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Benefits of herbal medicine essay
Benefits of herbal medicine essay
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Herbal medicine, also called botanical medicine or phytomedicine, refers to using a plants seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark or flower for medicinal purposes. Herbalism has a long tradition of use outside conventional medicine. It is becoming more mainstream as improvements in analysis and quality control, along with advances in clinical research, show the value of herbal medicine in treating and preventing the disease.
Herbal medicine, Is the use of natural herbs and plants for the treatment or prevention of diseases, disorders and the promotion of good health. An herb is a plant or plant part valued for its medicinal, aromatic or savory qualities. Herb plants produce and contain a variety of chemical substances that act upon the body. Medicinal plants and herbs have been used by our forefathers for many centuries. This knowledge was passed on from generation to generation. In the past few years, a renewed interest on this natural method of treatment arose not
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They are non-essential nutrients, meaning that they are not required by the human body for sustaining life. It is well-known that plant produces these chemicals to protect them but recent research demonstrates that they can also protect humans against diseases. There are more than thousand known phytochemicals. Some of the well-known phytochemicals are lycopene in tomatoes, is flavones in soy and flavonoids in fruits. There is ample evidence to support the health benefits of diets rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts. Because plant based foods are complex mixtures of bioactive compounds, information on the potential health effects of individual phytochemicals is linked to information on the health effects of foods that contain those phytochemicals. Phytochemicals are plant or fruit derived chemical compounds phytonutrients refer to phytochemicals or compounds that come from edible
Herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years. “The ancient Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Native Americans were all herbalists”(Herbs Friends of Physicians). The ancient Greeks and Romans were also herbalists (Herbs Friends of Physicians). Traditional medicine was the dominant medical system used in both rural and urban areas until the arrival of Europeans changed the medical
middle of paper ... ... Natural products, also referred to as complementary and alternative medicine, use herbal medicine or therapy as treatment. These types of practices are described as “medical practices that are unproven by science and not presently considered an integral part of conventional medicine” (Pearson). People use herbal medicines such as valerian, chamomile, passion flower, and lavender to help with insomnia.
In today’s world, many people assume that the latest medical technology and treatments are always the best option. However, all over the world, different techniques for curing diseases and aliments are being used. These methods fall under the category of complementary and alternative medicine.
The major use for herbal medicines is for the promotion of health and for therapy for chronic conditions, instead of being used for life-threatening conditions; except in the event of say advanced cancer or new infectious diseases when conventional medicine practices no longer are working an individual may use traditional remedies. While traditional medicines are often mistaken that because they are natural that they are safe, non-toxic, which is not always the case. In cases when an individual is taking herbs with prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, or other herbs that may cause some adverse side affects. As a flourishing commercial enterprise, it doesn’t matter why an individual uses traditional medicines, it provides important health care services for individuals that have access physically or finantually to allopathic
Ross defines and differentiates between the terms healing and curing. She recognizes the fact that healing and curing are very intertwined and it can be hard to distinguish between the two terms. There are differences between the definitions in scholarly and general settings. She references an ethnographic study of healing versus curing conducted by anthropologists Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart in 1999 with native groups in New Guinea. The results of the study looked at how energy used by the different types of tribal healers to either cure or heal a patient. Eastern medicine focuses on how energy interacts with the healing process in connection within the mind. Whereas Western medicine is focused on the mind and the body separately. The practice is considered a holistic approach to finding cures. According to Ross (2013), healing is more a therapeutic process targeting the whole body and specific illness including emotional, mental, and social aspects in the treatment. The act of curing is a pragmatic approach that focuses on removing the problem all together. The life experiences of a person playing into how well certain treatments will heal or cure what is ailing them. These aspects can not be defined with textbook definitions. The interaction that the healing process has with energy is a variable in the success rate. Uncontrolled emotions can have a greater impact on the inside the body than a person can realize. The exploration of energy interaction within the body can be used for greater analysis of health care systems. (21-22). Are Western healthcare facilities purposely “curing” patients just so that they return are few years later? Is Western Medicine built upon a negative feedback loop? The terminolo...
