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Echinacea Supplement Quality And Phenolic Misinformation

The different species of echinacea have some common active constituents, and some are unique to a particular species. For example, all of the echinaceas have chemical compounds called phenols. Phenols have an antiseptic quality and can reduce inflammation when they are taken internally. Phenols common in herbal preparations include lignans (in flax), isoflavones, and flavanoids.

If you do a search on the internet on phenols in echinacea, you'll come up with a number of articles that seem to have been taken from the one source, so close is the language used in them. They include an entry on Wikipedia (possibly one source), that infers that the phenols are a good indicator of whether an echinacea preparation is effective. Consumer Labs also used phenols as a measure of quality, possibly as a result of all the publicity surrounding them.

Yet if you look at herbal medicine textbooks and other expert opinion, you can see this in a very different context. The website, Herbs And Apples, wrote this when discussing echinacea and phenolic compounds:

""Claims for the clinical superiority of standardized products are unethical commercialism and an attempt to dupe the public in the name of science," says Northwest herbalist Jonathan Treasure. "The starting quality of the herb used in the extraction process is far more relevant to quality of the final product than any laboratory manipulation or 'correction' during manufacture. Many companies offering standardized product start with crude herb purchased by third party brokers in the international marketplace, the provenance and quality of which is inevitably beyond their direct control. The old adage -- garbage in, garbage out -- is pertinent."

As an example, no one chemical or chemical group has been found solely responsible for echinacea's ability to stimulate the immune system. "Measuring the quality of an echinacea preparation based on total phenolic compounds is like judging the quality of an automobile based on its iron content," according to Rudolf Bauer, professor of pharmaceutical biology at Heinriche Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Manufacturers generally standardize echinacea products to either echinacoside, phenolic acids, or alkylamides. Echinacea purpurea does not contain the echinacoside (slated as having mildly antibacterial action in a 1950 study) found in Echinacea augustifolia and other species, so the "standard" more recently switched to total phenolic compounds.

Phenols are a large group of compounds, not all of which necessarily have an isolated medical use. The concentration of any and all phenols in a standardized extract of echinacea essentially assumes an across-the-board approach to biological activity. That numbing sensation on your tongue when you take an echinacea tincture can be attributed to the alkylamides, some of which have been shown to be immunostimulatory. Yet the debate of which chemical standard best defines the potency of echinacea has one outstanding resolution: Put your trust in the whole plant remedy."

An herbal medicine textbook I used, Materia Medica Of Western Herbs For The Southern Hemisphere (Fisher and Painter) listed the active ingredients of echinacea augustifolia and echinacea purpurea, and then made note of a few of them with an explanation of what scientific results have found. The phenols were not highlighted specifically.

The authors note:

• "The direct action of Echinacea appears to be through its ability to inhibit the action of hyaluronidase" - this is an enzyme pathogenic organisms use to impair the connective tissue in hosts and thus let the organisms enter and spread during an infection.
• "The whole extract of the herb and the polysaccharide fraction have also been shown, in vitro and in vivo, to stimulate the activity of macrophages and also the release of interferon and lymphokines - a part of the body's immune arsenal mediated through T-lymphocytes."
• The immune stimulating properties are associated with the polysaccharides, isobutylamides (an alkylamide), and the caffeic acid esters (these latter are phenols)

On the subject of the polysaccharides in echinacea, Paul Bergner makes this interesting point:

"The polysaccharides are insoluble in alcohol, but they are also digestible in the gut (they are sugars after all), meaning that are not the main active ingredients in echinacea in the first place. Echinacea was first discovered among the Indians who a) chewed the root, or b) juiced it. It was then carried into medical practice throughout the US in the form of a tincture. The tincture was so effective in so many conditions that it gained worldwide reputation. Scientific research into echinacea took place in Germany in the 1940s, and has been continuously researched ever since. ONE possible active ingredient is the polysaccharide fraction, but the alcohol soluble fraction is also immune stimulating. All the research on polysaccharides has been done on EXTRACTED polysaccharides INJECTED into test animals. They inject it because the substances would be destroyed by the gut. There's no reason to think the polysaccharides are necessary to get any of the wonderful benefits of the tincture that first brought this herb to world attention. (Paul Bergner, Editor, MEDICAL HERBALISM)

Other active constituents of echinacea include

• volatile oils (in Echinacea angustifolia - humulene)
• caffeic acid esters - including echinacoside and cynarin (phenolic compounds)
• isobutylamides ( in Echinacea angustifolia - echinacein)
• polyacetylenes
• resin
• betaine 0.3%

 

There are also trace amounts of:

• pyrrolizidine alkaloids (tussilagin and isotussilagin)
• sesquiterpene
• phytosterols, including b-sitosterol and inulin