Saturday, April 28, 2018

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Natural Herbal Remedies

By Peter Murphy


Herbal treatment has been used worldwide to treat several illnesses for so many years. However, the advancement in the medical field has seen a widespread adoption of modern medicine as the preferred treatment option. This has relegated plant extracts to the alternative treatment option. With that said, there are several benefits of using herbs to treat some kind of illnesses. Below are the main merits and demerits of using natural herbal remedies.

Among the advantages of such medicine, the most outstanding one is that some natural remedies are more effective in treating chronic conditions such as arthritis. They are suitable for treating long-standing illnesses that do not respond to mainstream drugs. For instance, some doctors recommend dietary changes such as reducing sugar consumption and including simple herbs into meals.

Another best thing about using herbs is their reduced risk of side effects. Overall, plant extracts have fewer side effects than pharmaceutical drugs. Besides this, they tend to offer long lasting solutions to your health concerns. So, they may be safe for use over a long period of time.

Herbs are also less expensive compared to conventional medicine. Some of the serious illness can drain your pocket if you do not have sufficient health plan to cover for treatment. On the other hand, most of the natural drugs can be found in local stores, and some do not even require a prescription. The cost of marketing, research, and testing is lower than the overall cost of prescription medicines. Besides, you can grow some of the herbal plants at home. So, in the remotest part of the country, natural treatment may be the immediate treatment for most people.

While there are several benefits of using plant extracts as medicine as elaborated above, there are also some challenges of using this form of treatment. First, there are certain types of health conditions that medical treatment is absolutely necessary. Some notable examples are a broken limb and heart attack. In either of these two cases, natural treatment might not be the option.

Another reason natural treatment might be inferior is that it is a slow healing. If you do not have patience, you might end up leaving your treatment when you are not fully recovered. The fact that it does not have prescription might complicate things for some patient when treating specific illnesses. On the contrast, modern medical treatment has a more straightforward way of handling various conditions.

While pharmaceutical drugs tend to have more side effects than herbals, there is a lower risk of taking harmful substances. If you are harvesting herbs in the wild, there is a higher chance of making mistake in identifying the right plants. Moreover, there is also the risk of using the wrong part of the plant.

While the advantages of using herbal medicine overpower the demerits, use of herbals is not regulated, so there is no guarantee that what you bought is high-quality herbs. Some manufacturers manufacture herbal products with varying quality levels thus making it difficult to prescribe a proper dosage to a particular illness. So, it is always safe to seek advice from a qualified practitioner.




About the Author: