Who’s Using Botanical Medicines?

 

We will discuss the use of botanicals 

by consumers today in this video. 

But first let's start out by having you take a guess. 

What do you think the worldwide percentage of 

people using herbal medicines is for health conditions? 

You may be surprised that according to eCore, 

it is estimated that 

up to four billion people 

worldwide use botanical medicines for health conditions. 

This is equivalent to about 80% of the global population. 

The National Health Interview Survey or 

NHIS is conducted by 

the Center for Disease Control or CDC, 

and the most recent poll we have is from 2012. 

Of those surveyed, 33.2 percent of adults in 

the US use integrative therapies 

and healing practices during the year. 

The integrative therapies in 

healing practices includes many things, 

including massage, yoga, 

meditation in addition to supplements and herbals. 

Of this group, 17.7 

percent use botanicals annually for health conditions, 

spending approximately $12.8 billion. 

Now for comparison, adults spend about 

$54.1 billion on pharmaceuticals during that same year. 

So this really goes to show that many people 

are not only utilizing botanicals for health problems, 

but are also willing to spend 

a lot of money on these therapies. 

The supplement market has 

definitely responded accordingly. 

I feel like each time I go 

to a grocery store or a supplement shop, 

the selection seems to be getting 

larger and larger and larger. 

According to the NHIS survey in 2012,85 

percent of adults surveyed indicated they 

use botanicals for overall wellness, 

and 40 percent of adults surveyed indicated 

they use botanicals for specific medical problem. 

I really see this reflected 

everyday in my medical practice. 

Sometimes I see patients who will take something like 

a women's blend for overall wellness, 

whereas others are using 

herbal medicines for a wide range of problems, 

everything from something to help with their joints or 

their cholesterol or to help with their insomnia. 

65 percent of adults in the NHIS survey data 

reported that using botanicals 

actually improved their health and well-being. 

This is really likely the reason that 

the supplement herbal industry market continues to grow. 

If people didn't feel like these therapies were helping, 

I'm guessing that they would not 

be spending more money on them. 

The NHIS survey has identified 

the top four elements for which 

people seek out integrative therapies and 

healing practices, including botanicals. 

So just to be, you know kind of have 

a little fun just like a radio countdown, 

I'm going to count down from number 

four to number one to keep you in suspense. 

Let's kick things off with 

upper respiratory infection which is 

the number four biggest reason 

people seek out integrative therapies. 

I can't tell you how many patients I 

see that come in requesting something, 

anything to help with their cold symptoms. 

I think we've all had the experience 

of having a really bad cold, 

feeling absolutely miserable, and trying 

every product in the cold and flu 

section at the drugstore. 

However, because most upper respiratory infections are 

viral there's really no magic here for symptoms, 

and to be clear botanicals 

certainly aren't a magic bullet either. 

But there are many alternatives to try, 

and we will be discussing 

in this course to offer patients 

one more tool in the tool bag 

for helping those pesky cold symptoms. 

I'm not surprised at all that this made the top four, 

because it is such a common reason 

that people come and seek medical care. 

Moving on, our number three slot 

belongs to elevated cholesterol. 

This is an extremely common medical problem, 

and pharmaceuticals such as 

statins do a very good job of lowering cholesterol. 

However, some people can experience severe myopathy or 

muscle pain with statin therapy 

and find these medications intolerable. 

I can speak from firsthand experience 

about this as my uncle, 

who suffers from high cholesterol and had a heart attack, 

was on statins for many years but eventually had to 

stock due to the severe myopathy 

that he was experiencing. 

He actively sought out 

other alternative treatments to help his cholesterol, 

and currently that's what he uses now. 

Next up, anxiety is the number two medical condition. 

The botanical world has many options 

for anxiety that don't come along with 

the harsher side-effect profile or tolerance 

issues that may develop with 

many of our conventional anxiolytics. 

Again, I am not surprised to 

see that anxiety is in the top four, 

because this is an extremely frequent medical problem 

that people will seek out care for. 

