But herbs occupy a precarious position on the fringes of American health care, often ignored, dismissed as unproved, or suppressed as dangerous or fraudulent by mainstream medical institutions. Current U.S. law only permits health claims to be made only for FDA-approved drugs. There is no incentive to spend this money researching herbs and botanical chemicals, because it is very hard to obtain the patent protection that is considered a necessary requirement before investing such enormous sums. This strong financial disincentive has kept the benefits of many well-researched herbs from the general public. Concentration may or may not correlate with medicinal potency.
Potency is a measure of biological activity in the body.
An herbal product could be very strong in terms of concentration, but weak in potency because it was made from herb deficient in active compounds. Air-dried, encapsulated herbs aren't usually as potent or durable as extracts. Air-dried herbs are usually measured in milligrams of dried, ground herb per capsule. Whole, air-dried herbs can be made into teas , used in cooking, or chopped finely and encapsulated. Herbal tea only provide the water-soluble compounds in herbs .