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For fighting infections, botanical medicines such as ginger and garlic offer something that pharmaceutical antibiotics don't - positive results without suppressing the immune system. 

Antibiotics revolutionized modern medicine. Their discovery brought under control numerous usually fatal infectious diseases. Cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, syphilis and gonorrhea, rheumatic fever and infections of virtually every organ and tissue are now treatable. Yet, there's a darker side to these wonder drugs. Widespread use over the past 50 years has led to problems in the form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and potential immune suppression, leading to a tendency toward increased infections.

    The word "antibiotic" literally means "against life." It is, of course, the life of infectious agents including bacteria and fungi that antibiotics are designed to terminate without endangering the patient's health. There's no question antibiotics have saved millions of lives. However, there's increasing agreement we've overused them. New antibiotic-resistant organisms evolve when a few especially strong pathogens survive the antibiotics and pass on their resistance to offspring, creating new strains of organisms that defy destruction. Often antibiotics are used when they're not needed.

    In Health and Healing (Houghton Mifflin) Andrew Weil, M.D., discusses the misuse by physicians and patients of antibiotics against viral infections including colds and flu. Any effect these drugs have against viruses is believed to be a placebo effect, as antibiotics are useless against these organisms. To make matters worse, antibiotics may actually suppress our natural resistance to viruses.

    Some natural remedies, especially herbs such as garlic and goldenseal, offer antibiotic protection. Many of these herbs provide immune-stimulating effects that help the body fight infection without toxicity. Check with your health care practitioner about whether these natural antibiotic plants would help you.

Natural Bacteria Fighters

Some plants used in botanical medicine are lethal to a wide range of bacteria and other pathogens. Garlic juice was used in the Middle Ages against bubonic plague and during World War I against battlefield infections. Garlic has also proven effective against pathogens in laboratory tests—it kills eight of nine strains of antibiotic-resistant organisms. Researchers found a simple water-based garlic extract more effective against antibiotic- resistant staphylococcus, escherichia, proteus and pseudomonas than penicillin, ampicillin, doxycycline, streptomycin or cephalexin (Fitoterapia, 1984, vol. 55). "Increasing multiple drug resistance in disease-causing bacteria is a problem for medical practitioners and other scientists. In light of the present results, the subject needs an extensive study on the action of active principles of garlic extract against a number of multiple resistant clinical bacteria," the study authors comment.

Garlic is also effective, at least in laboratory glassware, against the herpes virus (type I), candida, various bacteria, mycobacteria and yeast organisms. It's also antifungal, antiparasitic and antiprotozoan.

    Goldenseal is another herb found active against a wide range of microbes. The major action of goldenseal is believed to be the result of the alkaloid berberine. Most authors who cite research for the effectiveness of this native American plant use research on the pure alkaloid to support their cases. Berberine is effective against bacteria including staph, strep, salmonella, chlamydia and others, amoebae, yeasts including candida, and fungi and protozoa including giardia, the number one cause of intestinal disease in the United States.

    Berberine is different from penicillin in that it can prevent microorganisms from attaching to cells at doses lower than those needed to kill the microbes (Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, vol. 32). "Strategies that interrupt the adhesive functions of bacteria before host tissue invasion occurs may be an effective prophylactic approach against bacterial infectious diseases," the article says.

    Berberine is also the major active alkaloid in the plant medicines barberry, Oregon grape root and gold thread. Since goldenseal has become endangered in the wild and is difficult to cultivate, there's an increasing trend toward use of these other common berberine-containing plants.

    A surprising antibiotic herb, little known for this purpose, is ginger. This spice has potent antibacterial effects and yet isn't toxic to beneficial intestinal flora. While destroying E. coli, proteus, staph, strep and salmonella, ginger stimulates the growth of lactobacillus, one of the most common beneficial microflora. Ginger is also effective against parasites including those found in uncooked fish such as the protozoan anisakis, the most common parasitic infection in Japan. It also kills schistosoma, considered the second most prevalent parasitic disease in the world.

The Immune Stimulants

Fresh extracts of echinacea show significant fungicidal, bacterio- static and virustatic activity including against herpes, influenza, pseudomonas, trichomonas, E. coli, vesicular stomatitis virus and candida, according to several references. For a good review, see Echinacea Handbook (Eclectic Medical Publications) by Christopher Hobbs or Botanical Influences on Illness (Third Line Press) by Murray & Werbach. Echinacea also kills leishmania parasites, according to German researchers. Echinacea is not one of the strongest substances in actually destroying microorganisms. The more important property of this best-selling herb is its ability to stimulate the human immune system.

