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The
Heartland Naturopathic Clinic Email Newsletter - August 2005 The following are our email newsletters with helpful information on staying well and our practices. They include articles on home care, natural healing, cured cases, commentary on current issues in the field of health care and medicine and other interesting and useful information. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter simply send your email address, name and a request asking to be added to our email address list to: Staff@HeartlandNaturopathic.com. * Echinacea
Study in the National News OUR COMMENTS ON
THE RECENT ECHINACEA STUDY IN THE NEWS Over the last
two decades, numerous studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects
of echinacea preparations on immune system function. Echinacea is commonly used to help prevent, shorten the duration of, and
relieve symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections associated with
cold and flu viruses. Research suggests it may activate phagocytic
function, relieve symptoms when used at the first sign of a viral
infection, and reduce the recurrence of infectious symptoms. In
addition, it has been shown to be well tolerated. The recently
reported and much commented on study published in last week's edition of
the “New England Journal of Medicine” has cast doubt on the
benefits of echinacea supplementation. We share the position taken by
the American Botanical Council, which in summary states, “This is
not a definitive trial on the efficacy of echinacea, nor should the
results be generalized to echinacea preparations widely available.
Unfortunately, the conclusion that may be drawn by some media who report
this study may state that ‘echinacea is ineffective,’ but this would
be an incorrect conclusion based on the design of this study and the
evidence in the existing literature.” * Further more, the
dosage that we generally recommend for an adult suffering from a cold is
close to 10 times the amounts used in this study. This is the equivalent
of studying aspirin for headaches and giving the participants in the
study only one quarter of one tablet and then saying that aspirin
doesn’t work for headaches. We stick by our recommended usage of
echinacea as we recommend in our handouts and on our webpage: http://www.heartlandnaturopathic.com/self-care.htm.
* American
Botanical Council. Herbal Science Group Says Dosage Too Low in New
Echinacea Trial. Available at: http://www.herbalgram.org/default.asp?c=echinacea072605.
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