root is better for nausea.)

Antiadhesion:
In vivo, gingerroot interferes with the adhesion of enterobacterial disease organisms to the intestinal wall. This, in essence, reduces entero-infection of the GI tract, short-circuiting the disease process. Ginger is also an elastase inhibitor. Many bacteria use elastase to break down cellular tissue, helping their penetration of the body. (Ginger also reduces spasms in the intestinal tract, relaxing the intestinal wall at the same time.)

Antidiarrheal:
Gingerroot interferes with the colonization of cells by enterogenic bacteria, thus reducing diarrhea, and reducing bacterial load. The root alters bacterial and host cell metabolism through a unique-to-ginger mechanism.

Cerebroprotective:
In vivo studies found that gingerroot protects rats from brain damage and memory impairment.

Immunostimulant:
In vivo studies with gingerroot have found that it increases immune markers across the board, pre- and post-infection.

Detoxification:
In vivo rat studies found that ginger reduces cadmium levels and toxicity in rats, acting as a heavy metal detoxifier. And gingerroot in vivo reduces the effects of organophosphate insecticides.

Anthelmintic:
Ginger was found to be effective in the treatment of endoparasites and stomach problems in ethnoveterinary practice in Pakistan, killing all red stomach worms (
Haemonchus contortus
) in test animals. It has been found active against a number of other endoparasites in other trials.

Other studies have found antiulcerative, antitumor, gastric antisecretory, antifungal, antispasmodic, anticonvulsant, and antiallergenic actions in the plant.

Ginger increases the potency of herbs and pharmaceuticals if added to a protocol, inhibits bacterial resistance mechanisms in pathogens, stimulates circulation, and reduces the toxicity of endotoxins and pollutants. It dilates blood vessels and increases circulation, helping the blood, and the constituents in the blood from other herbs, to achieve faster and more effective distribution in the body.

Ginger is highly effective in reducing the ability of bacteria to extrude antibacterials out of
their cells. (In consequence it increases the potency of a number of pharmaceuticals.)

Ginger potentiates the activity of aminoglycoside antibiotics (arbekacin, gentamicin, tobramycin, streptomycin) and other antibiotics such as bacitracin and polymyxin B, against vancomycin-resistant enterococci (which are Gram-positive)—essentially by increasing the permeability of the cell membrane; ginger is a strong p-glycoprotein inhibitor, as strong as the pharmaceutical verapamil. It also increases the effectiveness of daunomycin (used in the treatment of cancer), increasing the accumulation of the pharmaceutical three-fold and significantly reducing the P-gp-mediated efflux of the drug. This is common in P-gp inhibitors since cancer cells tend to use P-gp efflux mechanisms to get rid of pharmaceuticals.

Sublethal levels of tetracycline become lethal against staph organisms when ginger is added; compounds from ginger modify bacterial resistance in
Acinetobacter baumanii;
ginger potentiates the action of nifedipine on antiplatelet aggregation in normal human volunteers and the hypertensive; ginger potentiates the effectiveness of clarithromycin against
Helicobacter pylori
independent of whether the bacterial strain was susceptible to the pharmaceutical or not prior to the addition of ginger.

Ginger also has direct synergistic actions with other herbs. It potentiates their activity, increasing it substantially. For example, constituents in magnolia, but not in ginger, enhance sucrose intake in rats and reduce immobility time in swimming tests. But when ginger volatile oils are added to the mix, sucrose intake is increased exponentially; reduction time for immobility was also increased.

In other studies, when ginger oils are added to magnolia, they combine to produce a tremendously synergistic outcome in the treatment of depression. Serotonin in the brain and noradrenaline levels in the prefrontal cortex increase substantially after ginger is added to subclinical (inactive) doses of magnolia.

Ginger is also considered to be specific for ameliorating the toxic effects of other drugs or herbs used in TCM. In vivo studies found that ginger reduces cadmium levels and toxicity in rats, acting as a heavy metal detoxifier. It also reduces the effects of organophosphate insecticides in vivo.

Species Used:
Piperine is a potent alkaloid found in two different peppers, black pepper (
Piper nigrum
) and long pepper (
Piper longum
). It is the primary constituent responsible (along with an isomer of piperine—chavicine) for the spicy pungency of pepper.

Piperine is the most common constituent in black pepper, running from 5 percent to 9 percent. Long pepper has much less, from 1 percent to 2 percent.

The pepper plant itself
can
be used as a synergist if you are so inclined; for a number of reasons I prefer the isolated constituent as a synergist, however. I will talk about both approaches in this section and the reasons why I am suggesting the constituent in this case.