Why Consider Herbal Cures and Natural Health? Part 2

Read Why Consider Herbal Cures and Natural Health? Part 1

*Note: Please see this discussion of what is meant by “herbal-cure.”

Herbal cures and natural health should be prime considerations for everyone simply because your body was created for natural remedies, not chemicals. Put another way, indigestion is not an antacid deficiency nor is high blood pressure a beta blocker deficiency.

Here are 2 core principles of natural health and alternative medicine:

1. The human body, magnificent instrument that it is, can heal itself, and

2.  Good health is its natural state.

For example, when you cut or burn yourself, you don’t need to do anything to tell the body how to heal itself or force it to do so, and no drugs are required. Broken bones, once set, don’t need chemicals (pharmaceuticals or drugs) to heal. When childhood diseases strike or you have a cold, the body knows perfectly well what to do. Fevers, so feared and misunderstood by consumers and practitioners of conventional medicine, are the body’s attempt to rid itself of microbiological invaders. For this reason they are best left alone unless they get too high (over 106 F for children).

It’s not well known or appreciated by most, but there is some evidence that even those modern maladies so emblematic of contemporary American civilization — incluing heart disease, hypertension, cholesterol/triglyceride imbalances, diabetes and more — are really manifestations of the body’s attempt to heal and protect itself. We’ll discuss this issue in future posts.

The only help the body seems to need for so many things involves the removal of any offending substances (e.g., splinters, foods that trigger unwanted physical symptoms and effects, resistant microbial populations, and so forth) and making sure the body has an abundance of the right raw materials in terms of diet and, where appropriate, herbs and other natural remedies. So why add additional burdens onto the body with harsh chemicals which it then must filter through the liver and kidneys as the toxins they are, if there are better choices and alternatives?

But people are waking up, and as if to demonstrate how much things are changing, last fall the Student Health and Wellness Center at no less prestigious a university than Johns Hopkins started offering “integrative treatments” due, according to the head of the Center to “a strong demand among students for more holistic treatments.”

Smart kids.