Herbal medicines
Herbal medicine is a complementary
therapy that uses plants or plant extracts to treat illness. There
are numerous herbal products available that claim to treat a wide
range of problems, from depression to colds and flu.
What
is herbal medicine
Many well-established medicines come
from plants. For example morphine comes from poppies, aspirin from
willow bark, and digoxin (a treatment for an irregular heart beat)
from foxgloves.
Traditional herbal medicine is just
one of the many different approaches to using plants as
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remedies. Others include phytotherapy and Chinese herbal medicine. Traditional
herbal medicine has been used in Britain for centuries and it
remains popular, even in the era of scientific medicine and modern
pharmaceuticals.
Like many complementary therapies,
herbal medicine aims to be holistic - it aims to treat the whole
person, not just the symptoms, and to encourage the body to heal
itself. Herbal practitioners believe that the delicate chemical
balance of the whole herb is needed for greatest effect and to
reduce potential side-effects. Different parts of the same plant,
such as the flowers or seeds, can have very different
actions. Herbal medicine is not about isolating the active
ingredients from a plant which is the way that conventional
medicines are often derived.
How
do they work
There are herbal medicines available
that claim to treat almost any common complaint, but there is
usually limited scientific evidence that these work. Some herbal
treatments are more established, and have undergone some clinical
testing. These include:
-
St John's wort,
for the treatment of mild to moderate depression,
-
black cohosh,
for menopausal symptoms,
-
echinacea, to
reduce the symptoms of colds,
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garlic, to
reduce blood cholesterol levels and potentially lower the risk of
heart disease,
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ginger, to
relieve nausea and vomiting,
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ginkgo biloba,
to improve mental performance in people with Alzheimer's disease,
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hawthorn
berries, for mild heart failure,
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horse chestnut,
for chronic venous insufficiency,
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saw palmetto,
for enlarged prostate.
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