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Chapter One

The Revolution Is Here:

What You
Need to Know to Join

Do those potions you see in health food stores, drugstores, supermarkets, mail order outlets, and discount chains really work? Is there any scientific validity to their seemingly extravagant promises? And, most of all, will these natural drugs help cure you or someone you care about of minor vexatious illness, such as flu and low energy, or major debilitating and life-threatening diseases, such as heart failure, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, cirrhosis, depression, and mental deterioration?

You might ask those same questions of millions of people around the world who have successfully used natural remedies. The resounding answer is yes. Some Americans might say the same thing. However, sadly, America generally is far behind other countries in the use of natural medicines, because of a lack of knowledge about their scientific validity and a failure of our medical profession and the government to properly evaluate and endorse their use. Consequently, you and millions of other Americans are being deprived of the opportunity to choose natural treatments in place of strong, often harmful and expensive pharmaceutical drugs. Yet, such natural medicines could reduce or eliminate some of the harsh consequences of our conventional treatments, in terms of both human and economic suffering. At least, we should explore the incredible potential healing powers of those natural remedies that have been widely tested and extensively used with governmental approval in many foreign countries, including Germany, France, and England -- all countries with impeccable scientific and medical standards. Unless we do, we cannot say that we have access to the best medical care in the world.

Fortunately, the attitude toward natural treatments is rapidly changing in the United States. More scientific information on naturalmedicines is coming into the country; prestigious scientists and doctors here are increasingly testing and using such natural remedies and comparing their effectiveness and safety with pharmaceutical drugs. And Americans are embracing the natural medications and so-called "alternative" or "complementary" treatments with enthusiasm.

It's no secret that the American public is turning in droves to nontraditional remedies. A startling 1993 report in the trusted New England Journal of Medicine showed that one-third of Americans use nonconventional treatments, spending $10.8 billion yearly, but most never tell their doctors. A 1997 Prevention magazine survey of the general public (not just its readers) found that about one-third of adult Americans, or 60 million, say they frequently use "herbal remedies." Even people in the industry were surprised. "Herbs are becoming more mainstream much faster than we ever expected," said Mary Burnett, spokesperson for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a Washington, D.C., trade association for the nutritional supplement industry.

Yes, herbal remedies, botanical medicines, and natural drugs of all kinds, available anywhere without restriction or prescription, are being embraced by Americans. "Medical experts say that over the past ten years, more people have been turning to more kinds of alternative therapies than ever before," wrote New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata in June 1996. Some see this movement as "a return to our roots," a desire for natural medicines used by our ancestors. But it is also driven by a seemingly unstoppable coalition of social and economic forces-soaring health care costs, a growing disillusionment with the limitations and hazards of high-tech medicine, increasing concerns about adverse effects from pharmaceutical drugs, and a reaction against an authoritarian medical system in which doctors appear to play God. In such circumstances, natural remedies seem ideal solutions; they are usually far cheaper, are perceived as much safer, and give patients increased freedom to direct their own health care.

Some mainstream doctors fear the growing use of alternative therapies, but others believe it makes social and scientific sense. They are open to the idea that other cultures and countries may have valid ways of curing diseases that could be good for Americans. We love to say we have the best health care in the world, but that is debatable, and even so, it is costing us a fortune -- a situation that threatens to worsen as our population ages. Some health authorities believe we are squandering our national resources needlessly, even as we fail to control our epidemic of chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer. It's just possible we can learn something about the human complexities and traditions involved in healing, not only from Asian healers but also from scientifically minded Western physicians in Germany and France, where natural remedies are treated as legitimate mainstream medicines, not as aberrations of an unenlightened populace.

One reason people turn to "alternative" medicine is that our mainstream medical system is failing. The fact is, we are in the midst of an epidemic of inadequately treated chronic illness. Sixty million Americans have hypertension, 40 million suffer from arthritis, and 23 million of us have migraine headaches. A million Americans each year are being diagnosed with cancer, and close to 40 percent of us will, at one point or another, have this terrifying and often deadly disease. The prevalence of asthma, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, immune deficiency syndrome, HIV and a host of other debilitating conditions is increasing. Conventional biomedicine -- so strikingly successful in the treatment of overwhelming infections, surgical and medical emergencies, and congenital defects, has been unable to stem the tide of these conditions. -- James Gordon, M.D., a Washington, D.C., psychiatrist and a clinical professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine

Mainstream Medical Breakthroughs

Indeed, the idea that natural substances have a genuine place in modern medicine is spreading, attracting advocates in high places in the United States -- at academic and governmental medical centers, such as Harvard and the National Institutes of Health. The credibility of natural therapies is infiltrating mainstream medicine.

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Excerpted from Miracle Cures: Dramatic New Scientific Discoveries Revealing the Healing Powers of Herbs, Vitamins, and Other Natural Remedies by Jean Carper
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