Now some herbs like echinacea are very helpful in energizing our own immune systems. They should be taken only occasionally when we need them in order to boost our immune defenses, say if we’re coming down with a cold.

Greetings, cheerful viewers, and welcome to Healthy Living, for the conclusion of a two-part series featuring the nutrition and wellness advice of Dr. Steve Blake, a vegan naturopath, herbalist, neuromuscular therapist, and Doctor of Holistic Health.

Dr. Blake is the author of the books “Vitamins and Minerals Demystified,” “Healing Medicine” and “Understanding Dietary Fats and Oils,” the creator of health-related software, such as “Diet Doctor,” a nutritional analysis program and “Herb Doctors,” an electronic compilation of herbal remedies for various health conditions as well as the founder of the College of World Health in Maui, Hawaii, USA. He encourages a natural approach to health with a plant-based diet as its cornerstone.

This week Dr. Blake shares with us his deep knowledge of medicinal herbs. He is certified as a Master Herbalist and has conducted extensive research in this field for many years.

There are so many herbs throughout the world, and for 27 years, I have been putting information on these herbs into this database, the “Herb Doctors,” I now have 54 countries represented. I just added the medicinal plants of South Korea, and the medicinal plants of (Au Lac) Vietnam, to my database. I have drawn from hundreds of books and my goal is to see where these great herb doctors agree.

I have currently 1,311 natural remedies listed in the “Herb Doctors.” It has 168,000 footnoted facts from around the world, comparing these herbs and how they’re used, how their dosage is applied and all of the other facts, their actions.

For instance, if a problem is insomnia, one of the most agreed upon remedies is passionflower, passiflora incarnata. There are perhaps 300 different herbs used all over the world for insomnia, but it's interesting to see which ones most of the doctors agree upon in different cultures, in different continents, because this means it's more likely to help us.

One of the popular members of the onion family is ginger. Besides being used in many cuisines to enhance the flavor of dishes, it also has many different medicinal applications.

Some of the other herbs that are widely used are ginger, which is used in Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine. It's used throughout the West as a culinary spice, and it's certainly a very powerful heating and anti-nausea plant. The root of zingiber officinale (ginger) is used throughout the world and is a wonderful, for instance, cold remedy.

If a person has congestion in their chest, and they chop the fresh ginger root and slowly simmer it for half an hour, you get a very powerful liquid that will warm and break up congestion in the chest; just try it and see.

Chamomile is a member of the daisy family and grows in Europe, North Africa and Asia. Many are familiar with the famous beverage chamomile tea, but may not be aware of how the herb can benefit our health.

Now, I know that there are many people who say that herbs don't work or aren't powerful, but I think they're just not using them right. For instance, chamomile. Yes, if you put one bag of very old chamomile tea into a cup of water, it's not going to have much effect.

But if you take the fresh dried flowers, and put a quarter cup of those flowers in a cup of boiling water and steep it for a few minutes, you get a very powerful tonic for the stomach that will relax your stomach and relax your nerves, and there's nothing magic about it, it's a very lovely, peaceful feeling that you get from drinking this tea.

Using nature as our “pharmacy” is a concept that is unfamiliar to some. We asked Dr. Blake to explain the difference between using herbs and conventional medications for medical conditions.

Well, one of the big differences between herbs and modern medicines is the cost. For instance, you can get a tranquilizing pill, or a bottle of them, and this will cost you a certain amount of money. But that chamomile tea, if prepared properly, costs very little money at all, so that's one thing.

Another thing is the side effects. The side effects of modern drugs are well known, well studied, and cause millions of deaths every year, and more millions of terrible side effects. This may be necessary when the drugs are necessary and applied properly. But many of these side effects are not necessary, and many of the uses of modern drugs may not be needed, and herbs could substitute.

For instance, in convalescence, many times a person has a long period of convalescence, where herbal medicines will help them mend a little bit better than drugs will. Also in chronic conditions such as arthritis, it might be smarter to substitute using herbs for arthritis than powerful pain medications, because the herbs have a chance of helping the body heal the arthritis and stop the process of damage, whereas the drugs will generally only hide the pain, while the damage to the joints continues on.

