New support for echinacea's benefits.In last year's movie Celebrity, Woody Allen satirized echinacea's trendy status by showing a panicked supermodel who, feeling the first hints of a cold coming on, demanded a middle-of-the-night search for the herbal remedy. She shouldn't have had to look far. Today, even many supermarkets carry this botanical derived from the purple coneflower coneflower, name for several American wildflowers of the family Asteraceae (aster family). The purple coneflowers (genus Echinacea), found E of the Rockies, have purple to pinkish petallike rays; some cultivated forms have white flowers. (Echinacea purpurea). Less easy to find have been scientific studies that back up echinacea's reputed infection-fighting powers. Now, a nutritionist nu·tri·tion·ist n. One who is trained or is an expert in the field of nutrition. nutritionist Dietitian, see there at the University of Florida University of Florida is the third-largest university in the United States, with 50,912 students (as of Fall 2006) and has the eighth-largest budget (nearly $1.9 billion per year). UF is home to 16 colleges and more than 150 research centers and institutes. in Gainesville has preliminary data to suggest that anecdotal claims for this herbal remedy, hold merit. Susan Percival administered a commercial over-the-counter echinacea echinacea (ĕk'ənā`shēə), popular herbal remedy, or botanical, believed to benefit the immune system. It is used especially to alleviate common colds and the flu, but several controlled studies using it as a cold medicine have supplement to 10 male college students for 4 days. According to the label, each pill contained 150 milligrams of active ingredients, known as echinosides. On the first and last day of treatment, Percival drew blood from the volunteers and separated out the neutrophils neutrophils (ner·ō·trōˑ·filz), n.pl white blood cells with cytoplasmic granules that consume harmful bacteria, fungi, and other foreign materials. , a type of white blood cell. These cells respond to infectious agents by generating superoxide anion, a highly reactive and biologically damaging oxidant oxidant /ox·i·dant/ (ok´si-dant) the electron acceptor in an oxidation-reduction (redox) reaction. ox·i·dant n. See oxidizer. . Percival stimulated the students' cells using a technique that mimics an encounter with germs. Neutrophils collected after the echinacea treatment produced triple the amount of superoxide anion as did those gathered at the start of the test. Percival plans to report her new data next month at the Experimental Biology meeting in Washington, D.C. "Our studies so far have shown only that we could enhance certain functions of the immune system immune system Cells, cell products, organs, and structures of the body involved in the detection and destruction of foreign invaders, such as bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. Immunity is based on the system's ability to launch a defense against such invaders. ," she notes. Echinacea might suppress other, as yet unexamined aspects, she adds. At a minimum, she argues, "it's very important that we find out exactly what the active compounds are," how they work, and their optimal doses. Her current findings argue against taking the supplement on a regular basis, she says, because "a stimulated immune system produces a lot of [oxidizing] free radicals," which can damage healthy tissue. This therapy "is meant to treat something," she stresses, "not to prevent disease." |
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