    Echinacea, a native of the North American plains, is the best-known herb for immune stimulation. Scientific studies document the ability of this plant, also known as the purple coneflower, to increase the overall activity of the body's immune system. It increases the development and release of new white blood cells and lymph cells and stimulates them to a heightened state of action.

    Several studies done at German universities have shown that white blood cells stimulated by echinacea are up to 120 percent more effective in removing foreign bodies including bacteria and other pathogens from the blood stream. Clinical research, also conducted in Germany by B. Braunig, Ph.D., found that in comparison with placebo, echinacea significantly lessened the symptoms and shortened the duration of colds and flu (Zeitschrift fur Phytotherapie, 1992, vol. 13).

    Echinacea has been shown to do something no antibiotic or synthetic drug can do— make a cold or flu go away faster. Small wonder that echinacea is among the best-selling herbal products in the United States. Research also found it effective in preventing the recurrence of yeast infections.

    Echinacea, antibiotics and a combination were tested against bronchitis in children. The echinacea was dramatically better than antibiotics, but even more intriguing, the combination was less effective than echinacea alone, suggesting an immune-suppressing effect of the antibiotics ("Treatment of Acute Bronchitis of Children," TW Pediatric, 1988).

    Astragalus is another immune stimulant with plenty of research backing. Used for more than 5,000 years in China, it helps increase our natural resistance (Phytotherapy Research, 1989, vol. 9).

    Reishi, shlitake and maitake mushrooms have also proven beneficial for the immune system. These mushrooms increase the production of new immune system cells, enhance the effectiveness of T-cells and increase production of the body's tumor-killing compound Tumor Necrosis Factor. In one study, oral administration of maitake produced a 64 percent inhibition of breast cancer and tumor activity, a 75 percent inhibition of skin cancer and tumor activity, and a 27 percent decrease in lung cancer and tumor activity, according to a 1988 issue of Chemistry and Phar macology Bulletin.

    A number of studies over the past few years offer evidence that shiitake mushroom possesses anticancer effects and helps bolster the immune system. A component of shiitake called lentinan has been shown to enhance immunity cells including monocytes, B-cells and T-cells. Researchers suggest lentinan would be useful in treating cancer, a condition where immunity is low (International Journal of Immunopharmacology, 1984, vol. 6).

    Research on anticancer and anti-HIV effects of reishi mushroom is producing promising results. Most of the research is from Japan, which has become a major center in the study of medicinal mushrooms.

    Infectious diseases are serious. While the natural alternatives are freely available without a prescription, proper medical diagnosis and supervision of treatment is essential in dealing with potentially life-threatening disease. Conventional medical doctors are beginning to learn and use natural remedies more often, a promising trend that may even lessen the tide of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Antiviral Elderberry

The berry of the black elder (Sambucus nigra) has been known for centuries to possess valuable medicinal properties. A popular Gypsy remedy for coughs and colds—perhaps because elderberries are a good source of vitamins A, B, C and bioflavonoids—the berries historically have also been used as a treatment for skin ailments and for the relief of burns, eczema and rashes.

    In the mid-1980s the active antiviral components of the elderberry were isolated. Tests performed against strains of influenza showed that two of the active ingredients in the elderberry combated the virus. Viruses can't replicate themselves on their own and must invade healthy living cells and alter their own functions.

    Flu viruses have tiny spikes that cover their surfaces, which they use to invade human cells by puncturing the cell walls. These spikes are coated with an enzyme called neuraminidase, which helps breakdown the host cell's wall. The active ingredients in elderberries actually disarm the spikes by binding to them, coating them and preventing them from piercing the membrane. In addition, the elderberry's active components inhibit the action of the enzyme. Scientists now hope that the humble elderberry will act against other viruses as well.

Source: "The Extraordinary Elderberry" by Tom White, an herbalist and product formulator living in Boulder, Colo. This article first appeared in the September 1995 issue of Nutrition Science News.

Robert McCaleb is president of the Herb Research Foundation in Boulder, Colo.

Reprinted with permission from the July 1996 issue of Delicious! Magazine, a publication of New Hope Communications, Boulder, CO.