Herbal Remedies' Quality Often Is Guesswork - composition of echinacea and other herbal medicines vary - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 2000

What do you get when you buy a bottle of the herbal cold remedy echinacea? You really don't know, maintains James Simon, professor of new use agriculture and natural plant products, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., because of the lack of consistency in herbs and medicinal plants.

Echinacea, for example, is taken by many individuals to combat cold symptoms. However, there are several different species used commercially in the U.S.--the two most common being Echinacea purpurea and Echinacea angustifolia--and product labels often give little information about which are in the herbal remedy or what parts of the plant were used.

"The different species and the different plant parts may vary in their biochemistry, though all may contain some level of the active compounds associated with the natural products," Simon says. "Regardless of which species is used in a product, it's the responsibility of the manufacturers to come up with a mixture that gives consumers the amount of the active ingredient that they need. But the amount of the active ingredient or ingredients that is in the product isn't put on the label."

Echinacea is just one of the many examples of the uncertainty that exists with herbal remedies and functional foods, he points out. "There can be real differences in the biological actions of medicinal plants, depending on the plant's genetic makeup and the environment under which it's produced. Even the way that a plant is harvested, when it is harvested, and how it was dried can make a difference in the quality. It requires a good understanding of the plants and the environment to assess that it is high quality."

The natural variation of plants within a species can have a tremendous effect on the quality of the herbal remedy. "Some wild plants may have very high amounts, and some plants may be devoid of it. Anytime you have a natural product, there is going to be a lot of biological diversity."

The way to control the variations in quality and instill consumer confidence is to demystify herbal products through scientific research, Simon contends. "About one-third of our population has tried using medicinal plants, and it's going to be hard to convince the other two-thirds of the population unless you can back up the health claims with good science."

He advocates greater study on the pharmacognosy, or description of the pharmaceutical properties, of the plants and that this information be made available to doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. "Sometimes, good information such as this is known, but people in the medical profession don't use it because they don't know much about these plants." The scientific information on how the herbal remedies work frequently isn't available. "Too often when these companies say they invest so much in research, what they are talking about is marketing research. Having said that, there has been a change over the past five years. Research is beginning to test for significant biological actions. Consumer demands and expectations have forced companies to change the way they do business."