Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria (48 page)

Actions

Adaptogen

Adrenal protectant

Anticancer

Antidepressant

Antifatigue

Antioxidant (strong)

Antistressor

Cardiotonic (potent)

Endocrine tonic

Ergogenic

Hippocampal protectant and tonic

Hypoxia antagonist (potent)

Immune tonic

Mental stimulant

Mitochondrial tonic and protectant

Muscular stimulant

Nervous system tonic

Neural protectant

Possibly a synergist, the plant is a strong inhibitor of CYP3A4 and P-glycoprotein. See the piperine monograph (page 236) for specifics.

Use to Treat

Brain fog

Chronic disease conditions with depression

Chronic fatigue syndrome

Chronic, long-term fatigue

Low immune function

Nervous exhaustion

Recurrent infections

Rhodiola can also be used to accelerate recovery from debilitating conditions and long-term illness and infections.

Other Uses

The leaves of most species can be eaten, chopped finely and added to salads, or cooked as a pot herb. The plants are very high in vitamin C, with 33 mg per gram of fresh plant.

There have been some extravagant claims (easily found on the Internet) that
only
Russian
Rhodiola rosea
, harvested near the Arctic Circle (presumably by fasting virgins as the northern lights first emerge over the rim of Earth), contains the necessary active constituents for the herb to be useful. However,
all
the
Rhodiola rosea
plants, irrespective of where they grow or in what country, have nearly identical chemistry. They are all perfectly usable as medicine.

But please note: The exact chemical profile of the
R. rosea
plants themselves differs depending on time of year, time of day, and geographical location (this valley in Russia or
that
one) irrespective of whether they are harvested at the Arctic Circle in Russia by fasting virgins or not. In other words, you can pick
R. rosea
from this location in May and again in September and the chemical profile of the plant
won't
be the same. The same is true of every species in the genus—and of every medicinal plant on Earth. Part of the art of herbalism is being able to determine medicinal potency of the plants you are harvesting by using the most sophisticated scientific instrument ever discovered—the focused power of human awareness. Machines just aren't a reliable substitute for the capacity to reason
and
feel simultaneously. Furthermore … oops! Sorry. Got carried away again.

Studies on 14 other species in the genus have found the same constituents in them as in
R. rosea
. They can all be used medicinally, they all do pretty much the same things, they all work identically to the usual commercial-variety
R. rosea
—see Scientific Research (page 312) for more.
Rhodiola integrifolia
, by the way, is considered to be a natural hybrid between
Rhodiola rhodantha
and
R. rosea
; you can consider it pretty much identical to
R. rosea.

Note:
The rhodiolas look much like sedums and were once included in that genus, so you will see rosea sometimes listed as
Sedum rosea
and so on.

The root.

Generally used as capsules or tincture.

Dried root, 1:5, 50 percent alcohol. Some people use a 1:3 formulation. I am not sure it is necessary.

Tonic dose:
30–40 drops, 3x or 4x daily, usually in water.

In acute conditions:
½–1 tsp, 3x daily for 20–30 days, then back to the tonic dose.

The root is most often used in capsule form, 100 mg each. Usual dose is 1 or 2 capsules per day. In acute conditions up to 1,000 mg a day can be taken. The capsules are often standardized to contain 2–3 percent rosavins and 0.8–1 percent salidroside. They are usually taken just before meals.

Some people experience jitteriness from the herb; you should not take it at night until you know if you are one of them.

None noted.

Rhodiolas are plants that like high altitude and cold, either will do. They are a circumpolar genus of the subarctic and cool, mountainous regions of the northern hemisphere and are common in eastern Russia, parts of China, Tibet (which has many species), the mountains and northern climes of Europe, Canada, and the mountainous and colder regions of the United States. The United States, Europe, and Tibet appear to have the largest populations, with Tibet having the most species.

The rhodiolas are typical succulents with fleshy, moisture-filled, grayish-green leaves. The plants grow to about 12 inches and they will have, depending on the species, a cluster of yellow, pink, red, or orange flowers at the top of the stalk.
R. rosea
's flowers are yellow.

The root system is fairly large if the plants grow in a nutrient-rich environment. The farther north they grow, and the poorer the soils, the smaller the root.

There are three species of rhodiola in North America:
Rhodiola rosea
grows in the mountains of North Carolina, and in Pennsylvania through New England, into Canada, and all the way to the Arctic Circle.
R. rhodantha
grows in the Rocky Mountain states from New Mexico and Arizona up to the Canadian border.
R. integrifolia
has the widest distribution in North America. It ranges from the Rocky Mountain spine (New Mexico, et cetera, westward) up into Canada and into the Arctic. There are populations as well in Minnesota and New York State. Most of the eastern rhodiolas are considered to be endangered.

If you are in the western United States and wanting to wild-harvest your own roots, look for
R. integrifolia
; it is just as useful as
R. rosea
medicinally
and
it is not endangered as many of the eastern United States
R. rosea
populations are.

Due to the popularizing of the plant as an antiaging and chronic fatigue medicinal, wild populations of
R. rosea
are becoming endangered; the Russians have put them on their red list of threatened plants. The largest populations of the plant were formerly in the Altai region of southern Siberia. However, over 45 companies have been harvesting the plant for export (“
Real
Russian rhodiola”) and those plant populations have been severely reduced.

If you live in a region in which rhodiola grows, you can harvest your own roots; you won't need to harvest much for yourself and your family. Commercial harvesting, except for very limited amounts in abundant areas, is highly discouraged.

