This article is about home remedies. But we want to issue one special caveat as the nation is in the throes of a terrifying pandemic. We know of no home remedies to prevent or cure COVID-19. We are evaluating the scientific research on compounds that may be helpful against this virus, but so far no home remedy has proven useful. Rely on the basics.
For more ordinary complaints, home remedies can be great. Chances are your mother or grandmother knew what to do about a stomach ache, a hangnail or a child having a hard time falling asleep. (Fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers knew a thing or too, as well.) You may have used some of this wisdom without quite realizing or appreciating it. As we have become increasingly dependent on commercial products, that practical advice may have faded from our awareness. How can you learn about home remedies that would be helpful in day to day life?
Where to Learn About Home Remedies:
Q. I have been clipping your articles out of the newspaper for many years. I refer to them often and frequently share them with friends and relatives. Many are shabby and falling apart. Do you have a book with the home remedies you have written about in your questions and answers? I would like something with an index so I can find what I am looking for without digging through my scrapbook.
A. You may be interested in The People’s Pharmacy Quick & Handy Home Remedies. This book contains the most popular treatments for common ailments that we have been writing about for over 40 years. We include the science that supports many of these approaches.
A Doctor Looking for Home Remedies:
Q. I am a general practitioner interested in finding a reliable book of home remedies. Many of my patients would like less expensive approaches for common conditions. I think people like you are a great asset to the health care team. I would appreciate your advice.
A. We’re blushing from your compliment. Over the last 40 years we have collected a variety of home remedies from medical journals as well as from readers of this column. When we learn about home remedies that seem promising, we publish them here on the website.
We have also compiled our favorites in The People’s Pharmacy Quick & Handy Home Remedies. To order by mail, please send $16.95 plus $4 postage and handling to Graedons’ People’s Pharmacy, Dept QHHR; PO Box 52027; Durham, NC 27717-2027.
There is a surprising amount of scientific evidence supporting the use of home and herbal remedies. We’re delighted to hear from a physician who appreciates these affordable approaches.
When Science Supports What You Learn About Home Remedies:
For the most part, researchers don’t study home remedies in any systematic fashion. Every so often, however, we find a study that corroborates what people have been doing for decades.
One example: A century or more ago, little kids were often forced to swallow cod liver oil, especially during the winter when they were bundled up. Mothers believed it would help ward off infections like the flu or even tuberculosis, which was a common and deadly disease.
Cod liver oil has fallen out of favor. It tastes terrible, and doctors were not convinced it does any good. It is a good source of vitamin D, but you can take that in a pill nowadays. So readers of the very serious medical publication Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology may have been surprised in March, 2018, to read a review of cod liver oil and sunshine against tuberculosis.
The authors lay out their aim for this review:
“We will speculate as to why vitamin D, cod liver oil, sunshine, and phototherapy are no longer being used to treat tuberculosis, in spite of their proven efficacy in safely treating this disease dating back to the early 1800’s.”
They maintain that these treatments, which could well be considered home remedies, have never actually been discredited and have the potential to help combat tuberculosis even today. We have not written about this in The People’s Pharmacy Quick & Handy Home Remedies, because most of our readers are not battling TB infections. But it is a dramatic example of why we should take the home remedies of yesteryear seriously enough to investigate them, rather than ignoring them as “old wives’ tales.”
