An herb is a plant or plant part used for its scent, flavor or therapeutic properties. Herbal medicine products are dietary supplements that people take to improve their health. Many herbs have been used for a long time for claimed health benefits. They are sold as tablets, capsules, powders, teas, extracts and fresh or dried plants. However, some can cause health problems, some are not effective and some may interact with other drugs you are taking.

To use an herbal product as safely as possible

Consult your doctor first
Do not take a bigger dose than the label recommends
Take it under the guidance of a trained medical professional
Be especially cautious if you are pregnant or nursing

Medicinal herbs are some of our oldest medicines and their increasing use in recent years is evidence of a public interest in having alternatives to conventional medicine. The use of plants for healing purposes predates recorded history and forms the origin of much of modern medicine. Many conventional drugs originate from plant sources: a century ago, most of the few effective drugs were plant-based. Examples include aspirin (from willow bark), digoxin (from foxglove), quinine (from cinchona bark), and morphine (from the opium poppy). The development of drugs from plants continues, with drug companies engaged in large-scale pharmacologic screening of herbs.

Use of whole plants

Practitioners of herbal medicine generally use unpurified plant extracts containing several different constituents. Typically, they claim that these can work together synergistically so that the effect of the whole herb is greater than the sum total of the effects of its components. They also claim that toxicity is reduced when whole herbs are used instead of isolated active ingredients ("buffering"). Although 2 samples of a particular herbal drug may contain constituent compounds in different proportions, practitioners claim that this does not generally cause clinical problems.

Some experiments have yielded evidence of synergy and buffering in certain whole plant preparations, but how far this is generalizable to all herbal products is not known.

Herb combining

Several different herbs often are used together. Practitioners say that the principles of synergy and buffering apply to combinations of plants and claim that combining herbs improves efficacy and reduces adverse effects. Herb combining contrasts with conventional practice, in which polypharmacy is generally avoided whenever possible.

Diagnosis

Herbal practitioners use diagnostic principles that differ from those used by conventional practitioners. For example, when treating arthritis, herbal practitioners might observe "under-functioning of a patient's systems of elimination" and decide that the arthritis results from "an accumulation of metabolic waste products." A diuretic, choleretic, or laxative combination of herbs might then be prescribed alongside herbs with anti-inflammatory properties.

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Understanding Herbal Medicine Recommended Resources:

University of Maryland Medical Center

Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine