Herbal Remedy Proves Successful During COVID-19 Pandemic
Herbal remedies and medicines have existed since the beginning of time and have been passed down from people around the globe. They have proved to greatly help those especially in times of illness in prevention and in treatment. Finding solutions that contain limited side effects and high protection can be difficult in many pharmaceutical drugs today especially with rates of addiction at all-time highs, unfortunately many prescribed by doctors with poor consequences in patients.
A study published in 2012 performed in central Switzerland found that Echinacea purpurea held preventative effects of coronavirus in participants. In the group using echinacea only 5 samples tested positive for coronavirus, while 14 in the control group tested positive. In terms of treatment, using echinacea proved to reduce the virus by 99% in nasal samples, among limiting side effects of covid and fever with recovery time quicker than those in the control group.
According to the study, “Echinacea purpurea was shown to broadly inhibit coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. This review discusses the available clinical evidence from randomized, blinded and controlled human studies. Two RCTs with results on enveloped viruses, respectively coronavirus infections during prevention treatment were detected. Incidence and/or viral loads were measured by RT-PCR and symptom severity was recorded. Jawad et al. (2012) collected nasopharyngeal swabs from adults (N=755) over 4 months of continuous prevention”.
This study is one of the many new studies revisiting the effectiveness of herbs in human health and wellness. Another herb used in example and being studied is Eucalyptus as well as it’s form in essential oil in treatment. Eucalyptus is known to help with several respiratory problems and ailments and has been used throughout history to be beneficial. Would you take an herbal remedy to help prevent or heal from coronavirus? The future is looking more herbal.
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While I don't doubt the effectiveness of many homeopathic or herbal remedies, both pharmaceutical and natural care industries can be incredibly predatory. A lot of natural remedy companies make claims that aren't backed up or are endorsed by professionals that don't have expertise or credentials in medicine because it makes them look more official, especially for natural supplements. In some cases, they can fabricate or cleverly skirt around FDA certifications. I will say that the consequences for the predatory practices in pharmaceuticals is much more dire; the worst that can happen with natural remedies is that it just doesn't do anything, compared to overdoses, opiate addictions, chemical dependencies, and even permanent or long-term alteration of brain chemistry.
Hi Emily! Thanks for commenting. There should definitely be more research- I think this was a sort of small study (so more information should be found in another as well) but a lot of studies do cost money. I recently discovered that Pfizer is against the use of St. John's Wart and tried to make and fund a study to find dirt on it? lol. It's so great at helping depression and anxiety apparently that it proved to threaten Pfizer's "Zoloft" profits. Wild!
This was such an interesting read! I was unaware of the positive benefits herbal remedies had throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Although herbal medicine is extremely popular in parts of the world and in some pockets of the wellness industry, they have not been picked up by mainstream Western medicine. It is very encouraging to read that there were studies conducted recently to better understand herbs benefits.
Good post! I think it is so interesting that new remedies are being found especially during the pandemic. With so many wellness trends from social media and companies like Goop, it's interesting to see the way people are more aware of marketing new wellness products. Hopefully new trends and treatments like this one can introduce more people to the medical treatments that have existed for centuries.
I haven't heard of this yet and thought this was super interesting. Personally I believe that natural and herbal remedies to illness are definitely a viable way to prevent disease or heal in certain cases. I will be looking more into the sources you linked because I am super curious to see if there is more research on this. Since we live in a society that focuses on the development of western medicine over more natural methods, I find this super fascinating that there are many other methods out there that have data behind it. Great post!