A little over one hundred years ago infectious diseases were the leading cause of death worldwide. With the advent of modern sanitation, antibiotics, and other medical developments, deaths from infectious diseases have decreased to the point that few of us worry about it, except when some new infection arises, as happened a few years ago with COVID-19. People often wonder when a new infection comes along, "what do we do?" That's because they tend to think that the only way to deal with infections is to treat specific infections with specific remedies.
However, nature has always provided us with herbal remedies that can help fight off infectious diseases, and most of the remedies nature provides to combat infection work by supporting the body's natural immune responses, which are capable of fighting off any infection, old or new. Plus, there are some very important reasons why we should still consider herbal remedies when dealing with infection.
First, there is the overuse of antibiotics, which creates strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Natural remedies don’t appear to have the same problems with creating resistant organisms.
Second, while antibiotics help bacterial infections, many infections are viral or fungal in nature and antibiotics aren’t helpful for viruses or yeast. Many herbs work on all three types of infections.
Third, many herbs aid the body’s own immune responses. This is important to understand, especially with novel infections. New remedies are not required as new infectious organisms appear as the herbal remedies don’t target the microbes directly, but rather support the body’s natural ability to fight the infection. Such remedies can even be used to help prevent infections in the first place.
This month's Sunshine Sharing Hour will acquaint you with many of nature’s infection fighters, so you can learn to combat any type of infection naturally.
Nature's Infection Fighters is part of Steven Horne's Strategic Herbalist Member program.
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