Herbal tinctures

Herbal Tinctures Tinctures are liquid extracts of the herb. Tinctures contain ingredients that do not dissolve in water. Tinctures are made by soaking fresh or dried herbs in alcohol, causing their water-and fat-soluble components to concentrate. Alcohol is used to preserve the herbal concentrate for 1 year. Water is used for people who do not consume alcohol. 

It is suggested by Albertus here that this herbal tincture (if taken as a medicine) is taken in a little wine, fruit juice, or water each morning for one year. About seven drops is more than enough in one glass. ... 

Nasal sprays are excellent for helping with the onset of upper respiratory or sinus infections. Simply take an herbal tincture and place up to 10 drops or so in a nasal spray bottle (available from pharmacies). Add pure water and spray up nostrils as often as needed. Two drops each of the essential oils of eucalyptus, juniper, sage, and rosemary may be substituted for the tinctures. 

Therapeutic properties of herbs have been known for many years. They were once used in folk medicine, but recently herb therapy has become popular again. It is known that widely nsed herbal infnsions or tinctures contain a wide spectrum of compounds ranguig from very important pharmacologically active ones to those with small or sometimes undesirable activity. 

Dietary supplements are available in a variety of delivery forms such as capsules, tablets, teas, tinctures, extracts, and bulk herbs. Sixty-eight percent of the herbal products available are in the form of a capsule or tablet. Approximately half of the herbal preparations contain a single herb [3]. An example of a softgel is Saw Palmetto Complex by PhytoPharmica. 

Herbal preparations are defined as preparations obtained by subjecting herbal substances to treatments such as extraction, distillation, expression, fractionation, purification, concentration or fermentation. These include comminuted or powdered herbal substances, tinctures, extracts, essential oils, expressed juices and processed exudates. 

Budzinski JW, Foster BC, Vandenhoek S, Amason JT. An in vitro evaluation of human cytochrome P450 3A4 inhibition by selected commercial herbal extracts and tinctures. Phytomedicine 2000 7 273-282. 

Ephedra is available in multiple forms. It is a common ingredient in energy boosting bars, sold as Herbal Ecstasy in some health food stores, and is also available as powder that can be mixed with water. Health food stores may sell powdered ephedrine stems, which can be used in a tea, or they may sell infusion, extracts, tinctures, or tablets of ephedra. Health food stores may also sell ephedra as the ma huang herb. Many manufacturers tend to advertise or market ephedra supplements as natural or as a botanical herb, because some consumers equate natural with safe. In China, ephedra may be boiled with cinnamon twig, licorice root, and almond to treat the common cold. 

Lee TY, Lam TH. 1991. Contact dermatitis due a Chinese herbal orthropaedic tincture, Zheng Gu Shui. Contact Dermatitis 24 64-65. 

The diuretic property of celery has been used to prepare herbal medicine (Houghton, 1995). The ripe seeds, herb and root are diuretic (Lust, 1983 Chiej, 1984 Grieve, 1984). The seeds are used mainly as a diuretic and can help clear toxins from the system, especially in cases of gout where uric acid crystals collect in the joints. Root tinctures have been used to cure urinary disorders, such as urinary stones, and used as a kidney stimulant and cleanser. Fresh juice from the whole plant is also used as a cure for urinary tract inflammations and urethritis (http //www.innvista.com/health/herbs/ celery.htm). The herb is used against kidney complaints (Launert, 1981). 

In Herbal Alchemy, we use the alcohol as our volatile solvent and produce what is called an unfixed tincture. If instead, we extract our plant with vinegar, we will obtain a fixed tincture because we used a fixed solvent—vinegar. 

A 47-year-old woman with an 8-year history of nocturnal panic attacks and a recent history of major depression had a poor response to SSRIs and instead took a 0.1% tincture of St. John s wort. After 10 days she noted racing and distorted thoughts, increased irritability, hostility, aggressive behavior, and a reduced need for sleep. After discontinuing the herbal treatment, her symptoms resolved within 2 days. 

Herbs are specifically defined as non-woody, low-growing plants such as basil and parsley. Herbal medicine is considered to be the use of crude drugs of plant origin to treat illness or to promote health. A more correct term for this would be botanical medicine. Phytomedicinals are those common preparations, including capsules, tablets, tinctures, and fluidextracts that have been prepared from plant sources. This should be distinguished from plant-derived drugs that have been isolated, purified, and standardized from plant sources. 

Another relevant variable is the dosage form when a herbal tea is prepared by hot extraction from valerian root, up to 60% of the valepotriates remain in the root material and only 0.1% can be recovered from the tea. A freshly prepared tincture contains 11% of the valepotriates originally found in the root material. Storage at room temperature rapidly reduces this to 3.7% after 1 week and 0% after 3 weeks. In view of this rapid degradation, it is not surprising that commercially available tincture samples yield baldrinals. 

Pokeweed is a tall perennial shrub growing up to 12 ft. This shrub can be found in damp fields, along fences, and wooded areas of southeastern Canada, eastern United States, as well as California and Hawaii. The stalks are reddish. There are small, greenish-white flowers and berries in opposite clusters. The berry is dark purple, almost black in color, and matures late summer to autumn. Pokeweed has been used in tea and as a herbal medicine. In folk medicine, pokeweed as a tincture has been used for arthritis and chronic rheumatism. Taken by mouth pokeweed was used as a purgative and as an emetic. The young leaves, if boiled and drained twice, are supposedly edible. 

Echinacea is sold as a dietary supplement in the United States and as natural health products in Canada, while in Germany and many European countries, Echinacea products are sold as drugs in pharmacies (Bauer, 2000). There are a number of products on the market, which include dried herbal and root, alcohol tinctures and extracts, and expressed juice products, thus, standardization would be a difficult task. However, regulation would be less difficult because all of these products would fall under a dietary supplements category. 

A preparation of P. sidoides mother tincture is marketed in the Ukraine, Russia and Latvia as Umkalor. A further preparation - meanwhile registered under the Traditional Herbal Products Directive - is available in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (82). Various liquid and solid... 

I initially used Serenoa repens tincture to loosen chronic respiratory mucus that was resistant to other herbal expectorants. The results were positive. The extract was made using 2 parts Korbel brandy to 1 part fresh ripe Serenoa repens whole berries in 2-quart jars. The crushed berries remained in the extract. Dosage was 1/2 ounce per day. 

We formulated an herbal tea made with dandelion root, yellow dock root, Oregon grape root, burdock root, licorice root, fennel seed, cinnamon bark, and citrus peel, of which she drank 2 to 3 cups per day. We also made a tincture formula with equal parts of Vitex, Serenoa, and Dioscorea, which was to be taken 1/2 teaspoon three times a day. 

Herbal Antibiotics, by Stephen Harrod Buhner. Also in Storey s Medicinal Herb Guide series, this book presents the reader with all the current information about antibiotic-resistant microbes and the herbs that are most effective in fighting them. Readers will also find detailed, step-by-step instructions for making and using herbal infusions, tinctures, teas, and salves to treat various types of infections. 144 pages. Paperback. ISBN 1-58017-148-6. 

Herbal preparations are the basis for finished herbal products and may include comminuted or cut herbal materials, or extracts, tinctures and fatty oils of herbal materials. They are produced by extraction, fractionation, purification, concentration, or other physical or biological processes. They also include preparations made by steeping or heating herbal materials in alcoholic beverages and/or honey, or in other materials. 

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