Along with the development of herbal medicine discovery and the increasing use of traditional medicine, people are increasingly easy to get these medicines on the market. People can buy these medicines freely at pharmacies, drug stores, supermarkets or other places. Most people assume that herbal medicines are safe to use because they come from natural ingredients, unlike chemical drugs. But is it true that herbal medicines are definitely efficacious and have no side effects?
Herbal medicine is a medicine made from natural ingredients, whether plants, animals or minerals. The definition of herbal medicine is often confused with traditional medicine. Traditional medicine is a material or concoction of ingredients that can be plant, animal, mineral or a mixture of the three that has been used for generations for treatment. Traditional medicine is definitely herbal medicine, but herbal medicine is not necessarily traditional medicine. Currently, many experts are developing various new herbal medicines, which have not been used for generations, so they cannot be categorized as traditional medicine.
The basic difference between herbal medicine and chemical medicine is that herbal medicine contains a mixture of various chemicals. The mixture can synergize with each other or have an antagonistic effect between components, which will ultimately have an effect on the human body. The synergistic effect for beneficial chemicals is certainly beneficial because it can strengthen the therapeutic effect. However, antagonistic effects can also be beneficial because they can potentially reduce the adverse effects of certain chemicals in a single herbal medicine. Meanwhile, chemical drugs are drugs that contain a single chemical substance that can work alone and cause effects.
Side effects are unwanted events that occur due to the use of drugs. Side effects can occur due to the drug substance itself, or chemicals that act as carriers (additional components in drugs) in drug preparations. All materials that enter the human body, be it food, medicine, foreign objects, or other chemicals can cause desired and undesired effects. These effects can occur in various places, both target organs and other organs. Undesirable effects that occur when using chemical drugs are easier to predict and identify because chemical drugs only contain 1 single active substance whose effects are known. If the side effects that arise do not match the characteristics of the active substance, then the carrier substance is likely the cause. Side effects that occur when using herbal medicines are often difficult to identify the chemical substance that causes them because herbal medicines contain various types of chemicals. Therefore, the effects of using herbal medicines are often difficult to predict and can be dangerous in certain cases.
Many people use herbal medicines as additional medicines to the chemical drugs that are routinely used. This joint use must be done with caution because the two drugs can interact with each other. This interaction can cause beneficial or detrimental effects. Given that the use of herbal medicines also has the risk of causing unwanted effects, therefore before using herbal medicines, patients should first consult their treating doctor.