An updated and expanded edition of the definitive guide to adaptogenic herbs ⢠Includes a Materia Medica with monographs covering 25 adaptogens, including eleuthero, ginseng, rhodiola, schisandra, ashwagandha, licorice, shatavari, reishi, and holy basil, as well as complementary nervines, restorative tonics, and nootropics ⢠Explains how adaptogens increase the body's resistance to adverse influences, increase energy and stamina, and counter the effects of age and stress on the body ⢠Details the actions, properties, preparation, and dosage for each herb and their uses in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine and as remedies for animals Every day our bodies strive to adapt and stay balanced, energized, and healthy, yet chronic stress and the resulting elevation of stress hormones such as cortisol have been shown to be major factors behind not only fatigue and weight gain but also many chronic and degenerative diseases. In this updated edition of the definitive guide to adaptogenic herbs, clinical herbalist David Winston and researcher Steven Maimes provide a comprehensive look at adaptogens: non-toxic herbs such as ginseng, eleuthero, and ashwagandha that help the body "adapt" to the many influences it encounters and manage the stresses it experiences. They also increase stamina and energy, boost cognitive function, restore the immune system, and counter the effects of aging, especially when used in appropriate combinations. Beginning with a history of the use of adaptogens, including in Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, and Russian medicine, the book examines how these herbal remedies work and why they are so effective at combating stress-induced illness and ailments. The extensive Materia Medica includes monographs on 25 adaptogens, including eleuthero, ginseng, rhodiola, schisandra, ashwagandha, shatavari, reishi, and holy basil, as well as complementary nervines, restorative tonics, and nootropic herbs, such as milky oats, astragalus, St. John's wort, and ginkgo. Each monograph presents the latest scientific research and details the origin, traditional and clinical uses, actions, properties, preparation, and dosage for each herb. The book also includes guidance on adaptogenic remedies for our animal companions. Aimed not only at herbalists but also those interested in natural health, this guide to adaptogens will allow you to safely and effectively use these herbal remedies to enhance your health and improve your chances of living a longer, healthier, and well-balanced life.
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And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed . . . and God saw that it was good.
GENESIS 1:12
Letâs begin by reviewing some of the basic terms used to discuss herbal medicine.
A botanical is a substance made from part of a plant, including the bark, roots, or leaves. In botanical terminology, an herb is a plant lacking a permanent woody stem (not a tree or shrub). From an herbal perspective, any plant-based substance (or in some cases a naturally derived nonplant substance) that is medicinal is called an âherb.â Herbal medicine (or botanical medicine) is any system of medicine that relies on herbs or other plant-based materials as the source of remedies. Traditional medicine is a term used to denote ancient forms of medicine (usually based on the use of medicinal plants) that are still practiced in many communities and countries. Phytotherapy is the term primarily used in Europe for the treatment and prevention of disease by using herbal medicines. The prefix phyto- refers to plants.
Medicinal plants can be found in every region of the world. The late James Duke, PhD, who was a botanist for the United States Department of Agriculture and a renowned author, ethnobotanist, and researcher, put together a database that includes eighty thousand plants with more than twenty thousand species throughout the world that can be documented as being used for medicinal purposes. In North America, excluding Mexico, there are approximately twenty-two hundred species of plants that have been used for medicinal purposes in a traditional context.
Herbal medicine is one of the most ancient forms of health care known to humankind. The use of plants for healing purposes has been prevalent in all cultures throughout history and continues to play an important role in medicine today. The World Health Organization reports that approximately 75 percent of the worldâs population depends on botanical medicines for its basic health care needs. In fact, even people in many developed countries where Western allopathic medicine is the standard care are using medicinal plants as a significant part of their health care regimens.
Herbs have been used as medicines for millennia. Prior to the introduction of modern pharmaceutical drugs, herbal remedies were among the few reliable healing and treatment methods available.
Approximately 25 percent of modern medicines are still derived from plants first used in traditional medicine. That is, they contain at least one ingredient extracted or synthesized from a botanical source.
Botanical medicine was widely used in the United States until around 1920, when herbs were increasingly replaced by pharmaceutical drugs. However, since the late 1960s there has been a growing resurgence of interest in medicinal plants throughout the world.
International Use of Herbal Medicines
The largest populations who regularly use medicinal plants are in China and India. Thousands of herbs that are commonly used in these countries today have a history of use that goes back at least two thousand years. Over that time, a vast amount of experiential knowledge has been gained to help us understand their clinical applications. Clinical studies have also shown that some of these herbs increase the efficacy of pharmaceutical drugs, reduce their side effects, and in some cases can replace them completely.
Approximately five hundred species of plants are listed as official drugs in China. There are an additional five thousand species used as traditional medicines, folk medicines, or local medicines by various ethnic groups throughout China. Traditional herbal preparations account for 40 to 60 percent of medicines consumed, and traditional Chinese medicine is the second most used medical system in the world after Western (also called allopathic or conventional) medicine. More Westerners are turning to Chinese herbs and medicines because of the vast experience and effectiveness available in this type of natural medicine.
In India, 60 percent of registered physicians are involved in non-allopathic systems of medicine. That country has nearly four hundred thousand registered Ayurvedic practitioners, and Ayurvedic medicine is the third-largest medical system in the world today. Almost 70 percent of the medicines used in India are derived from natural products.