If you find the plant in your area, harvest the roots in the fall after seeding or in the spring just as it is coming up. The roots will be bigger and, in my opinion, more potent in the spring. Slice the bigger roots; the interior of the root will change from white to a brown or reddish color as it begins to dry.

Due to the heavy worldwide demand for the plant, there are increasing efforts to make the plant an agricultural staple in regions where it will grow; Bulgaria, Canada, and Finland are early innovators in growing the crop. The yields are low, only about 3 tons per hectare, and they are labor intensive. Since the roots are taken, and only after 5 years, agricultural growing of the plant demands a minimum of five fields, planted in rotation so they can be harvested in successive years in order to keep up continual production.

The seeds are tiny; a thousand of them weigh only 0.2 gram. The germination rates are low, 2 percent to 36 percent; they are happier with a little stratification. Thirty days at –5°C (23°F) will increase germination rates to 50 percent to 75 percent. Soak the seeds in water overnight, mix into moist soil, store for 1 month at a temperature of 2° to 4°C (36° to 39°F). You will then get about a 75 percent germination rate.

In Finland they get 95 percent to 100 percent germination if they sow the seeds on the surface of a sand/peat mix and keep the trays outside all winter under the snow. In April/May the boxes are brought into a greenhouse at a temperature of 18° to 22°C (64° to 72°F). Germination begins in 3 days to a week.

If you keep the seedlings inside for a year before transplanting, yields are significantly higher. They like sandy, loamy soil, neutral or slightly acidic. NPK: 50/50/70. They don't need additional fertilizer after the first year. The easiest method, however, is to divide the roots of an established plant and plant the root cuttings, much like potatoes.

The plant takes a minimum of 3 years to mature, but the roots should not be harvested for 5 years. Dig in the fall, slice, let dry out of the sun. Store in plastic bags, inside plastic containers, in the dark.

Most people think that salidroside (a.k.a. rhodioloside) is the most important compound in the root, others insist it is the rosavin. Others say, yeah, those and … rosin, rosarin, and tyrosol. Studies have found, as usual, that saldroside is much more effective when combined with rosavin, rosin, and rosarin. So I'm guessing, just a wild shot here, that it's the whole root that is most active.

There are, of course, a great many other compounds in the root, at least 85 essential oils and another 50 water-soluble nonvolatiles. Many of the usual plant compounds are present.

Rhodiola, as far as I can tell, and in spite of assertions that it is a longstanding medicinal in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), was a contribution to the medicinal plant world by the Russians due to their interest in adaptogens. This is pretty much a Russian-introduced category of medicinal herb—a plant that enhances general overall functioning, somewhat like a tonic but one that increases the ability of the organism to respond to outside stressors of whatever sort, diseases included. It enhances an organism's general resistance to multiple adverse influences or conditions. Rhodiola, like the stronger preparations of
Eleutherococcus
, is considered to be not just adaptogenic but an adaptogenic stimulant—part of the reason it can cause jitteriness and wakefulness in some.

Rhodiolas have been used in TCM, Tibetan medicine, and Ayurveda for a very long time—according to many reports. But my library, extensive, doesn't list the genus in any of my source books for those systems of healing.

However, a few other, obscure sources reveal that the plants were used in traditional Russian folk medicine to increase physical endurance, work productivity, longevity, resistance to altitude sickness and
for fatigue, depression, anemia, impotence, GI tract ailments, infections, and nervous afflictions.

In central Asia the tea has been used for a long time as the most effective local treatment for colds and flu. Mongolian physicians use it for TB and cancer. The plant is a part of traditional Tibetan medicine for promoting blood circulation and relieving cough.

The plant never was a huge medicinal even though there are traces of its use as far back as the seventeenth century in the Scandinavian countries.
Rhodiola rosea
and
R. integrifolia
were used by the indigenous tribes of Alaska as a food, the root eaten for sores in the mouth, for TB, stomachache, GI tract troubles. A couple of the sedums were recognized by the Eclectics but none of the rhodiolas before their name change.

There is a lot of research on this plant right now, and more studies are occurring daily. There have been, unlike the case for many other newish medicinal plants, a lot of human clinical trials with this herb. I am primarily going to look at the neuroprotective/neuroregenerative, immune, and antistress/antifatigue actions of the plant—they are strongly interrelated. The potent antioxidant actions of the plant are deeply interrelated with those as well. A comprehensive bibliography for the plant is in the reference section.

A number of the rhodiolas have been found to have antiviral and antibacterial actions.
Rhodiola kirilowii
is active against the hepatitis C virus and
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
,
Rhodiola rosea
is active against H1N1 and H9N2 viral influenza strains as well as Coxsackie virus B3.

Numerous rhodiola species have been found to be highly neuroprotective.

In vitro:
Compounds in both
Rhodiola sacra
and
R. sachalinensis
protect neurons against beta-amyloid-induced, stauroporine-induced, and H2O2-induced death. Salidroside, a common compound in many rhodiolas, protects cultured neurons from injury from hypoxia and hypoglycemia; protects neuronal PC12 cells and SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells against cytotoxicity from beta-amyloid and against
hypoglycemia and serum limitation; and protects neurons against H2O2-induced death. It does so by inducing the antioxidant enzymes thioredoxin, heme oxygenase-1, and peroxiredoxin-1, down-regulating the pro-apoptotic gene Bax, and up-regulating the anti-apoptotic genes Bcl-2 and Bcl-X(L). It also restores mitochondrial membrane potential negatively affected by H2O2 and restores intracellular calcium levels.