Buhner - Herbal antibiotics natural alternatives for treating drug-resistant bacteria

OTHER BOOKS BY STEPHEN HARROD BUHNER

Ensouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writers Life

The Fasting Path: The Way to Spiritual, Physical, and Emotional Enlightenment

Healing Lyme: Natural Healing and Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis and Its Coinfections

Herbs for Hepatitis C and the Liver

The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines for Life on Earth

The Natural Testosterone Plan

One Spirit, Many Peoples: A Manifesto for Earth Spirituality

Pine Pollen: Ancient Medicine for a Modern World

Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation

Sacred Plant Medicine: The Wisdom in Native American Herbalism

The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature

The Taste of Wild Water: Poems and Stories Found While Walking in Woods

Vital Man: Natural Health Care for Men at Midlife

NATURAL ALTERNATIVES
FOR TREATING DRUG-RESISTANT BACTERIA

STEPHEN HARROD BUHNER

For David Hoffmann,
who began it all

The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by
publishing practical information that encourages
personal independence in harmony with the environment.

Edited by Nancy Ringer and Lisa H. Hiley

Art direction and book design by Mary Winkelman Velgos

Text production by Vicky Vaughn Shea/Ponderosa Pine Design and Jennifer Jepson Smith

Cover photography by Eric Delmar/iStockphoto.com: mortar and pestle, Kryczka/iStockphoto.com: juniper berries, and VMJones/iStockphoto.com: tincture bottle

Indexed by Nancy D. Wood

2012 by Stephen Buhner

This publication is intended to provide educational information for the reader on the covered subject. It is not intended to take the place of personalized medical counseling, diagnosis, and treatment from a trained health professional.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Buhner, Stephen Harrod.

Herbal antibiotics / by Stephen Harrod Buhner.2nd ed.

p.; cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60342-987-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)

I. Title.

[DNLM: 1. Herbal Medicinemethods. 2. Anti-Bacterial

Agentstherapeutic use. 3. Bacterial Infectionsdrug therapy.

4. Plant Preparationstherapeutic use. WB 925]

616.9201dc23

2012004609

Julie McIntyre, Robert Chartier, Nikki Darrell, Rosemary Gladstar, James Duke, Kathleen Gilday, Don Babineau, Melanie and Jeff, William LaSassier, Michael Moore, Ryan Drum, James Green, Matthew Wood, Susun Weed, Naava, Candace Catin Packard, Jim McDonald, Redbird, Kevin, Eric, Erica, and of course, Buck and the boys.

by James A. Duke, PhD

Stephen Buhner has arrived at (and shares with you, the reader) the frightening truth that you wont find in the Journal of the American Medical Association: We are running out of weapons in the war on germs. Since germs can go through a generation in 20 minutes or so, instead of the 20 years or so it takes us humans to reproduce ourselves, its no small wonder that the germs are evolving resistance to our chemical weapons as rapidly as we develop them.

When the drug vancomycin falls completely by the wayside, as it will, we may, just as Stephen predicts here and I have predicted elsewhere, fall back on the bimillennial biblical medicinal herbs such as garlic and onion. These herbs each contain dozens of mild antibiotic compounds (some people object to using the term antibiotic to refer to higher plant phytochemicals, but I do not share their disdain for such terminology). It is easy for a rapidly reproducing bug or bacterial species to outwit (out-evolve) a single compound by learning to break it down or even to use it in its own metabolism, but not so easy for it to outwit the complex compounds found in herbs. Scientists are recognizing this fact and developing more complex compounds such as the AIDS cocktail and multiple chemotherapies for cancer. The same super-scientists who downplay the herbalists claims of synergies that account for the effectiveness of particular herbs and herbal formulas are now resorting to synergies of three or four compounds in their pharmaceutical formulas.

It is certainly easier to demonstrate how two compounds can work synergistically than it is to figure out how 200 or 2,000 different compounds (and more, as are present in all herbs) can work synergistically. So the scientific community will be reluctant to consider the remarkable synergistic suites of compounds that have evolved naturally in plants. But we really cannot afford to ignore these. For nature favors synergies among beneficial, plant-protective compounds within a plant species (with antibacterial, antifeedant, antifungal, antiviral, and insecticidal properties) and selects against antagonisms.

When we borrow the antibiotic compounds from plants, we do better to borrow them all, not just the single solitary most powerful among them. We lose the synergy when we take out the solitary compound. But most important, we facilitate the enemy, the germ, in its ability to outwit the monochemical medicine. The polychemical synergistic mix, concentrating the powers already evolved in medicinal plants, may be our best hope for confronting drug-resistant bacteria.

The Evolution of Modern Medicine
(as imagined and adapted by Jim Duke from Internet surf castings)

8,000,000 years ago: One chimp to another: I have a tummy ache (in chimpanzeze, rubbing tummy). Response: Here, chimp, eat these bitter herbs! (in chimpanzeze).

5,000,000 years ago: Here, Hominid, eat these bitter herbs! (in hominidese).

2,500,000 years ago: Here, Homo, eat these bitter herbs and leave some for the Leakeys to find! (in homonoid sign language).

2500 BCE: Here, man, eat these bitter herbs! (in Arabic, Coptic, Farsi, Hebrew, etc.).

0 CE: The Savior is born! Faith can heal. Eat these bitter herbs (if faith should fail!).

1200 CE: Those bitter herbs arent Christian. Say a prayer when you take those bitters!