Herbs & Herbal Remedies @ Green Papaya

Echinacea often causes a tingling sensation on the tongue. This is normal and not harmful. The medical literature contains no reports of echinacea toxicity.

However, there have been a few reports of bulk echinacea root being adulterated by other herbs. Any adulteration would reduce the herb’s effectiveness, and depending on the adulterant, might cause adverse reactions.

Fortunately, many U.S. herb companies market prepackaged echinacea preparations under Food and Drug Administration (FDA) purity regulations. These may be used with confidence.

The FDA lists echinacea as an herb of “undefined safety,” but available evidence suggests it’s safe. For otherwise healthy non-pregnant, non-nursing adults, echinacea is considered safe in amounts typically recommended.

Echinacea should be used only in consultation with your doctor. If echinacea causes minor discomforts, such as stomach upset or diarrhea, use less or stop using it. Let your doctor know if you experience any unpleasant effects or if the symptoms for which the herb is being used do not improve significantly in two weeks.

Pretty Flowers

Echinacea is a 2- to 5-foot perennial whose flowers resemble black-eyed Susan, with purple rays radiating from a cone-shaped center-hence its common name, purple coneflower. Echinacea has black roots, a single stem covered with bristly hairs, and narrow leaves.

Echinacea grows from seeds or root cuttings taken in spring or fall. Don’t cover seeds. When the temperature is in the 70s ºF, simply tamp them into moist, sandy soil.

Echinacea grows in poor, rocky, slightly acidic soil under full sun, but it also thrives in richer soils.

It takes three or four years for roots to grow large enough to harvest. Pull them in autumn after the plant has gone to seed. Roots greater than ½ inch in diameter should be split before drying.

Old Dr. Meyer would be tickled to learn how potent his favorite herb actually is. Echinacea has never been shown to cure rattlesnake bite, but many European (mostly German) studies from the 1950s through the 1980s agree it has remarkable healing properties.

Infection Fighter. Echinacea kills a broad range of disease-causing viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, which tends to support its traditional uses in wound healing and treatment of many infectious diseases. German researchers report success using echinacea to treat colds, flu, tonsillitis, bronchitis, tuberculosis, meningitis, wounds, abscesses, psoriasis, whooping cough (pertussis), and ear infections.

The herb fights infection in several ways. It contains a natural antibiotic (echinacosideJ, which is comparable to penicillin in that it has broad-spectrum activity.

Echinacea strengthens tissues against assault by invading microorganisms. Tissues contain a chemical (hyaluronic acid or HA) that in part acts as a shield against germ attack Many germs produce an enzyme (hyaluronidase) that dissolves this chemical shield, allowing them to penetrate tissues and cause infection. But echinacea contains a substance (echinacein) that counteracts the germs’ tissue-dissolving enzyme, keeping them out of the body’s tissues.

Immune System - Echinacea may also prevent infection by revving up the immune system. When disease-causing microorganisms attack, cells secrete chemicals that attract infection-fighting white blood cells (macrophages) to the area. The macrophages (literally, “big eaters”) engulf and digest the invaders. A study published in Infection and Immunology showed that a substance derived from echinacea boosts the macrophages’ ability to destroy germs.

Another study at the University of Munich showed echinacea extracts increase production of infection-fighting ‘l-cells (Tvlymphocytes] up to 30 percent more than other immune-boosting drugs.

Colds and Flu - In addition, echinacea may behave like the body’s own virus-fighting chemical, interferon. Before a virus-infected cell dies, it releases a tiny amount of interferon, which boosts the ability of surrounding cells to resist infection. Echinacea may do essentially the same thing. Researchers bathed cells in echinacea extract, then exposed them to two potent viruses, influenza and herpes. Compared with untreated cells, only a small proportion became infected. These findings have led herb conservative Yarro Tyler, Ph.D., to write that echinacea “may result in … clear improvement in such conditions as the common cold.” It may also help fight other infectious diseases, such as flu, urinary tract infection, and bronchitis.

Yeast Infection - Tests of echinacea in people have produced dramatically positive results. In a recent German study, 203 women with recurrent vaginal yeast infections were treated with either an anti-yeast cream or the cream plus an oral echinacea preparation. After six months, 60 percent of the women treated with just the antifungal cream had experienced recurrences, but among those also treated with echinacea, the figure was only 16 percent, a highly significant difference.

Radiation Therapy - Cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy typically suffer reduced white blood cell counts, increasing their risk of infection. Echinacea may help preserve white blood cells and thus protect radiation patients from infection.

If you’re in radiation therapy, use echinacea only in consultation with your physician.

Wound Healing - Science has confirmed echinacea’s traditional use in wound treatment. The same chemical (echinacein) that prevents germs from penetrating tissues also spurs broken skin to knit faster by spurring cells that form new tissue (fibroblasts) to work more efficiently.

Echinacea preparations can be applied to cuts, burns, psoriasis, eczema, genital herpes, and cold sores.

Arthritis - The same chemical (HA) that helps shield tissues against germs also lubricates the joints. Joint inflammation (arthritis) breaks down HA, but echinacea’s HA-protective action may have an anti-inflammatory effect, thus lending credence to the herb’s traditional use in treating arthritis.

