75 Medicinal Plants and Their Uses

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by Diane Guthrie
Herbal remedies can be a safer, less expensive alternative to pharmaceuticals, and you can grow many of them in your backyard.

Doctors have begun to recognize medicinal plants and their uses. When used correctly, herbal remedies can be a safer and less expensive alternative to pharmaceuticals.

My wife is an M.D. trained in pharmaceutical medicine. She prescribes drugs every day, but also recommends medicinal herbs. In our medicine cabinet, we stock drugs and herbs, but we use more of the latter. When we catch colds, we prefer echinacea and andrographis (immune-boosting herbs proven to speed recovery), ginseng (ditto), licorice root (for sore throat), tea or coffee (caffeine helps relieve stuffed nose and chest congestion), eucalyptus lozenges (for cough), and pelargonium (if post-cold bronchitis develops).

When I started writing about herbal remedies, the vast majority of M.D.s (my wife included) never recommended herbs over drugs. Today, doctors are increasingly open to recommending nondrug alternatives given reasonable evidence of safety and effectiveness.

Unfortunately, many medical authorities still disparage medicinal herbs. Critics make four accusations: Herbs are ineffective, unsafe, unregulated and, when they work, they’re not as strong as drugs.

Ineffective? Hardly. As I document in my book, The New Healing Herbs, thousands of studies confirm the effectiveness of medicinal herbs for hundreds of conditions.

  • Updated on Oct 3, 2023
  • Originally Published on Mar 22, 2021
Tagged with: healing herbs, Healing With Herbs, medicinal
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