Working With A Clinical Herbalist
What Is A Clinical Herbalist?
A Clinical Herbalist is an individual who has formally studied herbalism with an emphasis on learning how to utilize this knowledge in a clinical setting. They may also work in conjunction with medical practitioners, including Medical Doctors, in or outside of professional facilities to compliment the complete picture of their client’s health. A Clinical Herbalist’s studies will have included topics of anatomy, physiology, herbal therapeutics, medicinal history, regenerative herbal medicine, regenerative body philosophies, herbal wisdom traditions, botany, phytochemistry, general wellness, imbalance, nutrition, herbal therapeutics for body systems, nature of healing, assessment, ongoing herbalist best practices, maintaining a private clinical practice, and formulating and branding herbal products. They are encouraged by the American Herbalist Guild & their educational establishments to continue with lifelong research and study in the field of holistic health, herbal medicine, backyard botany, wildcrafting, and experimentation with their own ‘seed-to-seed’ and ‘seed-to seal’ garden.
What Can A Clinical Herbalist Do?
A Clinical Herbalist can be there to guide and educate clients on the capabilities of their own body, to help them learn how to better understand the cues of their own bodies, and to make suggestions of herbal therapies and other natural modalities towards health that work with the body (not for the body) so that the body can more easily do the work it was meant to do. An Herbalist can also make an individualized herbal product and write a more comprehensive plan with protocols specifically designed for their clients, or their children, and even research a specific ailment on a client’s behalf to share with them along the way.
What Can A Clinical Herbalist Not Do?
A Clinical Herbalist is not a doctor and therefore cannot treat, diagnose, or claim to cure ailments. Herbalists cannot run a practice based on pharmaceutical medicine or write prescriptions for such products.
Herbalists And Herbal Remedies According to the FDA:
Herbal remedies, and specifically, individualized herbal mixes, are, at their core, meant to be personalized, and not made to be standardized. Because of this there is no way easy way for them to be studied by standardized methods set by the FDA. Similarly, herbalists and herbal manufacturers generally do not test their products in a lab, and they are not required to do so (some larger herbal manufacturers may choose to do this on their own, however, based on their own personal best practices). Because of this, the FDA does not classify herbal therapies as true medicine. Instead, they are classified as 'food' (if sold for internal purposes) or 'plant supplements'. If the herbal product is for topical use only it is classified as a cosmetic product.
According to the FDA, pharmaceutical medicine is the only substance that can cure or treat a disease or specified illness, according to their own data. Pharmaceutical drugs presented to patients by medically trained doctors are said to be tested according to the FDA's own agreed upon standards prior to being used by the public. Similarly, these diseases and illness can, according to the FDA, only be diagnosed by medically and pharmaceutically trained professionals so that ideally, both the FDA (as an entity) and medical personal with this authority have the same understanding and training in these medicines and their lab tested uses and results. Additionally, the FDA has determined that Herbalists can only educate individuals to the best of their own personal knowledge without making any specific claims about their products, or by claiming to diagnose, treat, or cure individuals of their health issues, whether or not they were diagnosed with a specific illness by a trained MD. The FDA, as an entity, believes this is the best way to protect the consumer, or the public, from using a substance that has not been tested according to their set standards.
The consumer must therefore decide for themselves, based on this information, which products they should or should not use, as all products, pharmaceutical or herbal based, require the education and personal consent of the individual.
What Are the Main Differences Between Pharmaceuticals and 'Herbal Supplements' (according to the FDA) ?
Pharmaceuticals are typically petroleum or lab-created chemical based, whereas 'herbal supplements' are whole-plant based and/or their extracts. Some pharmaceuticals may contain plant ingredients, but these are processed in a lab, are generally separated and/or concentrated plant materials, and are tested by FDA standards. Pharmaceutical products might also
imitate herbs synthetically without using actual plant materials. Herbal products, on the other hand, are plants, or plant extracts in their whole form, taken directly from the whole plant, and come in many forms including powders, pills, tinctures (liquid extracts), teas, and/or may be added to cold pressed plant oils to become ointments for topical purposes. Herbal products only have plant-based ingredients, with very little processing, and utilize much of its active ingredients to fulfill the role of preservation. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, will have other added ingredients, not whole plant-based, to preserve, activate, or stimulate the purified plant or chemical particles within the product.
Pharmaceuticals have testing requirements to be performed according to the FDA before coming to market. Herbal products do not.
References:
Herbal Medicine: According to Johns Hopkins Medicine
Herbal Medicine Facts According to the American Herbalists Guild
