Herbal Medicine an Ancient Idea That Fits Modern Man to a Tea

NEW YORK —  Some people who raid drugstore counters when they come down with flu. Others drink catnip tea.

Floritza Diaconesau drinks catnip tea. It’s chamomile tea when she has a sore throat and a tea of flowers of the linden tree when she has a headache or can’t sleep.

The folklore medicine and exotic herbs she described in a thick Romanian accent seemed out of place among the Formica tables and microfiche of the Bronx Botanical Garden, where Diaconesau works as a botanist.

But the same herbs can be found crowded on supermarket shelves and are increasingly common in kitchen pantries. Herbal medicine, once considered the domain of quacks, seems to be making a comeback in the United States, herbalists and health officials say.

Herb Tea Ads on TV

Sales of herbal medicines and teas, almost nonexistent 15 years ago, are expected to reach $500 million this year. For the first time, herbal teas are being advertised on television. Health food store owners say more and more customers want books or information on plant medicine, and even major supermarket chains are stocking medicinal teas for their customers.

“Americans lost their oral history of plant medicines from generation to generation,” said Diaconesau, who fields questions from curious people who enter the small patch of herbs that she tends every summer. “They want to find out more about herbs, but they don’t know how.”

Herbalists say plants can be just as effective as over-the-counter drugs but without annoying side effects. Health officials say nontoxic plants rarely do harm and sometimes do good when administered properly, although they caution people against foraging plants they know nothing about or using herbs to treat serious illnesses.

Benefits Not Provable

No one knows for sure whether plant medicine is more beneficial than over-the-counter drugs or whether it really causes fewer side effects because there is little hard scientific evidence, herbalists and health officials say. Despite this, there are many believers.

“They have been tried and true, and I mean tried for centuries and centuries,” said Jim Duke, a botanist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington and an herbalist who treats his occasional cuts and scrapes with geranium leaves.

Most knowledge about medicinal plants comes from foreign countries, such as the Soviet Union and Japan, which fund research into herbal medicine.

In the United States, most information about medicinal plants comes from folklore and folks who spend their lives working with herbs and treating the sick.

Healing Garden

One of these is Steven Foster, who lives at the foot of Thompson Mountain in Izard County, Ark. In the spring, when jonquils cover the Ozarks, he starts digging in the acre of garden behind his house to plant his apricot trees, Siberian ginseng, lemon thyme, calendula, rosemary and wormwood--all useful in the art of healing.

Foster, 29, became interested in herbal medicines when he worked at the Shaker Museum in Sabbathday Lake, Me., during high school. He learned medicinal arts from the elderly in the community and eventually managed their three-acre herbal garden.

“Knowledge of plants used to be passed from one generation to another until the turn of the century or so, when patented medicines became dominant,” Foster said in a telephone interview. “Only certain communities, usually very rural ones, kept that tradition going. For the rest of us, it was broken, and it’s awfully hard to go back.”

Foster, who writes books on herb gardening, said the United States is one of the few countries where this tradition has been severed. The World Health Organization recently estimated that 80% of the world’s population derives most of its medicine from plants, not bottles.

“In Europe, Asia and Russia, there is still a tremendous interest in medicinal plants,” Foster said. “There is a tremendous source of medicine growing all around us, but most people will never know about it because there is very little research, and people rely on research.”

‘Prove It’

Duke agreed, saying it is difficult to get Americans interested in herbal remedies because they are of a generation used to the “prove it” stance that the federal Food and Drug Administration takes before approving new drugs as safe and effective.

“Consumers are pretty aware,” he said. “They want to know what they are getting.”

Duke estimated that it costs $95 million for a drug company to obtain FDA approval of a new drug by proving it safe and effective. Because plants cannot be patented, it would be ludicrous for a drug company to spend a fortune proving, for example, that catnip kills germs, when it could not hold exclusive rights to catnip, he said.

