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Natural Whole Herbs
With the emergence of herbal medicine on a global scale and more and more people veering towards natural cures, the status of natural whole herbs has been elevated to an important one. Though the exact statistics are not available, but agencies like the WHO have revealed that the popularity of drugs including the remedial properties of natural whole herbs is on a rise with over 80 percent of modern medicines using some form of herb compound in their composition.
Herbal Extract and Natural Whole Herb: the healthier cousin debate
There has been an influx of herbal supplements in the market, claiming to cure and prevent common illnesses, supported by the tag of pure, natural plant extracts with which healing takes place with no side effects. Many doctors question the wisdom of these herbal extracts on the basis of containing isolated and concentrated components of herbs, which are overly active. They, and many others, are concerned about the active herbal components, which they fear may have been divested of important synergy giving properties since they were kept in laboratory controlled isolated situation. Their humble cousin, the country bred natural whole herb, is presumed to have the synergistic components intact since it is kept in natural surroundings.
Experts dealing with the traditional form of herbal medicine prefer using the natural whole herb, be it in tea -as is the case with basil or chamomile flavored tea for sore throat or as a mixture like cucumber juice, glycerin and rose water to deal with sun burns.
The truth is that each herb needs to be studied individually for its nutritional value and medicinal qualities to determine whether it is beneficial as an extract or as a natural whole herb. It is quite possible that at times, the active ingredients in a herb may be too little or even toxic, so need the isolation to be removed to achieve any goodness.
Usefulness of natural whole herbs:
Herbs are very useful as a natural way of balancing the human body's metabolism and revitalizing its regular functioning without the side effects of prescription drugs. Natural whole herbs have within them substances that are productive for the human body as many of these are not found in the body, like goji berry has zeaxanthin, a carotenoid, which is found in the retina and other tissues. This works to provide a nourishing supplement to the human eye. Hence, specific components of some herbs are not drugs but supply crucial molecules to the body.
Modern uses of natural whole herbs
Established pharmaceutical companies have long used chemical compositions that have a plant base in their preparations, be it the oncology drug Taxol, derived from tree bark, or Digitalis, the standard treatment for congestive heart failure, made from the Foxglove plant. Since it is not possible to patent whole plants and herbs, it is easier for big pharmaceutical companies to extract the active ingredient, make copies to their precise specifications and include the synthetic version as part of a proprietary formulation of chemicals.