The Future of Herbology

At the end of a study course, after having read the book Green Pharmacy: The History and Evolution of Western Herbal Medicine, by Barbara Griggs, I was given this question:

Herbal medicine has had a long and proud past, checkered with defiant people who stood up for what they knew was right. Presently, this same struggle continues with corporations, governments and the medical community trying to control herbology's rebirth. What do you think the future holds for herbal medicine? Should herbology become main stream like many herbalists believe, or should it continue to be taught and practiced as it is? What is your opinion?

 This was my response to that question:

I believe that, should herbology become “mainstream” in the sense that it is used instead of, or in conjunction with, medical science, it would be under controlling regulations and restrictions and be controlled by bureaucracy and monetary gain just as is found in medical scientific practice today. For any practice, medical or otherwise, that is said to hold the care of people first, but is controlled by a fore mentioned practices, it's true nature is not in the care for those they say they serve, but rather in serving themselves. Each time herbology has tried to become mainstream in the past, it has fallen prey to such practices as these and I believe it would again, as it seems to be a cycle that is repeated throughout history. We should learn from the past and not repeat it when the outcome is a negative one. I believe that only through personal and small communal practice of holistic care will it be able to survive and thrive.

 I also believe that supplements that are nothing but extracted chemicals, even though they be from natural sources, should not be labeled as holistic or nutritional, nor should they be sold with holistic foods and medicines, as they are not such. I believe this relation continues to be a sore on the herbalist and naturopath and each who practice in these areas should avoid their uses. It is a money-making practice that is just as chemically dependent as medical science and I believe it needs to be separated from holistic care in order for those who work in this field to be taken more seriously by the mainstream care practitioners.

I believe the struggle between the medical field and the holistic care givers will continue as long as those in the medical field feel threatened by the loss of revenue that will be generated by people seeking alternative ways of caring for themselves, but that alternative care will, as in times past, become more widely used and accepted. However, I do not foresee a fundamental change in the way society seeks medical care. The only way to bring about such a fundamental change is to teach people, and there are many who don't want to be taught and many more who don't want them to be taught. Our society runs largely on capitalism and, unfortunately, money is power, and those who oppose holistic care have a lot of both. I believe the survival of alternative health care in the United States must continue to be practiced on a very small scale in order not to be eradicated all together by the competition.

Have you read the book? Do you have an opinion regarding the question?

Health and Appearance

I recently read an article on an LDS website about obesity and missionary work. In the article, "Missionary candidates must watch weight -- or wait," by Joseph Cramer, M.D., he mentions how there are many young men and women in The Church who are not able to serve missions, or are honorably discharged from their missions, due to weight related illnesses and problems. By the end of the article he concluded with the basic idea that, after having spent a short amount of time reading a few articles, there is too much conflicting information, making it hard to say what we should do and what we shouldn't. He then gave a few pieces of his own advice, all of which would not have a very profound effect on a persons overall health.

After having read this article I realized how deficient in knowledge we are regarding our own health. There are some myths that need to be dispelled, and are mostly due to the great marketing abilities of large companies who stand to gain copious amounts of wealth from our poor health habits. This particular article gave me a great desire to read a book called The Culprit and the Cure by Dr. Steven G. Aldana. Dr. Aldana has worked as a professor at BYU and is heavily involved in researching health for the sake of knowledge and science, not for promoting products. I have begun to read this book, but have yet to complete it. However, I have already come across some wonderful knowledge. He has had something to say about the information disclosed to the public by researchers.

"The only way the typical American will ever hear about the study is if he or she reads the scientific journal or if someone in the media reads the journal and decides to do a story about it. . .

Journalists are paid to write stories that people will pay to read or watch on television. Therefore, journalists need to write stories that are of interest to readers and viewers, so sometimes they have to jazz up the studies to make them a little more interesting. . .

By far the most confusing and outright deceptive health information comes from advertising and marketing campaigns from the food, supplement, tobacco, alcohol, and exercise industries."

- Steven G. Aldana, Ph.D., "The Culprit and the Cure," pg 27.