Another interesting thing about herbs versus drugs is that people like herbs. When people take an herb and it helps them with their condition, they become grateful to the herb, they become happy with it, and learn all about it and recommend it to their friends. People rarely get attached to drugs, especially if they have nasty side effects.

Now, I know that our goal in the West usually is the “pill effect.” In other words, if people have, say high blood cholesterol, they would prefer to take a pill whether it’s red rice yeast or it's a statin drug, which both have similar effects. They still would rather to take the pill than change their diet. A whole food vegan diet will cure high blood cholesterol in almost every case and quickly too. But people prefer to eat the food they’re used to, and take the pill.

Statin drugs are used to lower cholesterol levels with the goal of lessening the chances of a heart attack. For the past decade they have been the top-selling drug in the United States. Dr. Blake believes that people should consider the downsides of these medicines and the alternatives available to reduce cholesterol levels.

Well, recent evidence has shown that statin drugs, that they damage the muscles very severely in a small number of people. Well, they decided to take a look at everyone taking statins in a test, not just the people with the strong side effects, and look at their muscles to see if their muscles are being damaged in all of the people taking statins. Unfortunately they did find that that is true, that there is some muscle damage from statin drugs in just about all people.

Remember: people who are taking statins generally are 50, 60, 70 years old. And falling is a major issue at these ages, especially with the prevalence of osteoporosis. So that if a person gets a weak muscle and falls, they could break their hip, and that could be very much the end of their life, or at least the end of a pleasant life where they can get around. So this is to be avoided and statin drugs only need to be taken by people who refuse to change their diets.

If people are willing to change their diet and exercise, then statin drugs are needed in only a very, very small number of cases. I would encourage people to take this advice and rather than take the statins, go ahead and change your lifestyle. Now statins interrupt the ability of our bodies to create cholesterol. Most of our cholesterol is made inside our bodies, not taken from food, so that if we take statin drugs, we make less cholesterol.

We also make less of a very important internal antioxidant called Coenzyme Q10. This is the only internally made fat soluble antioxidant. It’s very, very important. It’s found in all the cells and if our bodies cannot make this properly, this has terrible consequences for our health. This is one of the reasons why statin drugs are dangerous. It’s because they stop the production of both cholesterol and a very desirable internally made antioxidant called Coenzyme Q10 or Co-Q10.

Chronic diseases like heart disease, obesity, and diabetes afflict millions around the world. On the whole Dr. Blake feels that herbs are not necessarily the answer to these types of conditions.

Using herbs for chronic conditions is a little bit of a pill approach, a little bit more of a pill approach than I would recommend. All of these conditions, especially something like diabetes, it’s proven that by changing the diet and getting more exercise, type 2 diabetes can be reversed in most cases. So also, high cholesterol and the danger of heart disease can be reversed by lifestyle changes.

The lifestyle change generally is to eat a whole vegan diet. If this is done, then herbs may not be necessary. I look at herbs as a small balancing force where lifestyle cannot make all of the changes needed or as a temporary help in helping people with disease problems until their lifestyle changes can catch up with them and make them vibrantly healthy and alive, activating their own immune system so they can do it.

Here are some final thought from Dr. Blake on health and healing.

The best way to boost your health and to fight disease is to change your lifestyle so that we get more exercise, we eat better, cleaner, more whole, more raw foods, and that is really the path to health, and drugs rarely are healing medicine.

Try and comprise at least half of your diet in fresh whole foods that are raw, such as fruits, fresh fruits. I’m talking about apples, not apple pie here, and vegetables, some raw, some cooked but as much raw as possible so that you get the vital nutrients that you need and that energy and vitality and young good looks that we all strive for.

Many thanks Dr. Blake for your introduction to the therapeutic properties of herbs and explaining how to fuel our bodies for a lifetime of wellness and happiness. We salute you for promoting the vegan diet which is truly the foundation of good health.

For more details on Dr. Steve Blake, please visit www.NaturalHealthWizards.com
Books and software by Dr. Blake are available at the same website

Optimistic viewers, thank you for joining us today on Healthy Living. Coming up next is Science and Spirituality, after Noteworthy News. May we all take time to reflect on the many blessings in our lives.