Herbal Supplements
Beneficial herbs
Detrimental herbs
Traditional herbalists and modern herbal
researchers believe that herbal preparations, properly utilized, serve to
regulate and stimulate the organism to promote self-healing.
Herbal products are popular in America at
present, with consumers viewing phyto-medicinals as very useful agents for
treating a variety of ailments.
There are approximately 250 Classic herbs that
are available to the consumer today which are labeled as foods or food
supplements. In 1993 when FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler, M. D. threatened
to remove herbal products from the market a great outcry arose from the
American people (Congress received more mail in protest on this matter than
any other single issue since the Viet Nam War). As a result, the legislators
passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. It permits
herbs and phytochemicals to be sold as dietary supplements provided that
health or therapeutic claims are not specified on their labels.
The FDA is currently developing guidelines on
the structure and function of herbals in humans as well as information on
available scientific information for public consumption. The German Commission
E monographs were published in English in 1999 and are available from the American
Botanical Council in Austin, TX.
Herbal preparations can be expected to take
longer to affect the body because they are usually less potent than the
pharmaceutical medicinal preparations, but the long term effects can often
provide much deeper results and healing. Therefore, herbal treatments
emphasize prevention of illness by stimulating the immune system over a
prolonged period of time. There are herbs that are specific for certain
conditions, as well as herbal "tonics" that can generally prevent
illness.
Herbs also appear to have been the first human
healing system and they are a mainstay of indigenous healing practices
throughout the world.
Dietary Supplements
Other dietary supplements have healing and
preventative medicine value, the most common being vitamins
and minerals. Other substances
such as amino acids or metabolites are currently under investigation as well
as use. For more complete information about dietary supplements visit the
National Institutes of Health Office
of Dietary Supplements website.