Some of the beliefs we have come to have and associate with good health are if you are thin, have good muscle tone, have a lot of energy, exercise on a regular basis, and take supplement pills you are in excellent condition. It is true that all of these things can have an effect on your overall health, but how you go about achieving such goals as being thin and having strong muscles is more important than getting the specific result. Once we have become so moved that we act on the behalf of our health we need to remember: thinness does not equal health, good muscle tone does not equal health, having energy does not equal health, exercising on a regular basis does not equal health, and taking supplement pills does not equal health.

I'm sure you are more confused now than ever, so let me explain. Being thin, having strong muscles and energy are a natural result of being healthy, but are also obtainable through other means, so just because you have a certain appearance does not mean you are healthy. If you exercise regularly but still continue to feed your body badly you may appear to be healthy on the outside, but are not on the inside, where it counts. Taking supplement pills may give you an overall desired appearance, but will not change the damage that is underlying. Also, supplements should not be confused for pills. Pills can be used as supplements, but so can wholesome herbs. Anything that is added to your diet to enhance received nutrition is a supplement. However, you would do well to remember that pills are made of synthetic chemicals that have been forced together into an unnatural state and can do more harm than good to a body that is a natural creation, one which relies on natural foods.

Dr. Aldana has a great personal story to illustrate the difference between the appearance of health and true health.

"After hearing a lecture on the importance of living a healthy lifestyle, two participants came by my office. The first, a 20-year-old male college student, came in to complain that he was not interested in changing his diet or getting exercise because he felt great. He could eat whatever he wanted, live however he wanted, and he generally felt great all the time. He even gladly reported that his blood pressure was perfect, his cholesterol was low, and he didn't smoke.

Right then he didn't have any major health problems and most likely wouldn't for another 30 years. He was not convinced that he should do anything differently, especially if what he was currently doing was working fine. He finished by saying, '"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and even if I do have problems, I'll just have the doctor fix me up.'

The second individual was a 58-year-old female who had raised a family and now lived at home with her husband. Like most people over age 50, she was by definition obese, had high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol, and was recently told by her physician that she had diabetes and would likely be diabetic for the rest of her life. When she heard her doctor's diagnosis, she was shocked.

Something must have happened in the past 30 years because when she was 20, she could eat anything, exercise if she wanted, and was always thin and healthy. After hearing both of these stories, I introduced the young man to the woman and let them visit for a few minutes. The need to adopt a healthy lifestyle is important for all ages."

- Steven G. Aldana, Ph.D., "The Culprit and the Cure," pg 17.

When we are seeking true health, quick fixes are never the answer. An adult isn't born into their present state of ill health, but has acquired it over a period of many years. Because of this, once we have begun to feel the ill effects of our poor lifestyle, we should never expect our bodies to become healthy in just a few months. The longer we have lived a life of poor habits, the longer it will take us to cleanse our bodies and regain good nutrition. If your dietary habits cannot be maintained throughout your life while at the same time offering only good nutrition and health, then they are not good habits to have. True nutrition is what can be consumed throughout a lifetime and will always benefit the body and mind. While quick fixes and short lived habits are never the answer for obtaining good health, and the benefits of good health, it is never to late to make the necessary changes in your lifestyle. But the sooner you do, the better off you will be.

In future posts I will be writing more specifically about diet, exercise, supplements, weight loss, and other subjects that correspond with obtaining good health.

Teach A Man To Fish

A few months ago I read an article in the news that talked about a university that has developed a way to fortify tortillas with iron and zinc so that the poorer people in Mexico, and other tortilla eating nations, can consume the "recommended" amounts of these minerals. These researchers have been working on this particular problem for many years and have spent a lot of money trying to find a solution. I'm sure the people involved with this research have the desire to help all those they can by giving them a product that could possibly enhance their health. The method and equipment will be affordable for small mill owners and, in fact, some are already producing fortified tortillas. Of course, they made sure to preserve the color, texture and flavor in order to appear as if it were the natural tortilla. In time they hope these fortified tortillas will be consumed by millions. They are receiving financial help from a non-profit group that believes in using technology to help improve nutrition in poorer, developing nations. This sounds like a wonderful product, but I see some flaws.