Finally, we come to the number one reason, 

the one you've all been waiting for, 

and that honor goes to pain. 

This includes various pain-related complaints 

such as: back pain, 

neck pain or joint pain, which includes arthritis. 

I see this all the time in the patients that I treat. 

Common over the counter medications such as aspirin or 

ibuprofen can be very effective at alleviating pain. 

However, they can also be really harsh on the stomach, 

and some people cannot take them for this reason. 

Butanyl calls can be 

really nice alternative to these types of medicines. 

You may start to be noticing a common theme here. 

So while pharmaceuticals can do a job 

managing many medical conditions, 

their side-effect profile is undesirable in many ways, 

and people may wish to seek out other therapies that 

may control their symptoms with fewer side effects. 

Then if the botanical option doesn't work, 

then you can always have the option of bumping up to 

the stronger medication in the pharmaceutical, 

and surely sometimes botanicals can 

fill this role of helping and sometimes they won't. 

But knowing all the available options will help 

your patients be familiar 

with all the potential therapies, 

conventional and botanical, and 

help make them their best choice. 

Patients turn to botanical medicines 

for a wide variety of reasons. 

These include: marketing claims, 

individual preferences for natural therapies, 

and dissatisfaction with pharmaceuticals 

or other standard western medicine treatments. 

As a physician, I really try to help patients 

understand when it's appropriate to try these botanicals, 

and when it may not be helpful 

or even downright dangerous to use the botanical. 

I'll give you some examples. 

First example is I had a patient that 

was spending over $50 a 

month on a ''natural end core product'', 

to help with her tinnitus. 

Now tinnitus is ringing in the ears, 

and as long as 

serious underlying causes have 

been ruled out for tinnitus, 

there's really no cure for it. 

There's no scientific evidence to 

support the use of botanical medicine, 

or pharmaceuticals for that matter 

in the treatment of tinnitus, 

and honestly this botanical products 

she was trying was a waste of money. 

I've also had multiple patients try to take 

verbal slimming products to help them lose weight. 

These types of products are not only ineffective, 

but actually potentially harmful. 

So these are the types of things that 

I try to educate patients on, 

ones that may be ineffective or potentially dangerous. 

Now on the flip side, 

there are many instances where botanical 

is a superior treatment to a pharmaceutical. 

The example I'll give for this one is in 

the symptomatic management of 

viral upper respiratory symptoms. 

I cannot tell you 

how many patients I see that come in saying, 

''I need that Z-Pack or I need an antibiotic for my cold, 

I am trying to stay on top of it, 

and I don't want it to turn into something worse.'' 

As we all know, antibiotics are not 

going to help viral infections, 

they're clearly not indicated for this reason, 

and prescribing them in this instance can be harmful, 

and that it can lead to antibiotic resistance, 

which is a big developing problem 

or other undesirable side effects. 

Instead, using botanical medicines in 

this instance can help alleviate 

some of the symptoms of the common cold, 

simply making the patient more 

comfortable while the virus runs its course. 

It's always important to 

explain the risks versus benefits of 

all therapeutic options so that health care providers 

can help their patients make the best choices. 

Here's an example of a list, 

of some of the most popular or 

the top 10 selling herbals in the United States. 

We won't go through all of these but 

just a general idea is 

that Horehound is used for a bad cough. 

Echinacea can help decrease 

the severity of cold symptoms. 

Black cohosh can be used for menopausal symptoms, 

and Valerian is a common remedy for sleep. 

Don't worry about learning 

this particular botanicals now, 

we will have plenty of time in future lessons to go into 

much greater detail about 

what botanicals we use for what. 

I simply wanted to give you an idea of some of 

the more common ones that are 

on the market in the United States. 

Now, you should have a few more facts to use when 

discussing the use of botanicals by consumers today. 

Maybe you've used some botanical remedies 

yourself, I know I have, 

and discovered them through trying to manage 

the same symptoms and for some of 

the same reasons that we've discussed here.