Taking care of yourself with plants

The idea of treating oneself with plants is currently very much in vogue. Europe supports the treatment of illnesses with plant-based medicines : this is phytotherapy. As for manufacturers, they are increasingly marketing plant-based food supplements. Homeopathy and aromatherapy are also developing strongly. 

While it's true that thejudicious use of plants can produce excellent therapeutic results, the fact remains that the most toxic plants are also found in nature! Many plants are toxic to varying degrees, and you need to be very careful. The proof? Many calls to poison control centers are linked to confusion between harmless and toxic plants!

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is based, on the one hand, on the use of substances endowed with effects similar to the symptoms of the disease they are intended to combat and, on the other, on the infinitesimal dilution of these substances. The raw material (called a mother tincture) is so diluted that there is no toxicity (and many doctors will tell you that there is no efficacy either, except for a placebo effect - it's up to you). However, some homeopaths mix the diluted product with mother tincture to increase its effectiveness. In this case, we should no longer speak of homeopathy, but of phytotherapy, and the product should be treated as a medicine and have undergone the necessary controls and analyses as there are inevitably risks involved.

Aromatherapy Aromatherapy is a practice derived from phytotherapy, but limited to the use of aromatic plants and essential oils. Essential oils are a concentration of the volatile active (or possibly toxic) principles contained in plants. They must be highly diluted before use (internally or externally), otherwise they can cause irritation or burns. These products are not subject to any registration, and therefore tonone of the controls imposed on medicines. Of course, there are a few pharmacological and clinical studies, but these are far less rigorous than for drugs. While the efficacy of some specific oils has been proven, this concerns only a very small number of them; for the others, there is no scientific proof of their efficacy. On the other hand, their toxicity is well known. Every year, there are cases ofpoisoning or mucous membrane burns, especially in children, due to insufficient dilution. So it's best to talk to a doctor first, and to scrupulously respect the dilutions he or she recommends. You should also be aware that many of these products are adulterated: what you buy as an essential oil of a particular plant may contain only a tiny proportion of it, or even none at all. And as they are very fashionable, these products are often expensive.