W2: Herbs and Botanicals

Welcome to week 2 where we'll be delving into herbs and botanicals!

Overview of Herbal Medicine

Review the fundamentals of herbal medicine including formulations and safety.

After completing this activity, participants will be able to:

1. Differentiate formulations used in herbal medicine
2. Recognize risks with herb-herb and herb-drug interactions
3. Identify high quality herbal products

Quality of Herbs and Botanicals

This activity will review the factors that can affect herbal quality and identification.

After completing this activity, participants will be able to:

1. Identify how herbs can be tested for validity
2. Describe the factors that can affect the heavy metal content in herbs
3. Discriminate the role of local factories and sources of pollution and how this impacts heavy metal content in herbs

Ayurvedic Approach to Herbs

Ayurvedic medicine incorporates herbs as an important part of the treatment toolkit for managing imbalances. In this course, you will learn about the key factors used to describe and differentiate how herbs affect the body. Specifically, you will learn about Rasa (Taste), Virya (Heating vs. Cooling), and Vipaka (Post-Digestive Effects).

After completing this activity, participants will be able to:

1. Define the main factors by which herbs are differentiated in Ayurveda
2. Recall how herbs affect the Ayurvedic doshas and correlate with conventional medicine
3. Identify how herbal formulations are created and how the chief, support, and carrier herbs are placed into a formulation

Herbal Functions

This lecture will review the major functional categories for herbs and their typical mechanisms of action. We will also cover the concept of herbal formulations.

After completing this activity, participants will be able to:  

1. Recall the major functional categorizations for herbal actions
2. Review the concept of heating vs cooling herbs
3. Diagram how herbal formulations are created