Single-substance drugs, plant compounds & whole plants
‘The active ingredient model does not stem from a strength of the scientific method, rather,
it stems from a weakness – from the inability of the reductionist method to deal with
complex systems’ (Sharma, 1997).
Drug development has focused on isolating plant constituents and producing chemical substances, whose action could be observed and documented in the lab. The action of single substances on our physiology is surely important to understand, but the monocracy of a reductionist framework is far too limiting. Within this framework, a specific activity should be attributed to a single substance and unfortunately, if this cannot be demonstrated then the observed activity is not recognized (as is often the case with plants, whose activity is the result of the complex synergy of multiple compounds). For example, even though lavender essential oil is well-documented to relax the nervous system and help with insomnia, the fact that modern science has not been able to isolate a single substance to which lavender’s effect could be attributed, has led to not being able to accept its effectiveness at all!
Even though medicinal properties of plants depend on the chemical constituents they contain, in herbalism therapeutic action involves primarily the use of whole plants. Research of isolated chemical substances of plants is important to understand much of their medicinal value; it has given credit to herbal remedies and rise to important modern drugs. However for herbalists, a whole healthy plant is a lot more powerful than the sum of its chemical compounds, reflecting the power of nature and synergy.
Plants are living beings with a very long evolutionary experience and they demonstrate an unparalleled complexity, which is impossible to imitate. Isolating plant constituents is common tactic in the production of medicines nowadays. It has been stated, however, that crude plant extracts are often more effective as in the case of malaria drugs Ras11. What is certainly needed is intensification of research on the healing potential of plants together with environmental protection.