In Japan, 80 percent of physicians have prescribed traditional Chinese/Japanese medicines in the past year, mostly the formulas known as Kampo medicine.*1 Approximately two hundred Kampo formulas are officially recognized by the Japanese government. According to the World Health Organization, Japan has the highest per capita consumption of herbal medicines in the world.
More than seventy countries have national regulations on herbal medicines. Internationally, medicinal products or herbs are defined differently in different countries, and varied approaches have been adopted with regard to licensing, dispensing, and manufacturing these products.
Herbal Medicine in Europe
In Europe, especially in Germany, herbal medicines (known there as phytomedicines) are prescribed like other medications and enjoy widespread scientific and medical support. All German medical students must learn phytomedicine, and approximately 80 percent of German physicians regularly use plant medicines in their practice. In England, herbalists are recognized health care providers. This is also true in Australia and New Zealand.
Because the primary markets for phytomedicines are Germany, France, and Italy, many research papers on them are published in European journals, often in non-English languages. However, in the last few decades much more research has been published in English.
Most plant extracts marketed as dietary supplements in the United States are sold as drugs in Europe and undergo a more rigorous regulatory review there. The European phytomedicine market is estimated at more than $8 billion in annual sales, 70 percent of which are made in Germany, a country with a rich tradition of herbal medicine. One survey revealed that 76 percent of German women drink herbal teas for health benefits.
Herbal Medicine in the United States
Throughout the nineteenth century, several groups of physicians who practiced herbal medicine existed in the United States. These included the Thomsonians or Botanic physicians, their descendants the Physiomedicalists, and the most prominent group, known as the Eclectic physicians.
Eclectic medicine was practiced widely from the 1830s until around 1930. This sectarian medical system was founded by a physician, Wooster Beach, MD, who rejected the mainstream medical practices of bleeding, leeching, purging, and using toxic medicines such as arsenic and mercury. As an alternative, Beach and his followers embraced and studied the American vegetable materia medica. Eclectic physicians during the 1890s constituted 10 percent of the total number of doctors in the United States. Their clinical experience of treating hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of patients over one hundred years was carefully chronicled in their voluminous literature. Today, this is an extremely valuable body of knowledge that describes the successful clinical use of herbal medicines in a time without antibiotics or the advances of modern medical technology.
Naturopathic medicine (which includes the use of botanicals) shares some historical roots with Eclectic medicine as well as European herbal traditions. Licensed NDs integrate traditional natural therapeutic agents with modern medical diagnoses and treatments.
From the 1920s into the 1960s, the United States entered into a period of time that could be called the âherbal Dark Ages.â During this time the medicinal use of herbs virtually ceased to exist within mainstream American society. Some ethnic and rural communities continued to use herbs as medicine, but the only herbs that most Americans used were spices in cooking. Out of this almost total lack of exposure to or knowledge of herbal medicine, we have seen an amazing resurgence of interest in botanical remedies. Starting in the late 1960s a small group of people began the process of relearning, using, and teaching about herbal medicine. This âherbal renaissanceâ has in many ways been more successful than any of us probably ever imagined it could be.
In 1994, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) was passed in the United States. This legislation places herbal products in a clearly defined regulatory category of dietary supplements, along with a number of other products including vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and amino acids. When the DSHEA was passed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimated that there were about four thousand dietary supplements on the market. Since this law was passed, the number has increased dramatically to more than thirty thousand, with more than one thousand being added each year.
It is difficult to estimate the market for herbal products, but the best estimates place the annual sales for 2016 in the United States at around $7.5 billion (this reflects a 63 percent increase since 2006).
There is a greater interest in complementary and alternative medicine and, as a result, in herbal medicine. Today there are dozens of herbal schools, whereas in the early 1960s there were none. Botanical medicine is being taught at naturopathic medical schools, TCM schools, and even, to a limited degree, in some orthodox medical schools. In 1989, the American Herbalists Guild was founded to represent the goals and voices of clinical herbalists. The American Herbal Products Association represents the voice of the herbal products industry. The American Botanical Council (ABC), publishers of HerbalGram, work to educate the public and act as a bridge between academia, researchers, and clinicians. And the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, is doing research and providing information on complementary and alternative medicine (including medicinal herbs) to the general public.
The future looks relatively bright for herbal medicine in the United States. However, the FDA, which strictly regulates herbal products, still classifies herbs as dietary supplements and prohibits manufacturers from claiming that their products are effective in treating or preventing any specific diseases. Some pharmaceutical companies and physicians would like to see herbs reclassified as drugs rather than foods. This is not only unnecessary, it would actually make herbs less available and more costly and would not increase efficacy or safety. In Canada a more reasonable approach has been created that allows herbal manufacturers to clearly state well-documented traditional uses of herbs rather than allowing only the vague âstructure functionâ claims allowed by DSHEA.
The Worldwide Herbal Marketplace
The global market for botanical medicines was expected to be more than $130 billion in 2017 (Future Market Insights, 2016) and is growing steadily.
Research
While medicinal plant research has dramatically increased over the last fifty years, we still know only a fraction of what these plants can teach us. About two thousand species of plants are well documented as medicinal plants, but another eighteen thousand species have received little or no basic research such as chemical analysis or biological screening.
In the past thirty years, most of the clinical research on herbal products has been conducted in Germany, France, Italy, Eastern Europe, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Iran, China, and India. Some studies are hard to access in the United States or have never been translated into English. Other studies focus on using isolated phytochemicals, intravenous infusions, intramuscular injections, or in vitro research, which have little relevance for the clinical herbalist. ...