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western Medicine (WM) differ from each other in many ways. TCM favors a holistic approach, views the universe and body philosophically and develops inductive tools and methods to guide restoring the total balance of the body. In Chinese medicine, the correct balance between Yin and Yang make up the vital energy, Qi, an essential life-sustaining substance of which all things are made. Some Traditional remedies include herbal medicines, acupuncture, massage and moxibustion, an herbal heat therapy. Western medicine is closely linked to the scientific method and emphasizes biochemical processes causes disease, its treatment and health. This form of treatment views all medical phenomena as cause-effect sequences and relies on drugs, radiation and surgery to alleviate symptoms and cure diseases. As you see, the two types of medicine are completely challenged differently depending on the doctor, the diagnosis, and the treatment options. All of these are completely different when compared with each other.
All most every indidula is employing herbal medicine with and without knowing it. Every family has natural remedy to fix a cold or cocation to put on a cut to help make it heal rapidly. Home remedy
The effectiveness of any plant is not due to the action of any one chemical as modern science would have you believe. When plants are synthesized in a lab, they are analyzed to find their most potent and active components. The rest of the plant is left behind. What science is forgetting is that each leaf, stem, flower and root work in their own unique way to deliver what is need to the body.
Over the centuries, several treatment methods have been utilized by humans for remedy diseases when they caught. Two of them are modern medicine and traditional medicine. Traditional medicine, which is also called alternative treatment, is older than modern medicine. This effective treatment had been used for many centuries before modern medicine was found. On the contrary, modern medicine has been used since the 1900’s (Lyons). In this system, drugs’ tests are carefully done in the safe laboratories, and their side effects are identified before they are given to the patient. Moreover, the effects of the pills are written on the leaflets which are found in the drug packages to warn the patients for these effects. However, sometimes the side effects are not blocked, so people have to take another pill to get better. It makes people take more chemicals into their bodies. Even traditional medicine, give its place to the modern medicine when its beginning times, it is used efficaciously like modern medicine at the present time. In course of time, people will gain reliance on traditional medicine again, since alternative medicine is more efficient and powerful in order to get better and soothe the diseases than modern medicine. In fact, in traditional medicine, there are fewer drugs, side effects, holistic therapy that people can be availed.
Herbal remedies’ qualities are widespread availability, lower cost, effective for chronic conditions. Herbal remedies are the use of plants or plant extract to treat a person’ overall health. Herbal treatments are prominent for developing countries for instance, “in Africa up to 90% and in India 70% of the population depend on traditional medicine to help meet their health care needs” (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011), due to their low cost and availability. Herbal remedies have gained attention in the past decades, and expanding their uses due to the increased interest of natural therapies (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). Herbs used on the remedies grow in the wild throughout the world, therefore making it easy to
Natural health products are supplements obtained from nature. These are made from various ingredients like vitamins and minerals as well as extracts taken from roots, leaves, seeds and flowers of different plants. These products are essential to the body because they help treat and prevent various ailments and conditions. Unlike chemical-based drugs, herbal and natural supplements are free from harmful radicals that can trigger side effects; hence, providing only the best and safest ingredients for the health of the body.
Herbal medicines are sold in different ways from tablets, teas, extracts, capsules, powders, and fresh or dried plants. Many consumers believe that these products are safe and free of harm due to the labeling of the product with words such as “all natural.” The downside of taking these “natural” medicines are some ingredients can cause harm to a consumer’s health. According to the U.S .National Library of Medicine, some herbs, such as comfrey and ephedra, can cause serious harm. It is also reported that herbal
Herbal products are medicinal agents obtained from the plants. It’s all started 100 years ago by ancient people. Since synthetic medicine are not yet invented by that time, ancient people had invented medicine out of the plants. Through generations the original herbal medicine had been modified due to the new knowledge discovered and technologies invented.
In the first place, when people use alternative medicine, they consume fewer drugs and chemicals in to their bodies and there are fewer side effects to the human beings. This means that, when people get caught in any kind of disease, if they use herbal therapies to heal their illnesses, they do not harm their organs and systems. They can drink a bowl of soup, a cup of tea or a bottle of water regularly if they want to get rid of the pathogens or aches such as sprain, head wrist and ankle. For instance, it is known that there is a man who used to use walking stick for a few y...
On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as: The sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicit or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness. (Zhang, 2000, p. 1) Traditional medicine is very different from modern medicine, and without disputing the benefits to modern medicine, it is essential to recognize the positive impact traditional medicine has upon people worldwide. A large aspect of traditional medicine is the usage of medicinal plants, which are the focus of this report.