I don’t like “Top Ten” (or whatever number) lists for anything. I think they often indicate a writer’s lack of skill in doing the research to come up with a more informative article or pure laziness. Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? And here I am, writing another one on the heels of last week’s post. In my defense, I am still taking care of my daughter and her family, which now includes a beautiful baby boy. I knew I wouldn’t have much time for writing and research, and even if I did, I wasn’t hauling all those books down here.
As noted in last week’s article on the Top Ten Herbs for Seniors, I don’t care for lists of top ten herbs for anything. We’re unique people with unique needs and unique resources available to us. At the same time, asking general questions sometimes yields surprising answers.
I chose to focus on the following respiratory infections:
- Upper respiratory infections
- Acute bacterial sinusitis
- Common cold
- Croup
- Influenza
- Whooping cough (pertussis)
- Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)
- Strep throat
- Tonsillitis
- Lower respiratory infections
- Acute bronchitis
- Pneumonia
- Tuberculosis (TB)
I then wanted to know which of the 120+ herbs I’ve profiled on the blog are the best overall for treating these specific infections, so I spent a few hours compiling the data into a table and then narrowing down the most useful.
The top two, which each cover seven of the eleven illnesses listed above:
- Echinacea. Long touted as an excellent herb for respiratory infections, it was no surprise seeing it top the list. Echinacea helps with the common cold, influenza, RSV, strep, tonsillitis, pneumonia, and TB. The fresh juice is the absolute best way to use this herb, with the alcohol-stabilized juice a distant second. Capsules of dried herb provide very little benefit. (Side note. I freeze-dried a load of echinacea this past summer as a means of circumventing the fresh juice requirement. Those with freeze-dryers know that the water that drains after each load is perfectly clear, because that is all that is removed in the freeze-drying process. However, with the echinacea load I ran, the water was quite milky. The loads I ran before and after the echinacea were perfectly normal, and the freeze-dryer broke down a couple of days later, so I didn’t get to run another load to test. But I now suspect that freeze-drying echinacea isn’t a solution for the fresh juice problem. If anyone has a different experience, I’d love to hear from you.)
- Sagebrush. I definitely did not see this one coming. Sagebrush preparations help with the common cold, influenza, sinusitis, strep, acute bronchitis, pneumonia, and TB.
The next four herbs each address six of the eleven respiratory infections:
- Garlic helps with the common cold, croup, influenza, tonsillitis, acute bronchitis, and pneumonia.
- Japanese barberry helps with the common cold, sinusitis, strep, acute bronchitis, pneumonia, and TB.
- Japanese honeysuckle covers the common cold, influenza, RSV, strep, tonsillitis, and pneumonia.
- Oregano benefits the common cold, croup, influenza, tonsillitis, acute bronchitis, and pneumonia. As remarkably few herbs benefit croup, this is a good one to include if you have small children.
These herbs each help with five of the eleven respiratory infections.
- Elder is good for the common cold, RSV, strep, acute bronchitis, and pneumonia. (I was surprised that it wasn’t higher on the list.)
- Lomatium helps with the common cold, influenza, acute bronchitis, pneumonia, and TB. The Washoe Indians credited lomatium with saving their people from the 1918-1920 influenza epidemic.
- Mullein covers the common cold, influenza, tonsillitis, acute bronchitis, and TB.
- Rosemary benefits the common cold, influenza, sinusitis, acute bronchitis, and pneumonia.
