HOW DO HERBAL MEDICINES WORK ?
SHOULD THEY BE CALLED ALTERNATIVE ?

by Mary Boughton of Dorwest Herbs
Member of the British Herbal Medicine Association's Veterinary Committee

As with many seemingly straightforward questions, there is more than just a simple answer to this often asked question. The easy response is that herbal medicines work in exactly the same way as modern medicines, but rather than being regarded as an alternative form of treatment they are complementary and can and should be used alongside the advances made in modern drug therapies. To understand why they still have relevant use today requires a longer explanation as well as a little history and background information.

For some reason many people confuse herbal with homeopathic medicine and some presume that they are the same, so we should start with an explanation of the difference. Homeopathic medicines are derived from a much wider range of ingredients than herbal medicines - using material of animal, vegetable and mineral origin. Minute dilutions of the active ingredient are used, which if they were introduced into the system at their full strength would actually cause symptoms similar to that from which the patient is suffering. However, when administered in these infinitesimal amounts they actually work in the opposite way and relieve the symptoms. This is where the homeopathic philosopy of 'like cures like' originates.

By contrast herbal medicine works in the same way as modern medicines, that is that herbs contain elements which have a direct psyiological effects on the body. Virtually all medicines were originally based on herbs and plants. Herbal medicine has a long and well documented history. Until about the turn of the century these were almost the only medicines available, with the birth of 'modern' medicine being generally accepted with the discovery of modern antibiotics.

Nowadays, a great many of the medicines used by doctors and vets are still derived from plant material or are a synthetic copy of them. The plant is either purified to obtain a standard dose or more commonly the element in the plant that causes the active effect is isolated and then produced in a laboratory. The best example of this is aspirin which was originally derived from White Willow Bark but is now produced artificially to ensure a standardised strength and to satisfy the enormous demand. There are many similar examples of drugs from plant origins now being produced synthetically.

However, the effectiveness and administration of medicines made directly from plant material depends on many factors - it is obviously essential to be able to correctly identify the correct species of plant not only while it is growing but also in its dried form before it is incorporated into a medicine. Many herbs have a similar appearance when dried and therefore reliable ways of identifying them have had to be developed. The country in which the plant was grown, the soil and fertilisers used as well as the way it was harvested, dried and stored will all effect the final medicine in which it is used.

Therefore, when technology was able to produce drugs artificially by copying or mimicking the elements found in plants, it became unfashionable to use the raw plant material which was considered unreliable. The advantages of using a synthetically produced drug are obvious - firstly it eliminates any variation that may be in different batches of plants, it removes the possibility of contamination during the harvesting and drying processes, enables accurate administration of the dose and is extremely cheap to produce. During this century continued and expensive research continues to produce the single element drugs which are now as commonplace as the plant derived drugs.

Unfortunately, with the advent of these artificially produced drugs came the increased incidences of adverse reactions and side-effects, something which had hitherto been relatively rare. Nevertheless because many of these drugs are used for acute life-threatening conditions the 'risk-benefit' ratio makes them acceptable to the medical profession, whereas for the less critical and chronic problems these risks are not always so acceptable.

It is here that the difference between herbal and allopathic medicine really lies. The whole philosophy of herbal medicine is that by using the whole plant, and often a combination of plants, the patient is taking a mixture of thousands of naturally occurring complex elements which are contained in each plant. It is the presence of all these elements which complement and balance the effect of each other, and this results in the extremely low incidence of adverse reactions and side-effects in herbal medicines compared with single element drug therapies. As the actions of the individual herbs has been well documented over hundreds and sometimes thousands of years they risk of long-term side effects are also negligible.

The action of herbs may sometimes be slower than the modern drugs that we have all become accustomed to using, but the advantage of fewer side-effects and of using a holistic medicine which works in a more natural way with the body makes this form of medicine very useful and the increasingly the preferred one for the treatment of many conditions, particulary the chronic and non-life threatening diseases.

There is a misconception among both the medical profession and the public that those who advocate the wider use of herbal medicine completely disregard the advances in modern medicine and will use herbal medicines as an alternative form of treatment regardless of the disease or condition. This is obviously a nonsense - nobody would presume to ignore the need for sugical operations when required or to dismiss the plethora of modern drugs that are regularly and effectively used for conditions where no botanically produced alternative is available. However, herbal medicine has its place alongside modern medicine for the treatment and prevention of many chronic conditions. Many doctors and vets are now recognising this and are becoming more and more reluctant to prescribe drugs for problems where a more gentle but just as effective treatment is available and the risk of side-effects therefore reduced.

It is also sometimes said that the results obtained from herbal medicines are psychosomatic, another misconception - herbs are widely used for treating animals all over the world and no psychosomatic effect can be responsible for the results, making the treatment of animals a particularly valuable source of clinical data and information on herbal treatments.

Of course, it is because the side-effects are minimal and instances of adverse reactions are few that herbal medicines are also regarded by some as always being safe to take. While this is broadly true for most commonly available herbs, it must be remembered that they are proper medicines and as such should be treated with respect. Anything taken to excess or inappropriately can be detrimental and therefore it is sensible to use the same precautions when using herbal medicines as any other form of medical treatment by always using medicines manufactured to the highest standards and whereever possible those licensed by the appropriate government regulatory authority.

Because herbal medicine is still regarded as being old-fashioned it is wrongly assumed that no advances have been made. However, in the same way that modern medicine has progressed over the years, herbal medicines too have been the subject of much on-going research. More is known about how they work, methods of accurate testing have been standardised and the quality and safety of modern herbal medicine is now greater than it has ever been in its long and illustrious history. The licensing system for all medicines ensures that the same standards of quality and safety are applied to herbal medicines as any other medicine, with the important exception that herbal medicine manufacturers are not required to undertake any animal testing procedures on their products and this is something that is reassuring for the many people who are concerned about the animal testing methods used to establish safety standards for modern drugs.

With the advent of the British Herbal Pharmacopoeia for identification purposes and the strict quality and safety procedures used today herbal medicines are more than ever appropriate for use alongside modern medicine and in the future will be more widely available as a first choice for the treatment of a whole range of common conditions.