Optimize your health with herbs

According to the World Health Organization, 80% of the world’s population rely on medicinal plant preparations for their primary healthcare needs.

Plants contain phytochemicals such as alkaloids, anthraquinones, coumarins, fats, flavonoids, glycosides, gums, iridoids, mucilages, phenols, phytoestrogens, tannins, terpenes to mention a few.  Many of these compounds have a healthy effect on the human body.  After all, the plant kingdom is the nourishment of all animal life.

In conventional (allopathic) medicine, doctors have been trained to value specificity. They tend to look for that one single compound that will address a certain health problem.  Often, the compounds or drugs that are used are not found in nature but are man-made.  On the other hand, the traditional herbal view tends to support health from many angles, often combining many herbs in one formula.  In fact, each herb in itself can be thought of as a package containing a specific set of dozens or hundreds of compounds.  The compounds in these packages often provide synergy with one another, to render the plants very beneficial and well tolerated.

Single compound drugs can often be exactly what’s needed in a particular situation to save a life.  However, much illness and many deaths each year are attributed to drugs.  According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2007, approximately 27,000 unintentional drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States, one death every 19 minutes. Another study has shown that over 106,000 deaths occur each year due to non-error adverse drug reactions.

Another unfortunate statistic is that 100,000 households per year fall into poverty because of medical expenses.  In the United States, medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy! Sadly, even though the US spends more on health care per person than any other country, our health statistics (such as birth weight, infant mortality, life-expectancy, and many others) are far from the best.

A wise strategy is to take very good care of your health in order to minimize the need for drugs and surgeries.  More and more doctors are using herbal supplements in their practices.

Here are some important concepts for good health:

• Treat the whole person, body, mind, spirit, social
• Recognize that the body has a lot of ability to heal itself when given the right support
• Help the body heal itself
• Optimal health is a balance of all the systems in the body
• Lifestyle, diet, positive attitude, stress reduction are major factors
• Each person is an individual having an individual experience under individual conditions
• Treat the causes and relieve they symptoms
• Minimize the chances of side effects

Factors affecting the quality of herbs:

• The species and plant used
• which part of the plant is being used
• The growing conditions (weather, environment, chemicals)
• The time of year and method harvested
• Processing and preparation > handling, washing, drying, temperature, humidity, cut size, storage
• Manufacturing methods
• Testing for toxins, heavy metals, constituents, micro-organisms, pesticides, radioactivity, drugs

There is a great deal of knowledge, expertise and integrity needed to deliver the highest quality herbal products available. Make sure to consider that when selecting a source for your herbal products.