What is herbal therapy

Herbal therapy is a traditional healing method that relies on the medicinal ingredients of roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and other parts of various plants to regulate physical discomfort and assist in disease intervention through oral administration and external application. The history of herbal therapy is almost as long as the history of civilization.

I have been working in the field of folk medicine for almost ten years, and the herbal therapies I come into contact with on a daily basis are not the mysterious things posted on the Internet at all. The chrysanthemum and wolfberry tea you boil over the fire during the changing seasons, the mint ointment you apply on mosquito bites, the green onion and ginger water boiled by the older generation when you catch a cold, and even the rhubarb gardenia ointment you apply on your twisted feet are all the most down-to-earth herbal therapy applications.

It is not nonsense to say that it has practical basis. Artemisinin, the current core anti-malarial drug, is extracted from Artemisia annua. Salicylic acid, the active ingredient of aspirin, a commonly used anti-fever drug, was first discovered by Europeans when they used willow bark to relieve pain and reduce fever. The initial inspiration for the development of many modern drugs came from the experience of using traditional herbs.

But the controversy has never ended. Opponents believe that the mechanism of action and toxic side effects of many herbs have not been rigorously clinically verified in large samples, and the risk of misuse is very high. I met an uncle in a county hospital in western Yunnan last year. He heard that raw Phytolacca can reduce swelling in legs and feet, so he went to the back mountain to dig up boiled water to drink. As a result, he had an electrolyte imbalance and was hospitalized for three days. There are many cases of problems caused by misuse.

In fact, people now have many misunderstandings about herbal therapy. They either tout it as a magic medicine that can cure all diseases, or label it as feudal dregs. In fact, the herbal medicines used in formal clinical Chinese medicine have been verified for thousands of years, and there are strict preparation and compatibility standards. When treating based on syndrome differentiation, it is not at all "purely natural and absolutely safe" as ordinary people think.

To use an inappropriate analogy, herbs are like a library of raw materials accumulated by nature for hundreds of millions of years. It is true that they are useful, but how to extract the useful ingredients, how to avoid the harmful parts, and how to combine them to suit different people's constitutions all require professional research. You can't just dig up a piece of grass and boil water and call it herbal therapy.

Nowadays, many scientific research teams are doing standardized research on herbal medicine. While sorting out the scattered folk experience, they are also using modern medical methods to verify and set standards. They want to dig out the useful parts of this old tradition and control the risks. After all, being able to actually help people is the most important thing, right?