Bill Gottlieb
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 HERBS: These Four Fight Colon Cancer
The following herbal supplements are thought to be most effective at combating colon cancer. Remember, though, to take them only with the approval and supervision of your doctor, says Dr. Quillin.
• Echinacea. In one European study, echinacea slowed tumor growth and increased survival time in some patients with inoperable colon cancer. Take a daily dose of 80 milligrams.
• Ginkgo. This herb may help by improving circulation to the colon, limiting one of the cellular fuels that powers the spread of a tumor, and strengthening the immune system. Dr. |
John Heinerman
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 Using Mahuang Safely
Mahuang is widely used in many OTC (over-the-counter) drugs and herbal supplements for energy and weight loss. It is the source of the natural constituents ephedrine and pseudoephedrine which are used for upper respiratory ailments. The latter variant of ephedrine is the chief ingredient in Sudafed, Actifed, Contac, Robitussin-PE, Sinutab, and others.
Mahuang is the main factor in numerous herbal energy formulas and dietary supplements marketed by the powerful health food and herb industries. |
Gale Maleskey
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 Alongside the nutritional and herbal supplements, however, you'll also find substances so unusual that they almost seem bizarre—from bee pollen and brewer's yeast to shark cartilage and fish oil. Even some living, beneficial organisms have their place among nature's medicines.
Faced with so many choices, how do you know which of these natural supplements are right for you?
That's where this book comes in.
In Nature's Medicines, you'll find out exactly how and when to take these supplements to improve and maintain your health. |
| Walk through the supplement section of your local health food store, supermarket, or drugstore, and you'll see many supplements that don't fit the category of either vitamins and minerals or herbal supplements. You'll see strange names like phosphatidylserine and chondroitin sulfate, mysterious abbreviations like DHEA, or headline-grabbing labels like melatonin and shark cartilage.
How do we classify these other supplements that are neither vitamins, minerals, nor herbs?
There are so many different kinds that they defy a single classification. |
| Thinking about Herbs
Whether you visit an herbal practitioner or choose to self-medicate, there are two ways to consider herbal supplements.
One view is that botanicals are simply substitutes for drugs. If you have a tension headache, for instance, you want instant relief, so you reach for an over-the-counter pharmaceutical like aspirin, ibuprofen, or acetaminophen. |
| Kansas Clinic of
From Plant to Shelf
Making herbal supplements these days is a far cry from the traditional hunter-gatherer methods of yore. As with any complex manufacturing operation, supplement makers require a steady stream of raw materials, and there are many checkpoints for quality control throughout the process.
When you step inside the doors of Herbalist and Alchemist, an herbal medicine manufacturer in Washington, Hew Jersey, the complexity of the operation is immediately apparent. |
| Mostly Mild, Mostly Safe
The mild nature of many herbal supplements makes them relatively safe, but that's not true of every herb, and it's important to follow any directions from your health practitioner and the dosage recommendations on the product's label. Don't exceed the dosage, says David Winston, a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild and a practicing herbalist in Washington, New Jersey.
"A lot of folks have this idea that if a little is good, more is better. That's never a good idea, even with herbs," says Winston. |
Textbook of Natural Medicine 2nd Edition Volume 1Michael T. Murray, ND
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| Use appropriate anti-yeast therapy:
• Ideally, use the recommended nutritional and /or herbal supplements to help control against yeast overgrowth and promote a healthy bacterial flora
• If necessary, use prescription anti-yeast drug appropriately.
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Michael T. Murray, ND Joseph E. Pizzorno Jr, ND
DIAGNOSTIC SUMMARY
Mild fever
Recurrent sore throat Painful lymph nodes Muscle weakness Muscle pain
Prolonged fatigue after exercise Recurrent headache Migratory pint pain Depression
Sleep disturbance (hypersomnia or insomnia). |
Michael T. Murray, N.D., Joseph E. Pizzorno, N.D.
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 The solubility of the bile can be increased by following the dietary guidelines and utilizing the nutritional and herbal supplements recommended below.
Diet
Increase intake of vegetables, fruits, and dietary fiber, especially the gel-forming or mucilaginous fibers (flaxseed, oat bran, guar gum, pectin, etc.). Reduce consumption of saturated fats, cholesterol, sugar, and animal proteins. Avoid all fried foods.
Water
Drink six to eight glasses of water each day to maintain the water content of bile. |
Marion Nestle
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 So little is known about the interactions among herbal supplements and conventional drugs that anesthesiologists warn patients to stop taking supplements before undergoing surgery. Pharmacists at major drug chains also have begun asking customers about supplement practices and advising them about possible interactions that might be harmful. The uncertainties reinforce the opinion of some scientists that taking supplements is like playing a lottery and provide grounds for more extreme critics to argue that the supplement industry is surely "the most dangerous and the least regulated ... |
American Medical Publishing
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| With this in mind, let's talk about some general guidelines which consumers should use when it comes to using herbal supplements for health reasons.
When used in a common sense manner, herbal remedies are most often to be safer than conventional prescription drugs. They are more dilute, slower-acting and their side effects are usually less severe. Relatively few poisonings are reported each year because of herbs, and most of these are due to the consumption of toxic ornamental plants, not herbs. |
Robyn Landis
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 Supplement Capsules and Pills
Packaged herbal supplements can be purchased at an herb pharmacy as well. Sometimes herb pharmacies capsule and package their own "house brand" of many popular herbs. These are usually of better quality than mass-marketed commercial brands.
However, if you do buy herbs at a health-food store, you can do okay buying packaged supplements—better than buying bulk herbs there. Sometimes health-food stores will carry the same popular brands as the herb pharmacy. Seek well-known, reputable brands. |
Bill Gottlieb
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 Ilii
Vitamin and Mineral Therapy
A person with a cold may want to use the following vitamin, mineral and herbal supplements to help shorten the duration of the cold and reduce the severity of symptoms, says David Edelberg, M.D. |
Richard Leviton
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 Americans Use herbal supplements," Issue 25, (August/September 1998): 109.
—"81% Growth in Canadians' Alternative Medicine Use," Issue 24, (June/July 1998): 107.
—"Sales of Nutritional Supplements Up 19%—Medicinal Self-Care Emphasis Strong," Issue 27, (December 1998/January 1999): 106.
Angier, Natalie, "Bedside Manners Improve as More Women Enter Medicine," New York Times, (June 21, 1992).
Astin, John A., Ph.D., "Why Patients Use Alternative Medicine: Results of a National Study," Journal of the American Medical Association 279:19 (May 20, 1998): 1548-1553. |
| A survey released in March 1998 (conducted by Celestial Seasonings, a leading herbal tea manufacturer), announced that based on polling of 500 people, aged 35 to 54, 37% use herbal supplements. This was a tenfold increase in usage since 1990, Celestial Seasonings reported.
• According to Natural Foods Merchandiser, an industry trade publication, 1997 natural products sales totaled $14.8 billion, of which $2.6 billion were for nutritional supplements—a 19.5% increase over 1996.
• The demand for alternative medicine is 39% higher than the supply. |
Marion Nestle
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| Late in 1998, for example, the New England Journal of Medicine published several accounts of people who had become ill as a result of taking herbal supplements, along with an editorial scathing in its criticism of such unscientific practices:
We see a reversion to irrational approaches to medical practice, even while scientific medicine is making some of its most dramatic advances. . . . Since [DSHEA] these products have flooded the market, subject only to the scruples of their manufacturers. They may contain the substances listed on the label in the amounts claimed, but they need not... |
| As for the safety of herbal supplements, the industry maintains that problems are rare. Rare, however, is a comparative term. From 1993 to 1998, the FDA received 2,621 reports of serious problems related to taking supplements, including 101 deaths—numbers that can be viewed as reassuring or alarming, depending on one's point of view.8 One difficulty with interpreting safety data is that people assume that dietary supplements are benign and may not associate health problems with taking the products. |
Gary Null
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 VITAMINS AND OTHER NUTRIENTS In a forthcoming work, I will have a 100 pages to detail the vitamin and herbal supplements that have been used for treating AIDS patients with positive results. In this briefer space, I can only touch on some of the substances that have recorded good results. glutathione
Glutathione is an antioxidant that protects against cellular damage. It stimulates lymphocytes that help defend the body against viral illnesses, such as AIDS. When N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) is given to a patient, the body will convert it to glutathione. |
Marion Nestle
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| Although most scientists consider studies that suggest benefits of herbal supplements as preliminary and inconclusive, the products may well help people with conditions that cannot be treated successfully with conventional medicines even if they do so simply through placebo (or other self-healing) effects. As discussed in the Appendix, such effects can be very powerful and are often neglected in conventional medical practice. |
Robyn Landis
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| If you did swallow the contents of a random bottle of herbal supplements, you might have diarrhea or feel a bit queasy, but in most cases that would be the extent of the damage. (For example, a woman who recently attempted suicide by taking a bottle of valerian root experienced muscle tremors and fatigue lasting one day, with medical tests revealing no liver toxicity or other abnormalities.5) You can surely imagine the kinds of things that would happen if you did that with a random bottle of pharmaceutical drugs.
Drug side effects are a serious issue. |
| Thus, some herbal supplements are concentrated as well.
The TDH proposal exempted the over-the-counter (OTC) drugs Vivarin and No-Doz, which contain pure caffeine. No one would call them food. Primatene is an OTC drug that contains ephedrine, the major active chemical purified from ma huang. Millions of Americans use this drug every day to treat asthma. Sudafed contains another stimulant alkaloid from ma huang, pseudoephedrine. It too is used by millions of Americans. |
Schuyler W. Lininger, Jr. DC
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 Herbs That May Be Helpful
In many parts of Europe, herbal supplements are considered standard medical treatment for BPH.
Although herbs for BPH are available without prescription, men wishing to take them should be monitored by a physician.
The fat-soluble (liposterolic) extract of the saw palmetto (p. 457) berry has become the leading natural treatment for BPH. This extract, when used regularly, has been shown to help keep symptoms in check.7 Saw palmetto appears to inhibit 5-alpha-reductase, the enzyme that converts testosterone to its more active form, dihydrotestosterone (DHT). |
| Other herbal supplements that may help lower serum triglycerides include psyllium (p. 452), fenugreek (p. 424), and green tea (p. 430). Are There Any Side Effects or Interactions? Refer to the individual herb for information about any side effects or interactions.
HIV Support
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a condition in which the immune system becomes severely weakened and loses its ability to fight infections. Most scientists believe that the disease results from infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). |
| Herbs That May Be Helpful
While no herbal supplements have been studied specifically for fibromyalgia, herbs used to relieve symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) (p. 36) might also be useful for fibromyalgia. These include the initial use of 2 grams of licorice root (p. 440) 3 times per day for 6 to 8 weeks, followed by the ongoing use of an adaptogenic herb, such as Asian ginseng (p. 394), 1 to 2 grams per day, or eleuthero (p. 419) (Siberian ginseng), 2 to 3 grams per day. Licorice needs to be used in its whole form; deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL) extracts will not work. |
| For more serious cases of diarrhea, proper medical evaluation and monitoring should occur before taking any herbal supplements.
While fiber (p. 293) from dietary or herbal sources is often useful for constipation, it may also play a role in alleviating diarrhea. For example, 9 to 30 grams per day of psyllium seed (p. 452) (an excellent source of fiber) makes stool more solid and can help resolve symptoms of non-infectious diarrhea.23
Carob (p. 406) is rich in tannins that have an astringent or binding effect on the mucous membranes of the intestinal tract. |
| While not as thoroughly researched as GBE for this condition, studies show that ginseng is effective at improving memory and also countering depression in the elderly. Some herbal supplements combine GBE with Asian ginseng. Are There Any Side Effects or Interactions? Refer to the individual herb for information about any side effects or interactions.
Checklist for Alzheimer's Disease
Ranking
Nutritional Supplements
Herbs
Primary
Acetyl-L-carnitine
(p. 263) Phosphatidylserine
(p. 321)
Ginkgo biloba (p. 427)
Secondary
Huperzine A
(P. 302) Vitamin E (p. |
Marion Nestle
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| The safety of many herbal products is untested and, therefore, unknown. herbal supplements vary in composition, potency, and quality.
As this chapter illustrates, the FDA's attempts to impose science-based regulatory standards on an industry with wide appeal to a public that subscribes to belief-based views of dietary supplements caused the agency no end of woe—astonishing amounts of work followed by increasing isolation from the public, from the courts, and eventually from Congress, which voted for personal beliefs over science when it passed DSHEA. |
Linda B. White, M.D.
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 Capsules
Eighty percent of all herbal supplements are sold in capsule form. They're not necessarily better than other forms. They are, however, convenient, palatable, and portable. Some are made from gelatin, while others are made from vegetable sources.
But capsules do have some disadvantages. They contain dried, ground herbs, and when herbs are that finely chopped, they can lose their potency more quickly. If you're taking whole herb capsules, not a concentrated extract, you may have to take quite a few capsules to get enough of the herb. |
| One thing product labels won't tell you, though, is that most herbal supplements are formulated for the needs of a 150-pound man. If you're much heavier or lighter than that, consider adjusting your dose accordingly.
For example, divide your weight by 150; multiply the result by the dosage on the product label. If you weigh only 100 pounds, you'd take two-thirds the recommended dose.
Quality Counts
Make sure that you're buying your herbs from a reputable manufacturer or another herbal provider whom you can trust. |
American Medical Publishing
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| Current law does not require that the FDA regulate the safety of herbal supplements. With no watchdog — even an imperfect watchdog like the FDA —to monitor the safety of herbal remedies, you never know what you are getting. Just as we told you that the major drug companies are motivated by profits, so are many herbal producers. They are not immune to the huge cash potential that can be had from selling as many herbs as they can, whether they have been thoroughly tested for safety or not. |
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