Are Standardized Herbal Extracts Always Necessary?

Standardized herbal extracts offer consistency in dosage and confidence in herb usage. However, standardized herbal products do not invalidate the worth of whole herbs—indeed, high-quality herbs can be at least as effective and certainly more natural than the standardized extract. Added to this milieu is the confusion over just what constitutes a standardized herbal extract. Does "standardized" need to be standardized?

"The purpose of standardization is to ensure product consistency. Most of us would agree that consistency is desirable. The debate arises over how to ensure this. Different manufacturers use different means and define standardization in different ways. Commonly, standardization refers to a specified level of one or two chemical constituents. This determination does not give a complete picture of an herbal product, however, because multiple constituents are usually responsible for its therapeutic effects.

"A better way to ensure product consistency is to take the entire manufacturing process into account. This process starts with seed-stock genetics and continues with growing, harvesting, drying and storage conditions as well as extraction solvents and procedures. Uniformity in these steps can go a long way toward ensuring a standardized product. Until we know more about the chemical constituents responsible for the activity of botanical products, consistent manufacturing procedures may be more important in ensuring therapeutic consistency than the arbitrary adjustment of levels of selected chemical markers."

Marilyn Barrett, Ph.D.
Pharmacognosy Consulting Services
Redwood City, Calif.

"Standardization is almost a necessity for herbal usage by the average person. I respect traditional herbalists and their belief system for the way they heal, but wildcrafted herbs can vary dramatically from one area to another. From a health care professional's standpoint, standardization allows for consistency from consumer to consumer, dose to dose. In my practice I see much more consistent results by using standardized extracts.

"Looking past standardization, do we look for markers of absorption? It's one thing to determine a marker compound, but is it being absorbed into your body to be utilized?"

James Lavalle, N.D.
President, Natural Health Resources
Cincinnati, Ohio

"Herbal products have proven their therapeutic effects for thousands of years without the need for biochemical standardization. Just because certain standardized extracts have been found effective through funded research, such as milk thistle extract with 80 percent silymarin against liver toxins, does not mean that the whole, nonstandardized herb may not have equally beneficial properties. In fact, there are traditional uses for milk thistle seeds for which the standardized extract is not as suitable, such as for an enlarged spleen, menstrual irregularities and varicose veins.

"At this developmental stage of standardization, herbalists agree that most standardized extracts have significant shortcomings and should not be relied upon exclusively for all herbal needs. Marketing of standardized herbal extracts also encourages a "magic bullet" type of herbalism, where herbs are used superficially rather than as part of a more holistic, integrative healing approach."

Michael Tierra, L.AC., O.M.D.
Founding member, American Herbalists Guild
Santa Cruz, Calif.

"The top-selling herbs in our store are the ones that are standardized—ginkgo, kava, St. John's wort and milk thistle. There's money to be made by putting 'standardized' on the label because people think it's been in a lab. Manufacturers are not going to get their product into a retail store if it's not standardized because a lot of retailers don't know enough about the herbs.

"It's tough as a retailer because I don't know if they standardize to an active ingredient. That's assuming there even is an agreed-upon active ingredient that's being standardized."

Shawn Brooks
Retailer, Harvest Market
Hockessin, Del.

"The answer is no. Limiting one's use of herbal preparations to the standardized products that have some degree of scientific rationale puts tremendous limitations on the therapeutic range of literally hundreds of available herbs and herbal formulas. Well-established medicinal herbal systems such as traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicines rely heavily on formulas that are nearly impossible to standardize by our current definition.

"Just because we have some knowledge of an herb's particular chemical constituents and therapeutic actions, it's not wise to assume that we understand the relationships and synergies of the hundreds of compounds that also occur in its natural state. It is even more unlikely that an herb will duplicate proven historical uses when the chemicals are extracted out of context or are isolated."

Michael Corrigan
VP-Educational Services, Nature's Way Products
Springville, Utah