Merriam-Webster defines herbal medicine as – “The art or practice of using herbs and herbal preparations to maintain health and to prevent, alleviate, or cure disease.”

Yet, why use herbs to do all these things?

Especially when modern medicine has made so many advances since the time when humans had only herbal and other homemade preparations on which to rely for healing?

Let’s take a look.

Modern medicine, known as allopathy or allopathic medicine when being described in contrast to naturopathic medicine, is a branch of medicine centralized on the treatment of disease through pharmaceutical drugs and surgery.

A large portion of pharmaceutical drugs were discovered initially through isolating and extracting specific chemical constituents of medicinal herbs. Approximately 50% of the drugs approved during the last 30 years are derived from natural products.

Throughout history, observing physicians noted the medicinal effects of these herbs, gradually refining their knowledge and passing it down to their successors. That’s how historical use became a popular method for choosing which herbs to treat which conditions.

In modern times, many herbs have also had their medicinal effects demonstrated in small scale clinical studies.

Pharmaceutical companies no longer have to extract these chemical compounds from plants, because they can reproduce them synthetically in a lab and even patent active ingredients with a brand name to make a lot of profit.

The FDA approves a pending drug or treatment method on the principle of being able to prove any health claims through a series of clinical trials.

If the drug approval process is so straightforward, why don’t herbs and supplements undergo the same process?

Skeptics of the naturopathic, complementary and alternative (CAM), and functional branches of medicine love to argue that herbs and supplements are pseudoscientific because they don’t undergo an approval process like pharmaceutical drugs.

Are they right? Is herbal medicine clinically proven or not?

It would be difficult and costly for the FDA to facilitate extensive research on the hundreds of plants Naturopathic Doctors, Functional Medicine Doctors, Licensed Nutritionists, and Herbalists use today. Why?

Clinical trials and studies are expensive. The cost of approving a new drug ranges from 314 million to 2.8 billion dollars.

In drug research, the investment payback comes when the drug is approved, patented, and sold. While the patent is in place and it’s illegal for companies to sell a generic version, the drug company’s profit margin often exceeds 90%.

Drug companies bring in quite a bit of revenue per year. For example, Moderna generated 17.7 billion dollars in 2021.

In contrast, let’s take a look at the revenue of Gaia Herbs, an herbal supplement company. On average, Gaia Herbs brings in 45.7 million yearly. It would take Gaia Herbs 6.7 years’ worth of revenue at a minimum to pay for just one of their supplements to get approval in the way a pharmaceutical drug does.

Hopefully that puts the situation in perspective.

The manner in which clinical trials and FDA approval are funded in the United States would have to completely transform in order for herbs and supplements to fit in the system.

With research on herbs, a financial return would never happen. Garlic, ginger, elderberries, mint, and cayenne can’t be patented and sold like drugs.

Staunch proponents of allopathic medicine like to argue that the reason we don’t have studies and clinical evidence for herbal medicine is because it doesn’t work.

As we’ve seen, though, the true reason is because nobody is going to fund clinical trials and FDA approval that won’t pay back at some point.

That being said, some smaller studies exist on quite a few herbs, but most people don’t know about them. Why?

Allopathic doctors (MDs, DOs) don’t receive education on nutrition, exercise, herbal medicine, or really anything integrative. Their knowledge base is in anatomy and physiology, disease, diagnostics, drugs, and surgery.

Registered dietitians receive extensive education on nutrition and nutritional supplements, but next to nothing on herbal medicine.

Exercise scientists receive extensive training in anatomy and physiology and physical activity, but nothing in herbal medicine.

Only Herbalists, Naturopathic Doctors, and Functional Medicine Doctors receive any real education on herbal medicine. Due to the allopathic medical system we have had in place for over one hundred years in the USA, these practitioners are not very common or popular.

So –

• If our health practitioners don’t receive education about herbal medicine,
• The few practitioners who do are few and far between,
• And companies who sell herbal supplements can’t make science-backed health claims about their products,

Who is going to share the clinical studies on medicinal herbs we have available?

For this reason, herbal medicine remains little taught, poorly understood, and rarely recommended by most medical professionals today.

The FDA regulates medicinal herbs as dietary supplements. Which is good in part, because it means herbs can be sold to the public without needing to be clinically tested and patented.

The downside is companies that sell herbal supplements can’t make (true) health claims about their products. Even if the claims are backed by quality research. The FDA allows nutrient content and structure-function claims (effects of a supplement on a body part or normal biological process), but health claims (effects of a supplement on a disease) are heavily restricted.

Much of what we know about plants as medicine today comes from the teaching and application with which our ancestors provided us. As mentioned above, this is called historical use.

That, combined with what we know about the chemical composition of medicinal plants and how those chemicals effect the human body, and the small scale clinical trials and studies we have available, are how we know herbal medicine works.

So, yes, herbal medicine is often clinically proven but it can never fit the model of clinical trials and FDA approval pharmaceutical drugs go through due to the financing problem.

In all of modern medicine’s efforts to isolate active ingredients from plants and recreate them, the other myriad of components in these plants are left behind.

Leaving with them their incredible medicinal benefits.

Medicinal plants each contain a unique composition of alkaloids, balsams, bitter compounds, camphors, volatile oils (essential oils), enzymes, flavonoids, glycosides, gums, gum-resins, mucilages, oils, oleoresins, proteins, resins, saponins, starches, sugars, tannins, and waxes.

For example, garlic contains volatile oil, consisting of sulphur-containing compounds, including allicin, allyl-methyltrisulphide, diallyldisulphide, diallyltrisulphide, diallyltetrasulphide, allylpropyldisulphide, ajoene, 2-vinyl-4H-l,3 dithiin, and alliin, which breaks down enzymatically to allicin, with citral, geraniol, linalool, a- and b-phellandrene; enzymes including allinase; B vitamins, minerals, and flavonoids.

Each of the chemical ingredients a medicinal plant contains has a potent effect on the human body.

It’s through each herb’s unique chemical composition that Western Herbalists have determined the actions herbs have and how to use them clinically.

While pharmaceutical drugs save lives and have their time and place, they can’t offer the range of health benefits herbal medicine does.

In short, the answer to “why use herbs to do all these things?” is this:

• People can grow, forage, prepare, purchase, and use herbal medicine on their own, so it is affordable and encourages self-efficacy.
• Herbs work slowly and gently without many, if any, side effects or long term wear and tear on the body, so they are gentle.
• Herbal medicine can be used for a much wider range of purposes and conditions than can allopathic drugs, such as disease prevention, immune modulation, and health maintenance, so it is versatile and effective.
  
  
  

Some of my favorite books on herbal medicine –

Practical Herbalism, Philip Fritchey
Nutritional Herbology, Mark Pedersen
The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook, James Green
Prescription for Nutritional Healing 5th Edition, Phyllis A. Balch
Healing Lyme 2nd Edition, Stephen Harrod Buhner (Borreliosis, Chlamydia, and Spotted Fever Rickettsiosis)
Healing Lyme Disease Coinfections, Stephen Harrod Buhner (Bartonella and Mycoplasma)
Natural Treatments for Lyme Coinfections, Stephen Harrod Buhner (Anaplasma, Babesia, and Ehrlichia)
Herbal Antibiotics 2nd Edition, Stephen Harrod Buhner
Herbal Antivirals, Stephen Harrod Buhner
The Male Herbal, James Green
Herbal Healing for Women, Rosemary Gladstar

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