Long-term echinacea use.

Newsgroup: misc.health.alternative
From: David McLeod <dave.bluesky.net.au>
Date: 15 Jan 1996 22:17:02 GMT
Subject: Re: Echineacea - How long can you take it?

Regarding how long can Echinacea be taken safely. The answer will depend on the individual but in my opinion it can be used with advantage indefinitly, I have had patients on Echinacea daily for several years in some cases, with only advantage. I have taken Echinacea personaly daily for 10 years and feel only benifit from this.

Where Echinacea is used consistantly like this, you may need larger doses if treating infection.

A lot of the misinformation about only using Echinacea short term is based on a German study, that was poorly interpreted or only the diagram was interpreted and the text wasn't translated. In this study Echinacea was given and it showed that macrophage activity increased for 6 days then reduced slowly to the baseline. This was interpreted (not by the investigators) to mean that it should not be used long term as it could reduce macrophage activity. What was missed in the translation was that dosing of Echinacea ceased after the fifth or sixth day! and in fact for some time after the positive effects of Echinacea were still being felt.

Don't be afraid of using Echinacea even in high doses, in this age of depleted immune systems and antibiotic resistant infections it is a wonderful boon.