Almost 25% of the drugs on the market today are based on plant chemicals, Foster said. But the chemicals are altered to make them more potent, uniform and patentable.

Aspirin Component

Salicylic acid, found in willow bark, is closely related to acetyl salicylic acid, a major component of aspirin. Digitalis, derived from foxglove, has been known for centuries to strengthen heart contractions.

But, without FDA approval, the plants that are the origins of modern drugs may not be marketed with labels that claim they cure. The claims are still based on folklore.

Foster said plant medicine will probably never gain the widespread acceptance it had in this country a century ago. But he said it will probably continue to grow popular as an alternative for some over-the-counter drugs.

One convert is Robert S. McCaleb, who still remembers the time he took ginger as a decongestant.

Suspicious at First

It was more than 10 years ago, when he was a Colorado college student suffering from a lingering cold. Like most people, he was suspicious of herbal medicines, but he set aside his over-the-counter nasal drugs to try a pinch of ginger in hot water, as recommended by a friend.

“It worked extremely fast, which is unusual for herbal medicines, but it convinced me right there,” said McCaleb, director of the Herb Research Foundation in Longmont, Colo. “I was fascinated. It led to a lifetime interest.”

McCaleb likes to cite historical surveys and modern studies that show the benefits of herbal medicines.

Ephedra, from which we get the “fed” in many over-the-counter drugs that relieve nasal congestion, is the first known cultivated plant, recorded in China 5,000 years ago, he said.

Cholesterol Lowered

And a recent study in Scandinavia showed that a group of men who ate loads of butter and garlic every day for a month had lower cholesterol levels in their blood than did a group of men who ate plain butter every day.

Studies from the Orient show that ginseng kills bacteria and viruses that infect humans and may detoxify carcinogens, he said.

The foundation was created three years ago by businesses, botanists and consumers in response to an increased demand for herbal products.

“Some people have a scientific approach and some see it as a business--the interest has increased in both areas,” said Lon H. Johnson, 40, a member of the foundation and president of Trout Lake Herb Farm in Trout Lake, Wash.

Skullcap, Catnip

Johnson grows skullcap, catnip, passion flower, peppermint and raspberry plants (for the leaves) on his 250-acre farm in the Southern Cascades. His operation is considered one of the largest organic herb farms in the country.

Most herbs consumed by Americans are imported from Third World countries, where they are both foraged and cultivated, Foster said.

“The real tragedy of herbal medicine is that a lot of these imported herbs are coated with carcinogenic pesticides,” he said. “They could do more harm than good.

“We still have a lot of growing up to do--this is a fledgling business.”

Tea Firm’s Success

Perhaps the most marked proof of the recent upsurge in herbal products is Celestial Seasonings, an herbal tea company based in Colorado.

Celestial Seasonings was started 15 years ago by a group of college students who made teas from plants they foraged in the mountains. Two years ago, it was sold to Kraft for $14 million. Advertisements for its herbal teas are now shown nationally on television.

“The idea that an herbal product is advertised on television is really incredible to us in the industry,” Johnson said. “You have to remember, we’ve always been small and sort of counterculture. Now we are going mainstream.”

None of the herbalists interviewed recommended herbal remedies for major illnesses such as cancer or heart problems. But they did recommend daily doses of some herbs, such as ginseng, as preventive medicine.

Curative Properties

David Spoerke, who runs the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center at the University of Utah, has researched the curative properties of plants--but as a pharmacist, not as an herbalist.

“People would call me with questions about which plants did what, and I felt there wasn’t enough literature on the subject,” said Spoerke, author of a book on the chemical properties of some plants.

“Any plant is dangerous if you overdo it, just like water is dangerous if you drink too much,” said Spoerke, who spurns catnip tea for aspirin. “In low dosages, herbal medicines are not dangerous.

“The trouble with the herbal industry is that it is not consistent in dosages or potency,” he said. “The herbs come from countries with cheap labor, and they are usually poor quality or they have who-knows-what all over them.”