Our bodies have been designed to thrive on natural foods, not processed look-a-likes. Our bodies have the amazing ability to extract the right amounts of vitamins, minerals, and protein from the food we can grow in our own backyards (yes protein is found in plant foods). Anything that is made in a laboratory or factory is far from natural and may have dire consequences when introduced into a system that requires natural foods. Dr. T. Colin Campbell has spent most of his lifetime researching health and nutrition and has come to some amazing discoveries through that research. Here are some of the facts he has found in his line of work concerning unnaturally altered foods and synthetic supplements:

"Our bodies have evolved with this infinitely complex network of reactions in order to derive maximal benefit from whole foods, as they appear in nature. The misguided may trumpet the virtues of one specific nutrient or chemical, but this thinking is too simplistic. Our bodies have learned how to benefit from the chemicals in food as they are packaged together, discarding some and using others as they see fit. I cannot stress this enough, as it is the foundation of understanding what good nutrition means.
Supplements will not lead to long-lasting health and may cause unforeseen side effects. Furthermore, for those relying on supplements, beneficial and sustained diet change is postponed. The dangers of a Western diet cannot be overcome by consuming nutrient pills."

"It is not that these nutrients aren't important. They are - but only when consumed as food, not as supplements. Isolating nutrients and trying to get benefits equal to those of whole foods reveals an ignorance of how nutrition operates in the body. A recent special article in the New York Times documents this failure of nutrient supplements to provide any proven health benefit. As time passes, I am confident that we will continue to 'discover' that relying on the use of isolated nutrient supplements to maintain health, while consuming the usual Western diet, is not only a waste of money but is also potentially dangerous."

"Our food choices have an incredible impact not only on our metabolism, but also on the initiation, promotion and even reversal of disease, on our energy, on our physical activity, on our emotional and mental well-being and on our world environment. All of these seemingly separate spheres are intimately interconnected."

"How many billions of dollars must be spent before we understand the limitations of reductionist research? Scientific investigations of the effects of single nutrients on complex diseases have little or no meaning when the main dietary effect is due to the consumption of an extraordinary collection of nutrients and other substances found in whole foods."

- T. Colin Campbell, PhD, The China Study, Pg. 228; 229; 240; 288.

Artificially supplying our bodies with synthetic nutrients, or natural nutrients unnaturally added to other foods, will not give us the health benefits that would come by consuming necessary nutrients in their natural state. However, this is not the only problem I see. I also see the opportunity for a few to capitalize from the needs of many. To me this seems morally wrong and is in direct opposition to what these researchers are trying to do, which is to help people in need. The poor people will become dependent on a bad product under the false impression that that product is good for them and a small minority will make a profit from that dependence and falsehood. This seems to be counter productive to helping the poor and malnourished. They will remain poor, in bad health and on top of that will then become dependent on others. They will then need to find more ways of making money, which they already don't have much of, in order to buy a product that doesn't help them. Aidan Mackey has this to say in the book Beyond Capitalism and Socialism:

"Most emphatically, we must first restore the family and its values. After that, in natrual progression, must come the family trade or craft, and the small organic family farm. Upon these must any sane and healthy society be built, and we must destroy the grotesque combines and cartels, many of which are strong enough to dictate to governments. It is clear they exist not to produce food or furniture, but profit. We all know the euphemism "diversification," which means that in pursuit of the money-god, they will readily switch from one field to others not remotely connected, providing there is money to be harvested."
- Aidan Mackey, Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, pg. 4

Instead, I propose taking the money and time away from research and using it to send knowledgeable people to these nations and teach people how to garden, build homes of their own, build their own furniture and other needs, make their own clothing, etc. Teach these people how to fill their own needs with the help of others in their own small communities. Don't worry about their reading, writing and math skills, that kind of knowledge will not feed starving children. Stop making them dependent on capitalists who only care about their pocket books, not the lives they are affecting. Stop making them dependent on groups because they will never learn to be self-sufficient that way. Make them dependent upon themselves and what they can produce through the work of their own hands. Do this and you will have made an independent people that are no longer poor and needy.

Stop giving out fish and start teaching people how to fish for themselves.