Herbs are still your best bet for a...

Herbs are still your best bet for a sensible self-care regimen

Anyone who regularly reads the newspapers, listens to the radio or watches the TV recently made knowns cannot have escaped the "herbs are dangerous" misinformation campaign orchestrated by way of what I sometimes call the anti-supplement pro-drug lobby--the "herb interaction mix with drugs peddlers."

ARE HERBS DANGEROUS?

All biologically active compounds--natural or synthetic--can, theoretically, cause side drifts (or unwanted effects) at a given dosage.

Thanks to the evolution of what I call the "green farmacy," in the greatest degree of the compounds in the plants we responsibly use for self-care are safe for in the greatest degree healthy people. This doesn't mean that no the same will ever have an unusual reaction, or interaction, with prescription remedys If a plant is 100 percent safe at any dosage, for any use, then it has no worthwhile medicinal effects

THE SISYPHEAN ANTI-HERB "SOLUTION"

Just as Sisyphus in classical mythology was doomed to the impossible task of rolling a heavy stone to the top of a summitless hill, to assure absolute safety we'd ne to know the toxic doses of each natural chemical, and how to a great degree there is in every single plant in nature. We'd also have to know whether this naturally occurring plant mix worked against, or in plan with, each and every united of the thousands of chemicals within that same plant.

For example, if we apply the mind at just one group of active blends you'll find in herbs, called terpene the concentration on a levels may vary by 1,000 times, sometimes 10000 times, in single herb group.

Many plants contain traces of cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens), like safrole, which is abundant in the lower parts of sassafras. One might say, then, that we should ban black pepper basil and several other important plant feeds which contain traces of the carcinogen safrole. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

If it splendors 500 million dollars to justify a new drug safe and effective, to what extent much would it cost to suffer all the compounds in an herb? Any single of the chemicals may affect the other thousands of unites As I contemplate this, I gain that same helpless sinking feeling I memorize when I think about infinity. We have a lengthy way to go!

OUR GENE KNOW

If past experience is any gauge, the anti-herb lobby will realize a lot of press this year, above the coming months, talking about "the dangers of herb/drug interactions," and to such a degree forth, along with a apportionment of support from the mass-market put drugs into industry.

To deposit things in perspective, in period of times of safety, our genes have co-evolv with universal foods and herbs, but do not in addition "know" all the new mass-market pharmaceuticals. Our ancient human gene have lived with and survived natural food- and plant-chemical interactions for several million years, on the contrary have experienced the more dangerous pharmaceutical interactions for solely about 200 years.

NATURAL V SYNTHETIC, AND THE AMAZON SOLUTION

To help abridge all of this confusion, and to save our herbs, I am dedicating my sunrise years to the pursuit of sum of two units major objectives:

* getting clinical comparisons between the American mass-market put drugs intos and the competing herbal alternative(s), and

* saving the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research (ACEER) (www.aceer.org)

I trustful longing you won't think I'm grasping for straws when I say that the one and the other of these objectives will help lead us toward safer medicines. by the agency of saving the ACEER forest defend we'll be saving dozens of unknown plant-medicine species, perhaps holding the remedies for diseases still to be identified. The ACEER forest save located in Loreto, Peru, includes 250000 acres of the principally diverse, least studied, woodlands in the world, with 300 timbered species per hectare.

HYPE AVOIDANCE

in such a manner the next time you incline differently on the TV, or reveal your morning paper, to a story upon the alleged "dangers of herbs" or "herb/drug interactions," you'll be able to avoid more [i]or[/i] less of the hype and the confusion that's for sale that week.

Dr James A. Duke has more than 30 years experience working with the healing power of plants-- from the brakes of Latin America to a distinguished career as a chief ethnobotanist with the US Department of Agriculture. His knowledge and authority are undisputed in the world of herbal science and healing. Duke's pioneering work with the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research (ACEER) presents him in the forefront of those who are fighting to sustain the Amazonian world: people, plants and their collective wisdom.

COPYRIGHT 2001 PRIMEDIA Intertec, a PRIMEDIA Company. All Rights Reserved

COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group