German researchers have successfully treated rheumatoid arthritis with echinacea preparations. If you have arthritis or another inflammatory condition, use echinacea only in consultation with your physician.

Intriguing Possibility - Echinacea shows promising anticancer activity against leukemia and a few animal tumors. It’s early to call the herb a cancer treatment, but one day it might be.

Rx for Echinacea

Use either a tincture or decoction to take advantage of echinaceas infection-fighting potential or as a possible treatment for arthritis. To make a decoction, bring 2 teaspoons of root material per cup of water to a boil, then simmer 15 minutes. Drink up to 3 cups a day. You’ll find the taste initially sweet, then bitter.

In a tincture, take I teaspoon up to three times a day.

If you’re using a commercial preparation, follow package directions.

Echinacea should not be given to children under age 2. For older children and people over 65 start with a low-strength preparation and increase strength if necessary.

Antibiotic and Immune System Stimulant

Family: Compositae; (includes Daisy, Dandelion, Marigold)

Genus and Species: Echinacea Angustifolia, E. Purpurea

Also known as: Purple Coneflower

Parts used: Roots

Echinacea is the best-kept secret among native American healing herbs. Few other plants are so potentially beneficial as immune-boosting infection fighters. Yet, like
the prophet ignored in his native land, no healing herb has been dismissed as thoroughly by this country’s orthodox medical authorities. Echinacea (pronounced en-kin-AY-sna) was once quite popular here, but since the 1930s its many benefits have been enjoyed almost entirely by Europeans. Fortunately, the situation is changing as echinacea regains its former-and well-deserved-prominence on this side of the Atlantic.

The Original “Snake Oil”

Echinacea was the Plains Indians’ primary medicine. They applied root poultices to all manner of wounds, insect bites and stings, and snakebites. They used echinacea mouthwash for painful teeth and gums and drank echinacea tea to treat colds, smallpox, measles, mumps, and arthritis.

Plains settlers adopted the plant, but it remained a folk remedy until 1870, when a patent-medicine purveyor, Dr. H. C. F Meyer of Pawnee City, Nebraska, used it in his Meyer’s Blood Purifier. He promoted the remedy as “an absolute cure” for rattlesnake bite, blood poisoning, and a host of other ills. Claims like Dr. Meyer’s gave patent medicines the name “snake oil.”

But Dr. Meyer truly believed echinacea could cure rattlesnake bite, and he set out to prove it. In 1885, he sent a sample to John Uri Lloyd, professor at the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, cofounder (with his brothers) of Lloyd Brothers Pharmacists, and later president of the American Pharmaceutical Association. Lloyd identified the plant as echinacea. But after one look at Dr. Meyer’s label with its claim of “absolute cure” for rattlesnake bite, Lloyd dismissed Dr. Meyer as a crackpot.

Dr. Meyer wrote back insisting echinacea was a cure for rattlesnake bite. He was so confident, he offered to bring a live rattlesnake to Cincinnati and let it bite him in Lloyd’s presence to demonstrate his Blood Purifier’s effectiveness. Lloyd declined the offer.

Undaunted, Dr. Meyer shipped some echinacea to Lloyd’s Eclectic colleague, John King, who had mentioned the plant’s Indian uses in the first edition of his Eclectic text, King’s American Dispensatory. King tested the herb, and after successfully using it to treat bee stings, chronic nasal congestion, leg ulcers, and infant cholera, he extolled the plant and included it in subsequent editions of his Dispensatory.

In Every Medicine Cabinet

Eventually, John Uri Lloyd accepted echinacea, declaring it useful in treating wounds, venomous bites and stings, blood poisoning (septicemia), diphtheria, meningitis, measles, chicken pox, malaria, scarlet fever, influenza, syphilis, and gangrene.

Lloyd’s enthusiasm was not simply academic. His family business, Lloyd Brothers Pharmacists, developed several echinacea products, which enjoyed tremendous popularity nationally as infection treatments from the 1890s well into the 1920s. During the early 20th century it was a rare home medicine cabinet that didn’t contain tincture of echinacea. (The Lloyd brothers founded the Lloyd Library in Cincinnati. Today the library houses one of the world’s largest collections of botanical information).

Eclectics Versus the “Regulars”

Unfortunately, echinacea became a casualty of the war between orthodox physicians (known prior to World War I as “regulars”) and the alternative Eclectic physicians. Each side was hostile to the medicines touted by the other. In 1909 the following appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association: “Echinacea … has failed to sustain the reputation given it by its enthusiasts … [who] make use of early unverified reports to endow their nostrums with remarkable therapeutic properties.”

By the 1930s, as antibiotics became available, echinacea’s popularity waned. It was listed in the National Formulary, the pharmacists’ reference, from 1916 until 1950, but from the 1940s on, it was largely forgotten-that is, until the herbal revival of the I970s.

Contemporary herbalists are as enthusiastic about echinacea as the Eclectics were They tout it as a botanical antibiotic and immune system stimulant for boils, colds and flu, bladder infections, tonsillitis, and other infectious diseases. Many recommend taking the herb daily as a tonic, infection preventive, and immune-system enhancer.