Herbal medicine (also called herbalism, phytomedicine or phytotherapy) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine.
Paraherbalism is the Pseudoscience use of plant or animal extracts as medicine, relying on unproven beliefs about the safety and effectiveness of minimally processed natural substances.
Herbal medicine has been used since at least the Paleolithic era, with written records from ancient Sumer, Egypt, Greece, China, and India documenting its development and application over millennia. Modern herbal medicine is widely used globally—especially in Asia and Africa. Traditional medicine systems involve long-standing, culturally-embedded practices using local herbs, animal products, and spiritual elements. These systems have influenced and contributed to modern pharmacology. Herbalists believe that plants, having evolved defenses against environmental stressors, produce beneficial phytochemicals, often extracted from roots or leaves, that can be used in medicine.
Sick often seek out and eat plants containing compounds like Tannin and Alkaloid to help purge Parasitism—a behavior observed by scientists and sometimes cited by Folk healer as the source of their knowledge.
History
Archaeological evidence indicates that the use of dates back to the Paleolithic age, approximately 60,000 years ago. Written evidence of herbal remedies dates back over 5,000 years to the , who compiled lists of plants. Some ancient cultures wrote about plants and their medical uses in books called . In ancient Egypt, herbs were mentioned in Egyptian medical papyri, depicted in tomb illustrations, or on rare occasions found in medical jars containing trace amounts of herbs.
Seeds likely used for herbalism were found in archaeological sites of Bronze Age China dating from the Shang dynasty
Modern herbal medicine
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80 percent of the population of some Asian and African countries presently uses herbal medicine for some aspect of primary health care.
Some prescription drugs have a basis as herbal remedies,
Regulatory review
In 2015, the Australian Government's Department of Health published the results of a review of alternative therapies that sought to determine if any were suitable for being covered by health insurance; herbalism was one of 17 topics evaluated for which no clear evidence of effectiveness was found.
According to Cancer Research UK as of 2015, "there is currently no strong evidence from studies in people that herbal remedies can treat, prevent or cure cancer".
Prevalence of use
The use of herbal remedies is more prevalent in people with chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, asthma, and end-stage kidney disease.
Herbal preparations
There are many forms in which herbs can be administered, the most common of which is a liquid consumed as a herbal tea or a (possibly diluted) plant extract.
, or tisanes, are the resultant liquid of extracting herbs into water, though they are made in a few different ways. are hot water extracts of herbs, such as chamomile or Mentha, through steeping. are the long-term boiled extracts, usually of harder substances like roots or bark. Maceration is the cold infusion of plants with high mucilage-content, such as Common sage or thyme. To make macerates, plants are chopped and added to cold water. They are then left to stand for 7 to 12 hours (depending on the herb used). For most macerates, 10 hours is used.
are alcoholic extracts of herbs, which are generally stronger than herbal teas.[Groot Handboek Geneeskrachtige Planten by Geert Verhelst] Non-alcoholic tinctures can be made with glycerin but it is believed to be less absorbed by the body than alcohol based tinctures and has a shorter shelf life.
The exact composition of a herbal product is influenced by the method of extraction. A tea will be rich in polar components because water is a polar solvent. Oil, on the other hand, is a non-polar solvent and it will absorb non-polar compounds. Alcohol lies somewhere in-between.
Many herbs are applied topically to the skin in a variety of forms. Essential oil extracts can be applied to the skin, usually diluted in a carrier oil. Many essential oils can burn the skin or are simply too high dose used straight; diluting them in olive oil or another food grade oil such as almond oil can allow these to be used safely as a topical. , oils, Liniment, creams, and lotions are other forms of topical delivery mechanisms. Most topical applications are oil extractions of herbs. Taking a food grade oil and soaking herbs in it for anywhere from weeks to months allows certain Phytochemical to be extracted into the oil. This oil can then be made into salves, creams, lotions, or simply used as an oil for topical application. Many massage oils, antibacterial salves, and wound healing compounds are made this way.
Inhalation, as in aromatherapy, can be used as a treatment.
Safety
It is a popular misconception that herbal medicines are safe and side-effect free.
Although many consumers believe that herbal medicines are safe because they are natural, herbal medicines and synthetic drugs may interact, causing toxicity to the consumer. Herbal remedies can also be dangerously contaminated, and herbal medicines without established efficacy, may unknowingly be used to replace prescription medicines.
Standardization of purity and dosage is not mandated in the United States, but even products made to the same specification may differ as a result of biochemical variations within a species of plant.
Although not frequent, adverse reactions have been reported for herbs in widespread use.
Examples of herbal treatments with likely cause-effect relationships with adverse events include Consolida (which is often a legally restricted herb), Ayurveda, Genisteae, chaparral, Chinese herb mixtures, comfrey, herbs containing certain flavonoids, germander, guar gum, liquorice root, and Mentha pulegium.
There is also concern with respect to the numerous well-established interactions of herbs and drugs.
For example, dangerously low blood pressure may result from the combination of a herbal remedy that lowers blood pressure together with prescription medicine that has the same effect. Some herbs may amplify the effects of anticoagulants.
In a 2018 study, the FDA identified active medication in over 700 analyzed dietary supplements sold as "herbal", "natural" or "traditional".
