Pukka Andrographis, Organic Herbal Supplement, Supports Seasonal Wellbeing, Non-GM, Vegan, Sustainably Sourced), 30 capsules

Product Information

Uncontrolled wild harvesting is threatening the medicinal plants on which the herbal medicines industry depends’. Three of the Sambucol products contain artificial sweeteners. Sambucol Immuno Forte Sugar Free Liquid contains Sorbitol. Sambucol Immuno Forte Effervescent Tablets contain Sucralose & Sorbitol. Sambucol Immuno Forte Pastilles contain Maltitol in addition to the natural sweetener, Stevia.

Pukka’s legal team has been active against restrictive legislation that limits our basic human right to health freedom; the freedom to access natural plant remedies and be informed about how they have been traditionally used. Sambucol liquids contain preservatives to help stabilise the products and to prevent microbial growth and undesirable taste/ flavour. With the British public spending millions of pounds every year on herbal remedies, Alma’s experience might seem less than newsworthy. What’s different about andrographis is that it could be about to become an alternative to antibiotics in UK medical general practices. Andrographis paniculata (Photo: Wikipedia Creative Commons) Research and trialsZincis a mineral that’s important to the body in many ways including contributing to the maintenance of the normal function of the immune system. It also contributes to the protection of cells in the body from oxidative stress. So what’s behind this interest in traditional remedies that have been dismissed by mainstream medicine until now? It is remarkable to think that most herb species are harvested from the wild – between 75%–95%. By weight, it’s around 25% of global annual herbal harvests. Have you ever thought where your last cup of elderflower, licorice or limeflowers came from? These herbs are rarely cultivated, as they are so readily available for ‘free’ in the local environment. Wild herb collectors, among the poorest of the poor, are marginalised geographically, socially and economically. They often do not own land and are dependent financially on annual wild herb harvests. However, such unregulated harvesting, coupled with the modern pressure on ecosystems, is putting the sustainability of herbal medicines at risk. Then came the infamous Traditional Herbal Medicines Product Directive which is technically complex and expensive. It offers no solution to the supposed raison d’etre of the directive: public safety. We already enjoy this protection under food legislation. At best, the most positive result of this legislation is that it may give the biomedical community more ‘faith’ in the consistency of herbal medicine. And, in our pursuit of supporting sustainable healthcare, Pukka was the major sponsor and lead coordinator of the College of Medicine Plant Medicine conference in June 2017, with support from the BHMA and 120 delegates (including many medics) viewing the exciting prospects for the use of herbs to meet new national health demands. But are herbs safe?

So can herbal remedies such as andrographis fill the gap? One Ayurvedic practitioner, Rebecca Kriese, says that her 15 years in practice, following three years of training in India, have convinced her that the remedies work well. The review was limited to some extent in that the quality of some of the trials was poor, but the findings are sufficiently promising to justify the current trial in general practice,” says Dr Xiao-Yang Hu, co-author of the 2017 paper and a post-doctoral research fellow at Southampton University. Dr Hu is optimistic about the contribution of herbal medicine to healthcare. “Integrative medicine, bringing together conventional, complementary and alternative interventions, is the optimum treatment as well as being evidence-based, effective, safe and low cost,” she says. With its goals of healing, it emphasises an individualised holistic approach, self-management and the practitioner-patient relationship with multi-disciplinary collaborative teams.” Doctors have been asked to avoid prescribing antibiotics for self-limiting illness such as respiratory infections and ensure that they are only prescribed for serious infections such as pneumonia and kidney infection.

Big pharma problems

It is called ayurveda because it tells us what foods, herbs and activities enhance the quality of life, and which ones don’t.’ There are unfortunate but understandable commercial reasons for this. “The problem is that the current business model for the pharmaceutical industry makes it very difficult to finance new antibiotics which are designed to be used as rarely as possible for as short a time as possible,” says David Partridge, research lead for the Directorate of Laboratory Medicine at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.