To think perhaps herbal remedies do work?

[Hullabalooza]

I’ve always been quite herbal remedy sceptic. However since covid I’ve picked up every cold and chest infection going, often being ill to the point of needing to be in bed 3-4 times a winter.

In desperation, I started taking daily echinacea in November, and didn’t get ill for four months whilst taking them. I’m a teacher, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that children were coughing and spluttering all around me for weeks on end, colleagues going off sick and even in my own household whilst I (feeling slightly superhuman) got nothing.

I ran out of tablets in March and have now gone down with the early stages of a cold and nasty cough. Found a few echinacea in a drawer and literally feel like my body is battling between being ill and fighting it off depending on when I take them. I’m not fully ill like I’d normally expect after a few days.

Appreciate for the herbal sceptics this sounds like a load of crap but AIBU to wonder if there is really something in this stuff? My own anecdotal experience makes me wonder.

what are your thoughts and experiences with herbal remedies?

Herbal medicine is based in science - eg there's a reason you eat prunes for constipation, they contain a laxative.

Homeopathy is absolute bunk, but that's not the same.

That’s a problem from a maths website?

What do you use?
I've just started using a homemade recipe using tallow, beeswax and a little oil and it's really soothing DH's eczema.

Pressed post too soon.

DH was concerned about his using so much steroid cream so I made this balm myself for him.

of course they can develop effective drugs out of it, if it can be shown to be safe and effective- it is only if something can't be shown to be safe and effective that it remains an alternative - or herbal- remedy.

And people die taking them, including children

Really? lost of herbal remedies for eczema contain far more steroids than the conventional medicine. And in a totally unknown and uncontrolled concentration.

If a herbal remedy consistently and reliably works better than a placebo then it is called medicine and is not categorised as a herbal remedy- e.g. willow bark extract that has been used to relieve pain for centuries is the basis for aspirin. Loads of herbal/botanical derived compounds have significant effects on the hunan body either positive or negative. The human brain also has a very strong placebo response and will report an improvement of symptoms even when no medicine has actually been given so you cannot conclude that a herbal remedy is effective based on anecdotes of a few people self-reporting that it helped them. This is why double-blinf placebo compared trials are the only way to be sure if a remedy is actually effective. Such trials done with echinacea have not foubd any evidence of it working better than a placebo when the trial is run with full scientific rigor.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15197051/

I'm interested in people talking about the questionable safety of some herbal remedies (having built a couple into my own routine). Can anyone recommend a website for me to look into this further.

I don't want to accidentally make myself ill!

I always take echinacea when I feel the start of a cold and it normally stops the cold, like you I only noticed when I was so ill without it then remembered it had helped the previous year, tried it and my cold cleared up.

however it’s worth knowing you can only take it upto 10 days in a row then should stop- if you take it over 8 week in a row it can damage your liver.

you should research the potential toxic effects and dangers of each one that you are taking - there are many ways "herbal" remedies can kill, but the most common is through liver failure.

The herbal remedies that work became medicine.
Some new medicines are still found from compounds in plants.
The herbal remedies that have been around years are placebos. If they were more than that they would now be medicine.
The tablets you are taking probably contain a natural form of immune boosting vitamins that have helped you avoid illness rather than be anything that cures it.

There are hundreds of herbal remedies that work, and are not approved drugs. If it's not commercially viable - because of patent issues or the results aren't as good as what is already on the market, pharma companies won't spend the money to develop them.

It's hugely expensive to run clinical trials, there has to be considerable profit at the end of it.

I have to say it again, because this is so important.

the herbal remedies that work SAFELY become conventional medicine.

Some herbal remedies do have an effect, so it is not because they cant be proved effective that they don't become standard medicine. it is because they cannot be proved SAFE enough - and when you think about how dangerous some conventional medicine side effects can be - herbal medicine is often WORSE than that.

For example people who turn to herbal medicine to avoid steroids, are often getting FAR stronger steroids through the herbal remedy, and in an unknown, and uncontrolled concentrations. This is particularly true for things that are put of eczema

I'm not disputing that some herbal supplements are unsafe. They tend to be taken off the market though if eg there are liver issues.

In the 70s and 80s the only hayfever relief was Piriton, which made you super drowsy, or Combination H from the herbal store. Sadly it never helped me that much but did take the edge off allowing me to work.

Are herbs pharmacologically active?

Hell yes

Do you need to take care when considering using them? Also yes.

Look for example at St John's Wort. Used in mainstream prescribing in eg Germany but not in UK. So probably safer there, with appropriate warnings given by prescriber that it reduces effectiveness of hormonal contraceptives and additional method should be used whilst taking it.

There tend to be fewer trials because there's little money in selling an already widely available product. Some trials find little/no effect; others show good levels. Even something that reliably triggers a placebo effect is worth it from the patient pov.

Also, remember that "old wives' tales" are often shown to be rooted in pathways that are now more fully understood - eg carrots help you see in the dark. No, they don't give you superpowers, but we now know they contain high levels of vitamin A, a deficiency of which is a major cause of night blindness.

Nonsense. It’s prescription meds that have been proven to cause many deaths in the US. Last I looked they were the third leading cause of death.

Herbal medicines can’t be patented. Studies cost millions of pounds and pharma need to make money for their shareholders. Hence there are no studies of herbals.

rubbish - of course they could be developed, and they would be if testing showed there was anything to develop.

You are completely misinformed, and spreading very dangerous misinformation.

And herbal remedies kill on a regular basis.

Some herbal remedies absolutely work. Herbal remedies are the root of modern medicine.

The problem comes into play when people insist on using ONLY herbal remedies in situations where they are not effective. I'm a big believer in mint for nausea, chamomile for sleep and antibiotics for infection.

My DS is studying pharmacology at university with hopes of working in drug development.

They absolutely do study plant compounds (what you might call herbal remedies) as has been pointed out many modern medicines have their roots in herbal remedies.

If you could listen to my son and his teachers (for want of the correct word) at university talk you would see that 'big pharma' isn't the enemy you think it is.

There are studies, but they tend to be academic ones rather than pharma companies.

A pharma company might be interested in the result of an academic trial, and decide to invest at that point, and work out with the university the patent issue (if they have a patent already - if they don't have one it's probably a non-starter anyway as probably non-patentable), and then take on the process of further trials to hopefully get approval. This is a process of many years and millions of pounds.

One of the problems is that plants have many compounds. The pharma company will have to isolate the exact chemical which is having the medical effect, and how. They will probably have to work out how to synthesise it, as that is more reliable than extraction from the plant. They then have to decide whether this compound might be more reliable than what is on the market, and whether it will eventually be profitable.

The above is pretty generalised, but it's part of what makes natural products a lot more complicated than 'if it worked it would be a drug'.

Quote a few, off the top of my head. Opium poppy, coca plant, coffee plants, willow bark, mimosa trees, cannabis, salvia (sp?) for example.

Chemists just get better at isolating and synthaesising man-made versions of the active compounds. I believe HRT is extracted from yams. Used to be mare's urine. Thanks yams

I'm not saying this has never happened but wondering when specifically a herbal remedy has killed a child and when herbal tea has ever been dangerous for a child. Can you link your a specific case as this is a huge sweeping statement that makes it sound like a frequent occurrence yet I've never heard of a single case.

Most herbal remedies that are available to buy in regulated pharmacies and health stores are harmless even in large doses. Children eating poisonous plants in the wild is another matter of course and potentially fatal. Is that what you mean?

This. And digitalis also comes from
Flowers.

The reason herbal medicines aren't mainstream is because they can't be patented by big pharma and profits made due to them being natural