What is herbal medicine?

Herbal medicine uses plant or plant-derived preparations to treat, prevent, or cure various health conditions and ailments.

What is the link between herbal medicine and conventional cancer treatments?

Herbal medicines come from the original source of some powerful U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved chemotherapy agents. Some examples of conventional cancer drugs derived from herbal medicines include paclitaxel, docetaxel, and albumin-bound paclitaxel from the Pacific Yew Tree, vincristine, vinblastine, and vinorelbine from the red periwinkle plant, camptothecin from the Chinese tree Camptotheca accuminata, and podophyllin from mayapple.

How does integrative oncology use herbal medicine?

Herbal medicine is currently used by integrative oncology in six major ways.

• In primary prevention of cancer in patients at high risk for malignancy with antioxidants and immunomodulators
• As phytopharmaceuticals with direct anti-cancer effects
• As adjuvants to improve the cytotoxic activity of cancer drugs
• As immunomodulators to enhance endogenous immunological anti-cancer activity
• To treat radiation-related reactions and fatigue
• To mitigate the hematological, neurological, and gastroenterological toxicities of chemotherapy drugs

What are the most effective herbal medicines for cancer patients?

The most effective herbal medicines for cancer patients are optimally customized for each individual through diagnostic testing and expert input by a qualified provider. Research studies show benefits for improve quality of life and cancer survival with some herbs.

Based on published research studies evaluating herbs against cancer, botanicals with the highest level of preclinical and clinical evidence as anticancer and immunomodulatory agents include the following.

• Garlic
• Curcumin
• Green tea
• Mistletoe
• Quercetin
• Bromelain
• Milk thistle
• Astragalus
• Ashwagandha
• Medicinal mushrooms

“Naturopathic physicians who specialize in integrative oncology agree that herbal therapy plays a significant role in secondary prevention. Based on their safety and scientific evidence, most NDs include them in their core protocol for preventing cancer relapse in patients who have received primary conventional treatment… The following botanicals are administered orally. Doses in common use are provided as well.”
-Botanical Medicine chapter in Integrative Oncology

What is the history of herbal medicine?

Although herbal medicine does not have a specific point of conception, currently an estimated 80 percent of the world’s population relies on medicinal plant preparations for their primary healthcare needs, according to the World Health Organization.

In the early 1900s, more than 3,000 botanical doctors were practicing in the United States. Today, few doctors have expertise in herbal medicine. However, the number of health care providers with knowledge about herbal medicine is increasing.

The earliest known writing about natural products as potential anticancer agents comes from Egypt during the middle of the second millennium BC where the physician Papyrus Ebers listed more than 700 drugs and mostly from plants.