Health Terms Fact Sheet
This FAQ covers all the basic concepts you need to know as you read health articles.
What are herbs?
According to Webster’s dictionary, an herb is “a plant valued for its medicinal, savory or aromatic qualities.” In fact, a number of today’s synthetic pharmaceutical preparations are derived from herbal extracts that were originally discovered and prescribed many years ago. The drug digitalis, for example, which is used to treat various types of heart ailments, is made from the leaves of the foxglove plant.
What are standardized extracts?
One problem with selecting herbal supplements is that you can’t always be certain of the potency of a particular formulation. Potency depends on a number of factors — what part of the plant was used, where it was grown, when it was harvested, how it has been processed and packaged — and it can either be very strong or virtually inert.
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