Labeling accuracy
Researchers at the University of Adelaide found in 2014 that almost 20 percent of herbal remedies surveyed were not registered with the Therapeutic Goods Administration, despite this being a condition for their sale.[
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In 2015, the New York Attorney General issued cease and desist letters to four major U.S. retailers (GNC, Target, Walgreens, and Walmart) who were accused of selling herbal supplements that were mislabeled and potentially dangerous.
Practitioners of herbalism
In some countries, formalized training and minimum education standards exist for herbalists, although these are not necessarily uniform within or between countries. In Australia, for example, the self-regulated status of the profession (as of 2009) resulted in variable standards of training, and numerous loosely formed associations setting different educational standards.[ In the United Kingdom, the training of herbalists is done by state-funded universities offering Bachelor of Science degrees in herbal medicine.]
United States herbalism fraud
Over the years 2017–2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warning letters to numerous herbalism companies for illegally marketing products under "conditions that cause them to be drugs under section 201(g)(1) of the Act 21, because they are intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease and/or intended to affect the structure or any function of the body" when no such evidence existed.
Government regulations
The World Health Organization (WHO), the specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that is concerned with international public health, published Quality control methods for medicinal plant materials in 1998 to support WHO Member States in establishing quality standards and specifications for herbal materials, within the overall context of quality assurance and control of herbal medicines.
In the European Union (EU), herbal medicines are regulated under the Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products.
In the United States, herbal remedies are regulated dietary supplements by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) policy for dietary supplements.
Canadian regulations are described by the Natural and Non-prescription Health Products Directorate which requires an eight-digit Natural Product Number or Homeopathic Medicine Number on the label of licensed herbal medicines or dietary supplements.
Some herbs, such as cannabis and coca, are outright banned in most countries though coca is legal in most of the South American countries where it is grown. The Cannabis is used as a herbal medical cannabis, and as such is legal in some parts of the world. Since 2004, the sales of ephedra as a dietary supplement is prohibited in the United States by the FDA,[ FDA Issues Regulation Prohibiting Sale of Dietary Supplements Containing Ephedrine Alkaloids and Reiterates Its Advice That Consumers Stop Using These Products ] and subject to Schedule III restrictions in the United Kingdom.
Scientific criticism
Herbalism has been criticized as a potential "land mine" of unreliable product quality, safety hazards, and the potential for misleading health advice.[ and there is generally an absence of high-quality scientific research on product composition or effectiveness for anti-disease activity.][
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Unethical practices by some herbalists and manufacturers, which may include false advertising about health benefits on product labels or literature,[ and contamination or use of fillers during product preparation,]
Paraherbalism
Paraherbalism is the Pseudoscience use of of plant or animal origin as supposed medicines or health-promoting agents.[ Phytotherapy differs from plant-derived medicines in standard pharmacology because it does not isolate and Standardization the compounds from a given plant believed to be biologically active. It relies on the false belief that preserving the complexity of substances from a given plant with less processing is safer and potentially more effective, for which there is no evidence either condition applies.][
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Phytochemical researcher Varro Eugene Tyler described paraherbalism as "faulty or inferior herbalism based on pseudoscience", using scientific terminology but lacking scientific evidence for safety and efficacy. Tyler listed ten fallacy that distinguished herbalism from paraherbalism, including claims that there is a conspiracy to suppress safe and effective herbs, herbs cannot cause harm, whole herbs are more effective than molecules isolated from the plants, herbs are superior to drugs, the doctrine of signatures (the belief that the shape of the plant indicates its function) is valid, dilution of substances increases their potency (a doctrine of the pseudoscience of homeopathy), astrological alignments are significant, animal testing is not appropriate to indicate human effects, anecdotal evidence is an effective means of proving a substance works and herbs were created by God to cure disease. Tyler suggests that none of these beliefs have any basis in fact.
Traditional systems
Africa
Up to 80% of the population in Africa uses traditional medicine as primary health care.
Americas
Native Americans used about 2,500 of the approximately 20,000 plant species that are native to North America.
In Andes healing practices, the use of , in particular the San Pedro cactus ( Echinopsis pachanoi) is still a vital component, and has been around for millennia.
Asia
China
Some researchers trained in both Western and traditional Chinese medicine have attempted to deconstruct ancient medical texts in the light of modern science. In 1972, Tu Youyou, a pharmaceutical chemist and Nobel Prize winner, extracted the anti-malarial drug artemisinin from sweet wormwood, a traditional Chinese treatment for intermittent fevers.
India
In India, Ayurvedic medicine has quite complex formulas with 30 or more ingredients, including a sizable number of ingredients that have undergone "alchemy", chosen to balance dosha.
Indonesia
In Indonesia, especially among the Javanese people, the jamu traditional herbal medicine may have originated in the Mataram Kingdom era, some 1300 years ago.
Though possibly influenced by Indian Ayurveda systems, the Indonesia archipelago holds numerous indigenous plants not found in India, including plants similar to those in Australia beyond the Wallace Line.
Beliefs
Herbalists tend to use extracts from parts of plants, such as the roots or leaves,
Use of plants by animals
Indigenous healers often claim to have learned by observing that sick animals change their food preferences to nibble at bitter herbs they would normally reject.
See also
Further reading
