Echinacea revisited
I came across this post and wanted to join up just to give this answer. I am a practicing medical herbalist based in Cambridgeshire, so wanted to shed some light on this. Echinacea is one of the widest known, and most commonly misused herbal remedies on the planet.
Tens of thousands of clinical trials have shown it to be effective, not to mention an 8000 + years of anecdotal evidence from herbal physicians. On the same note, there have been hundreds of reports, very much like some of the ones here, that report it to be ineffective.
Echinacea has a very complex, but also very fragile chemistry. In light of this we must ensure that we take it in the right form. We must use prducts prepared in such a way that the active chemistry that delivers the medicinal effects, remain intact. The best bet here then is to take it as a liquid extract. This is because the drying and powdering techniques used to prepare the tablet and capsule versions often destroy the active chemistry and leave the extract virtually useless.
The second issue is dosage. A tiny dose once or twice a day will do NOTHING! Echinacea needs to be used at a doe of around 30drops every two hours, in order to flood the system with it and get the immune system fired up. This leads me to the final issue - when to take it.........
Echinacea should only really be used at the first signs of acute infection. It is at this time that the above dose should be used. This isnt becaue it gets less effective, its more a case of prolonged use pushing the immune system too fa and causing other problems.
I hope this information is usefu.
It is my absolute passion to educate people as to the correct and safe use of herbal medicine, so if you have any questions at all please feel free to ask here, or send me a message via this site and Id be happy to guide you.
Warm Wishes
Dale Pinnock B.Sc hons MNIMH - Medical Herbalist
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please help 