Herbs are wonderful plants, nature's miracle plants some call them. By definition, they are useful to mankind, for food or physic, or fragrance, or simply for their beauty. But the herbal realm is not without its dark side.
Each year, countless numbers of people experience the dark side of herbs, generally in the form of some malady caused by an herb. It may be a rash or a bout of nausea. In the extreme, the herb causes a brush-or worse, a face-to-face meeting with death. The unpleasant fact of the matter is that some herbs are downright dangerous. A corollary unpleasant fact is that some people don't give any herb-dangerous or benign-the appropriate respect.
Among the dangers that surrounds herbs and their uses are these:
Misidentification: An herb lover collects plants from the woods, a wayside weed patch, a farmer's pasture. He or she gets the plants home, brews tea or prepares a wild salad. That first mouthful may bring an unpleasant surprise.
Herb writer Jeanne Rose reported in her book Herbs and Things that "a group of friends in a commune in Connecticut gathered green hellebore by mistake instead of wild onions. They made a soup and each ate a bowlful. They all became violently ill and were hospitalized."
Writing in the New York Times, health writer Jane Brody recounted the story of an elderly couple in Chehalis, Washington who heard about and decided to try comfrey tea as an arthritis remedy. "The wife picked what she thought was comfrey and prepared tea, which the couple drank with lunch," Brody reported. "Within an hour they were overcome with nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. The husband discovered that the wife had picked was not comfrey but a similar-looking plant called foxglove, the source of the toxic heart drug digitalis. By the time the ambulance arrived, his wife was dead and his own heart rhythm was so unstable that the hospital treatment could not save him."
Plant identification, in the words of one pharmacologist, is "neither an exact science nor an easy one."
Plants of the same species can display variations that WILL give pause to an experienced plant taxonomist; an amateur armed with a paperback book or two may be totally confused. Don't be hasty or overconfident. Be sure you know what that plant is before you ingest it.
Mislabeling: Perhaps you buy dried and packaged herbs in a health food store. There is no guarantee, unfortunately, that the package's label is accurate.
"Most of the plants are collected in Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America, in places where there are very poor quality controls, and very little knowledge of what is actually needed to be harvested by the gatherer" explained Varro Tyler, PH.D., a noted pharmacologist. "For exsample, the only 'active' part of chamomile is the flower head, not the leaves or stem. But when workers in Argentina go out in the field to pick chamomile, they use machines that cut the whole plant. So chamomile you buy might contain leaves and stems, in addition to the flower heads."
Occasionally, incidents suggest more deceptive forces may be at work. Brody reported in her Times
article that a man who suffered adverse reactions to a regimen of gotu kola (Centella asiatica) discovered that the gotu kola he was buying at a health food store consisted of ground kola nuts (Kola acuminata). His symptoms resulted from the high percentage of caffeine found in kola (but not in gotu kola).
Incidents such as these spur calls for more stringent labelling requirements. The American Society of Pharmacognosy, for example, has recommended that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require labelling on packages of herbs to include the scientific name of the plant, as well as the country of origin and a specific lot number that could be traced to a voucher specimen maintained for reference purposes. As Tyler says, "That would solve the identity problem; questions concerning safety, efficacy, and potency would still remain, of course."
Misinformation: You buy an herbal-- it may be old, but this is just as likely to happen with a brand new one--and you follow its advice or directions. It is a principal danger of herbs that many herbals contain nothing but misinformation.
Tyler criticized such books in his book, which is titled (pointedly) The Honest Herbal "One of them tells us that lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis L.) ...not being poisonous, does not leave any harmful results if it is taken over a long period. " Yet all modern authorities characterize the plant as poisonous,"
Tyler pointed out, "the principle glycoside contained in it, is regarded as the most toxic cardiac glycoside in existence."
Brody cited the example of three young women who suffered severe diarrhea after drinking senna tea as a substitute for coffee. They didn't know that senna (Cassia spp.) was a common laxative.
The point here is how important it is to have trustworthy, up-to-date, and complete information. We've come a long way since the days of herbalists Gerard and Culpeper. These Elizabethans may be entertaining to read, but they are no match for modern pharmacognosists when it comes to facts of herbal safety.
NOTE: Would like to insert here..Herbs are THE NATURAL way to go for health and well-being. Some of these comments are very "Anti-herbal" but does not contradict the fact even doctors who ONLY use Pharmaceutical remedies, have had to admit the "Natural Way" is being turned to more because of all the side effects caused by Pharmaceutical overdose. Also, being of different races it is a well known FACT now that not all "General" prescribed prescriptions of Pharmaceuticals work the same on everyone! Some can be "Just As" fatal as the wrong combination of herbs.
I have added this article and section because being an Indigenous and a Nurse of 30 plus years, I feel "Both" sides need to be heard and studied.
ShaunaSay WhiteFeather
THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF SELF-MEDICATION
But people do use these plants/drugs. And they use them as drugs, figuring they can circumvent a trip to the doctor or avoid having to use an "unnatural product."
" He who self-medicates has a fool for a doctor"
That WAS the judgement of James Duke, long and herbal researcher for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Herbs, unfortunately, tend to bring out the doctor in us. We figure we'll cure what ails us with a cup of tea or a home-concocted herbal prescription. The dangers of self-medication are several:
1. You may not really know what is wrong with you.
2. Your regimen of self-medication may be inappropriate for your ailment, even if you have properly diagnosed it.
3. Your self-medication program may delay more radical, but nevertheless necessary and appropriate, treatment.
4. Your self-medication may conflict with drugs prescribed by a doctor--allergy medication, for example, or blood pressure medication.
5. Your self-medication may cure your minor ailment, but aggravate another health problem.
These dangers prevail whether you are using herbs or more contemporary over-the-counter drugs. The variable potency of either is and can be very dangerous without proper knowledge and experience.
R.F. Chandler, Ph.D., professor of pharmacy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is a member of Canada's Expert Advisory Committee on Herbs and Botanical Preparations. He summed up the concerns about self medication: "First, most of us aren't trained to diagnose symptoms of illness. If you start following your own hunches, herbal treatments may or may not have benefit. But our major fear is that by diagnosing and treating yourself, you may delay detection of serious illness well beyond the point where conventional drugs can help you."
