For thousands of years, people in cultures around the world have used herbs as medicines. Today millions of people use herbal remedies to prevent and treat all kinds of health problems.
Many plants do contain substances that produce therapeutic effects within the body.
For example, quinine, the oldest treatment for malaria, comes from tree bark. The active ingredient in aspirin also comes from salicylates in willow tree bark. But it is the chemical ingredient in a herb that produces the effect and not the entire herb, its shape, or color. Chemicals in herbs that were scientifically identified, tested to determine efficacy and safety, and then approved for use become pharmaceuticals, or drugs. Herbal remedies, in contrast, tend to be whole products with no specific chemicals identified that have not been tested in controlled chemical trials to determine safety or efficacy.