Herbal Medicine

Herbal Medicine

It is arguable that plants are the most important resource on Earth. Without plants human life would cease to exist. Plants are needed and used for so many different things that it would take a considerable amount of time to name them all. They provide the most basic essentials we need to live like shelter, oxygen, and food. Plants also provide the nonessential conveniences like gasoline, beauty products, and textiles. New uses for plants are found almost daily, and not everyone realizes how big of a part they play in their everyday lives. Most new uses for plants are found through botany and scientific research. In this day and age technology is so advanced it has made it a lot easier to study, develop, and utilize plants to our benefit. One of the most important reasons plants are being studied is for their medicinal uses.

When you think of plants being used as medicine, you think of them as being a more natural way to treat or cure certain ailments as opposed to synthetic drugs. Many people prefer natural remedies and think they are safer, and that’s why herbal medicine is so popular. “Herbal medicine -- also called botanical medicine or phytomedicine -- refers to using a plant's seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark, or flowers for medicinal purposes. Herbalism has a long tradition of use outside of conventional medicine. It is becoming more mainstream as improvements in analysis and quality control along with advances in clinical research show the value of herbal medicine in the treating and preventing disease” (Ehrlich).

Three of the most popular herbal supplements in the US are echinacea, ginkgo biloba, and St. John’s wort (Ehrlich). All of these herbal supplements are used to treat very specific things and have worked for many people. Echinacea is derived from the coneflower, a flowering plant with pink and purple flowers (Craker) and “researchers have observed that certain preparations of echinacea can help treat colds, influenza, and various infections. People also take echinacea extracts to help boost their immune systems. Such extracts increase the activity of phagocytes in the body. Phagocytes are white blood cells capable of destroying disease-producing bacteria and other harmful material” (Craker). Ginkgo biloba comes from the leaves of the ginkgo tree and is mostly used by people who and trying to improve their memory. “Clinical studies have shown that ginkgo extracts exhibit therapeutic activity in a variety