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March 8, 2014
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
[F] Chinese Medicine and Chinese Herb / Chinese Herbs and Chinese Herbal Medicine /
Herbalism

Wikipedia

 		 
The term Herbalism refers to folk and traditional medicinal practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts.

The use of herbs to treat disease is almost universal among native peoples. A number of traditions have come to dominate the practise of herbal medicine in the west at the end of the twentieth century:-








Herbalism
Medicine:Terms and concepts in alternative medicine#CAM|CAM
Terms and concepts in alternative medicine#NCCAM Classifications |NCCAM:Terms and concepts in alternative medicine#Biologically Based Therapies|Biologically Based Therapy
Terms and concepts in alternative medicine#Modality Classifications|Modality:Terms and concepts in alternative medicine#Self-care Modalities|Self-care
Culture:Western culture|Western




  • The Western herbalism|Western herbal tradition based on Greek, Roman and medieval sources,

  • The Ayurveda|Ayurvedic tradition of India,

  • Chinese medicine|Chinese herbal medicine.


As of 2004, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is starting to fund clinical trials into the effectivness of herbal medicine; see the links at the National Institutes of Health http://health.nih.gov/result.asp/324 Herbal Medicine Links Page.


Popularity

A http://nccam.nih.gov/news/2004/052704.htm survey released in May 2004 by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine focused on who used :category:alternative medicine|complementary and alternative medicines (CAM), what was used, and why it was used. The survey was limited to adults age 18 years and over during 2002 living in the United States. According to this recent survey, herbal therapy, or use of natural products other than vitamins and minerals, was the most commonly used CAM therapy (18.9%) (http://nccam.nih.gov/news/report.pdf table 1 on page 8) when all use of prayer was excluded.
Examples

Examples of some commonly used herbal medicines:-
  • Echinacea extracts have been shown to limit the length of Common cold|colds in some clinical trials http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15035888.

  • St John's wort has been found to be more effective than placebo for the treatment of mild to moderate clinical depression|depression in some clinical trials http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12904978.

  • Garlic has been found to lower total cholesterol levels, mildly reduce blood pressure, reduces platelet aggregation, and has antibacterial properties. http://www.mcphs.edu/herbal/garlic/garlic.cis.pdf

  • Artichoke and several other plants have been associated with reduced total serum cholesterol levels in preliminary studies http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12791229.

  • Black cohosh and other plants that contain phytoestrogens (plant molecules with estrogen activity) have been found to have some benefits for treatment of symptoms resulting from menopause http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12435217.


See Also: herb, herbology; alternative medicine, anesthesia, chinese medicine, complementary medicine, ethnobotany, folk medicine, folk remedy, paganism, shamanism, welfare plant, History of alternative medicine
External links

  • http://medherb.com/INDEX.SHTML Medherb.com

  • http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=herbalism Open Directory: Herbalism

  • http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=herbalism&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop Google Directory: Herbalism


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Category:Biologically based therapies
Category:Botany

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Copyright & Resource Links
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Herbalism".


Last Modified:   2005-02-25


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