Herbal medicine - Definition and Overview

The term Herbalism refers to folk and traditional medicinal practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts.

The use of herbs to treat disease is almost universal among native peoples. A number of traditions have come to dominate the practise of herbal medicine in the west at the end of the twentieth century:-

• The Western herbal tradition based on Greek, Roman and medieval sources,
• The Ayurvedic tradition of India,
• Chinese herbal medicine.

As of 2004, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is starting to fund clinical trials into the effectivness of herbal medicine; see the links at the National Institutes of Health Herbal Medicine Links Page (http://health.nih.gov/result.asp/324).

Popularity

A survey released in May 2004 (http://nccam.nih.gov/news/2004/052704.htm) by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine focused on who used complementary and alternative medicines (CAM), what was used, and why it was used. The survey was limited to adults age 18 years and over during 2002 living in the United States. According to this recent survey, herbal therapy, or use of natural products other than vitamins and minerals, was the most commonly used CAM therapy (18.9%) ([1] (http://nccam.nih.gov/news/report.pdf) table 1 on page 8) when all use of prayer was excluded.

Examples

Examples of some commonly used herbal medicines:-

• Echinacea extracts have been shown to limit the length of colds in some clinical trials [2] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15035888).
• St John's wort has been found to be more effective than placebo for the treatment of mild depression in some clinical trials [3] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12904978).
• Artichoke and several other plants have been associated with reduced total serum cholesterol levels in preliminary studies [4] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12791229).
• Black cohosh and other plants that contain phytoestrogens (plant molecules with estrogen activity) have been found to have some benefits for treatment of symptoms resulting from menopause [5] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12435217).

See Also: herb, herbology; alternative medicine, anesthesia, chinese medicine, complementary medicine, ethnobotany, folk medicine, folk remedy, paganism, shamanism, welfare plant, History of alternative medicine

External links

• Medherb.com (http://medherb.com/INDEX.SHTML)
• Open Directory: Herbalism (http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=herbalism)
• Google Directory: Herbalism (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=herbalism&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop)