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Botanicals, Herbs, and Herbalism

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Botanicals, Herbs, and Herbalism BOTANICALS, HERBS, AND HERBALISM COURSE DESCRIPTION While modern medicine has produced many scientific advances, one of the most important “advances” in health and medicine has been the recognition of the value of herbs and herbalism. After all, nature and plants have been an essential part of everyday life since the beginning of recorded history. Used for medicines, clothing, food, and in religious ceremonies, in many health belief systems, plants are considered a gift of nature and valued for their healing effects. The outcome of this course is for the learner to provide a description of the role of herbs and herbalists, herb processing, herbalist training, and current issues regarding the use of herbs. COURSE OBJECTIVES Upon completion of this course, you will be able to do the following: 1. Describe the role of herbs and herbalism in health care. 2. Explain the herbal production process. 3. Describe the levels of herbalists. 4. Identify the actions of herbs. 5. Describe the key concerns of herbalism today. © ALLEGRA Learning Solutions, LLC All Rights Reserved. 1 INTRODUCTION Modern medical science has provided antibiotics, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, laser surgery, organ transplants, and many other life-saving advances. Amid this valuable progress, however, individuals often lose sight of the history of healing. Humans have not always looked to technology to heal. During much of human existence, people relied on a connectedness to nature and its healing powers. Nature was part of everyday life, and people were intimately familiar with it. Plants, for example, have been used by humans for food, medicine, clothing, and tools, and for religious ceremonies, prior to recorded history. Most traditional belief systems consider plants a gift of nature and access to them a basic human right. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) refers to herbs as the “people’s medicines.” For centuries, people believed that each herbal plant contained a sign left by God, intended to give humanity clues to its healing effects. This ancient philosophy, called the Doctrine of Signatures, maintains that God marked everything with a “sign” or “signature” designating its purpose. The Doctrine of Signatures indicates that plants have parts that resemble and are relevant to human body parts, animals, or objects. These features of the plant resemble the condition or body part that can be treated by the plant. For example, the goldenseal, whose yellow-green root indicates its use for jaundice or lobelia and whose flowers are shaped like a stomach, reflects its antiemetic properties (Center for Northern Woodlands Education, 2016; Freeman, 2008). Ginseng is another example of this doctrine. Used in China for over 5,000 years, ginseng is the Anglicization of the Chinese word for “man-root” or “man-essence” and its Latin genus name is Panax (“cure all”). The plant’s signature is easy to see—it resembles a man and is thus thought to heal and strengthen all parts of the body. American ginseng has been exported to China since the early 1700s but wild ginseng currently sells for about $550 per pound so its use is rare in the United States. © ALLEGRA Learning Solutions, LLC All Rights Reserved. 2 Ginseng Root Throughout the 20th century, people lost much of their connectedness to nature as knowledge and fascination with the natural world became overshadowed by technological advancements in health and medicine. This worldview is changing, however. With a renewed interest in less invasive, more holistic approaches to health care, people are rediscovering what is sometimes in their own backyards. Conventional pharmaceutical products are usually produced from synthetic materials by reproducible manufacturing procedures and techniques. Unlike conventional pharmaceuticals, herbal medicines (World Health Organization [WHO], 2006; WHO, 2007), are made from materials of herbal origin; are often obtained from many different geographical and/or commercial sources, making it difficult to ascertain the conditions under which they have been collected and/or subjected, can vary in composition and properties, and are manufactured using widely varying procedures and techniques and quality control methods. Because of the inherent complexity of medicinal plants that are grown naturally (versus cultivated medicinal plants), the possibility of contamination with toxic medicinal plants/plant parts, and the number and small quantity of active ingredients, the © ALLEGRA Learning Solutions, LLC All Rights Reserved. 3 production process of herbal medicines can have a direct and profound influence on their quality (WHO, 2006; WHO, 2007). Approximately 80% of the world’s population incorporates phytomedicine (the use of plants or plant parts for therapeutic purposes) as their primary form of health care, yet modern medicine has veered away from the use of herbs in treating health disorders. Reasons for this vary and include the following (Eliopoulos, 2013; Skidmore-Roth, 2009; Trivieri & Anderson, 2002; WHO, 2007): economic issues (since herbs cannot be patented) a lack of understanding about how herbs work unproven therapeutic value of many of herbal products via traditional research methods concern from some Western health care providers that some herbal products may interfere with prescription medications and some may be harmful to clients with particular health conditions. In the United States, many consumers understand that their Western health care provider may not support the use of herbs and consequently never mention their use to their provider. Today, immigration and trade expose new cultural traditions to many individuals throughout the world. With modern transportation, the ability to store products for longer periods of time, increased interest in choices for health that included options outside Western medicine, and the advent of the Internet providing access to research herbal options, there has been an enormous increase in, and interest in, the availability of herbs from various cultures and geographic locations (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). Definitions Marjoram © ALLEGRA Learning Solutions, LLC All Rights Reserved. 4 In order to best understand the topic of botanicals, herbs, and herbalism, the following definitions are provided as a starting point and are useful when understanding the innately complex nature of herbal medicine. A botanical is a plant or plant part valued for its medicinal or therapeutic properties, flavor, and/or scent. Herbs are a subset of botanicals (Office of Dietary Supplements, 2011). The term herb originated with the Latin word herba, which refers to green crops and grasses. English use of the term can be traced to the 13th century, when it denoted a plant whose stem does not become woody but remains more or less soft and succulent, or one that dies to the ground or dies entirely after flowering (Leddy, 2006; Sierpina, Gerik, Miryala, & Micozzi, 2011). Herbs include crude materials derived from lichen, algae, fungi or higher plants, such as leaves, flowers, fruit, fruiting bodies, seeds, stems, wood, bark, roots, rhizomes or other parts, which may be entire, fragmented, or powdered (WHO, 2006; WHO, 2007). Herbal medicine utilizes herbs, herbal materials, herbal preparations, and finished herbal products that contain parts of plants or other plant materials as active ingredients (WHO, 2016). Herbal materials include (in addition to herbs), fresh juices, gums, fixed oils, essential oils, resins, and dry powders of herbs (WHO, 2006; WHO, 2007). Herbalism as “the study and practice of using plant material for food, medicine, and health promotion. This includes not only treatment of disease but also enhancement of quality of life, physically and spiritually” (Sierpina, Gerik, Miryala, & Micozzi, 2011, p. 322). The use of herbs has been called the “art of simpling.” Herbs were known as “simples” because a single herb could be used to treat many different health problems (Freeman, 2008; Tierra, 1998). Medicinal plants, wild or cultivated, are those plants specifically used for medicinal purposes (WHO, 2006). The term herbalist is now used to refer to early writers about plants as well as to someone who uses herbs as a therapeutic technique. An herbalist or herbal practitioner is “someone who has undertaken specific study and supervised practical training to achieve competence in treating patients” (Sierpina, Gerik, Miryala, & Micozzi, 2011, p. 322). Tierra (1998) adds that “the path of the herbalist is a cultivated attitude toward nature and all of creation” (p. xxiii). Herbalists view nature as a positive force, a provider, and a teacher. © ALLEGRA Learning Solutions, LLC All Rights Reserved. 5 The Brief History of Herbalism Flowers and herbs have formed the basis of medicine since the dawn of human history. Herbal medicine has been used within every culture to prevent and treat disease with the materials used reflecting the unique geographical location and health concerns of the individuals living there (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). For example, salicylic acid was originally derived from willow bark, a product of trees found in Europe, Asia, and some parts of North America (Holt & Kouzi, 2002). Approximately 75% of all conventional pharmaceutical medicines are derived from living plants (Airey & Houdret, 2006; Leddy, 2006). The modern word drug is derived from an ancient Dutch word droog meaning “to dry” because pharmacists, physicians, and ancient healers often dried the plants they used in medicines (Trivieri & Anderson,
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