Herbal Drugs - Overview
Overview
The medicinal use of herbs can be traced back to the earliest human civilizations. A renewed interest in herbal drugs began in the early 1990s. Miracle Herbs authors Stephen Holt and Linda Comac suggest that the limited success of so-called "conventional" medical treatments for certain ailments sparked a consumer revolution in the United States. "Consumers of health care services are seeking more control over their health and bodies," they wrote. In their search for "new solutions," people throughout the world have discovered ancient treatments from Egypt, Greece, India, China, and the rain forest regions. "A question that repeatedly arises," reported Holt and Comac, is "Would these remedies have endured if they had no effectiveness?"
Are They Drugs or Not?
Herbal drugs are made from the roots, stems, leaves, bark, fruit, seeds, or flowers of plants that are believed to have medicinal properties. Many prescription drugs are also derived from plants. In fact, the word "drug" comes from the French word drogue, meaning dried herb.
Prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are quite different from herbals. Drugs prescribed by a physician or purchased in a drugstore are compounds made from "active ingredientsThe chemical or substance in a compound known or believed to have a therapeutic, or healing, effect.," along with certain fillers called "inactive ingredients." The active ingredients may be synthetic, meaning they were manufactured in a laboratory. Or, they may be natural, meaning they were derived from animals, minerals, or plants. Either way, with prescription and over-the-counter drugs, patients receive precise amounts of these "active ingredients" in each dose of medicine they take. However, herbal drugs are typically made up of all the substances and chemicals in the plant. Sometimes herbal drug manufacturers are not really sure which substance in the plant is the active ingredient, or how much active ingredient their herbal product delivers. Even when the active ingredient is known, the amount and strength of it can vary widely from one product to another.
Herbal Supplements and the FDA
Because herbal drugs are not regulated as drugs by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they can be sold without under-going extensive tests for safety. The manufacturers of prescription and over-the-counter drugs must conduct extensive scientific studies of new drugs in animals and in people to prove the safety and effectiveness of their products. Only then will the FDA approve the sale and use of the drug.
With herbal drugs, though, the situation is quite different. According to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) passed by the U.S. Congress in 1994, herbals fall under the definition of a dietary supplement, not a drug. In "Dietary Supplements: Background Information," the Office of Dietary Supplements, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), states: "Manufacturers do not have to provide the FDA with evidence that dietary supplements are effective or safe; however, they are not permitted to market unsafe or ineffective products. Once a dietary supplement is marketed, the FDA has to prove that the product is not safe in order to restrict its use or remove it from the market."
In April of 2005, the FDA released new guidelines "to help assure that the dietary supplements sold in the United States (U.S.) are properly labeled." The problem with the guidelines is that they are not legally binding, so manufacturers are not forced to follow these recommendations.
Early Herbal Use
Herbal drugs have likely been around as long as humans have. Medicinal herbs were found on the body of an "ice man" frozen in the Swiss Alps for more than 5,000 years. Scientists think the man used these herbs to treat an intestinal disorder.
Before the creation of modern and synthetic drugs in the nineteenth century, the United States had its own folk medicine tradition. Remedies for different ailments were discovered through trial and error, and details on the curative properties of various plants were passed down through the generations. In colonial times, settlers often relied on homemade botanical remedies based on the folk traditions of their original countries. Botanicals, according to the U.S. Office of Dietary Supplements, are plants, including herbs, that are valued for their "medicinal or therapeutic properties, flavor, and/or scent." People also learned about the healing properties of local plants from Native Americans.
As more Europeans came to the Americas and settlements grew into cities, some herbal remedies transformed into "patent medicines," which people could buy at the local store or from traveling salesmen. Packaged in fancy bottles and laced with generous amounts of alcohol, most of these medicines were of little, if any, value. Their labels, however, claimed they could cure just about anything.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, doctors, pharmacists, and scientists began to examine herbal remedies more closely. An English physician named William Withering (1741–1799) revolutionized the treatment of heart failure when he created digitalis (dij-ih-TAL-us) from the dried leaves of the foxglove plant (Digitalis purpurea). Digitalis makes heart contractions stronger and faster, thereby improving the circulation of blood throughout the body. In 1785, Withering published a famous book on the properties of the foxglove plant, An Account of the Foxglove and Some of Its Medical Uses. Several decades later in 1829, a French pharmacist named Henri Leroux purified the drug salicin (SALL-uh-sin) from the bark of the willow tree. This led to the discovery in 1840 of salicylic acid, a colorless substance used as an antiseptic and a painkiller. Aspirin is derived from salicylic acid.
Alternative Methods of Healing
Interest in herbal remedies began to decline in the early 1900s, as chemists found they were able to synthesize new drugs in the laboratory. It became cheaper and easier to synthesize the substances once derived from plants, rather than extract them from the herbs themselves. Herbal drugs did not regain their popularity until the 1960s, when widespread interest in alternative and complementary medicine sprang up in the United States and Europe.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), defines complementary medicine as "medicine used together with conventional medicine." Conventional medicine is the type that is practiced by medical doctors (MDs) in the United States. Alternative medicine "is used in place of conventional medicine."
The Growth of a Multi-Billion-Dollar Industry
The growing interest in alternative medicine, which includes the use of herbal drugs, has continued into the twenty-first century. By 2005, herbal medicine was a multi-billion-dollar industry. Historians, public health officials, and cultural experts were not sure why alternative medicine had become so popular, but several factors may have influenced the trend. Among these factors are: 1) the rising cost of conventional health care; 2) the growing questions about the safety of synthetic drugs; 3) the large number of people who have conditions that conventional medicine cannot seem to cure; and 4) the renewed focus on using "natural" things.
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