Arctium lappa

DESCRIPTION

It’s bad enough waking up in the morning to find that a pimple is changing your profile. But what’s even worse is turning on the television and being confronted with advertisements created with the simple intent of making you feel so bad about your imperfect skin that you run out and do something about it – as in buy a product that will not only clear up your skin, but will also bring you true love, riches, and perpetual happiness. Let’s get some things straight right now. First, having pimples isn’t the worst thing in the world. Second, there is no miracle cure for the problem, and anyone who tells you that there is has something to sell and should therefore be subject to suspicion.

People’s desire for flawless skin is easy to understand. The fact that they waste so much money in their attempts to achieve is not. You are probably familiar with the over-the-counter options. In fact, you may have already spent a small fortune on them. Now, it’s time to look into an herbal possibility. Burdock is excellent for any skin problem – eczema, dandruff, a wound that won’t heal, or an infection such as chicken pox that results in skin eruptions. It will also help with that pimple.

Acne isn’t anything new. Lyman Watkins, a physician writing in 1895, noted that:

Acne is a eruption caused by a sub-acute or chronic inflammation of the sebaceous glands. It usually manifests itself in small elevations on the skin of the face, and less frequently upon other parts of the body. It is a very common and exceedingly chronic affection, appearing for the most part about the age of puberty. Masturbation has very little, if anything to do with the production of acne.

In the final analysis, acne is caused by infection in the skin’s sebaceous glands. Fortunately, the medical tradition that once suggested castration as a cure has moved on from that to prescribing drugs that in theory kill the infection causing the pimples. Herbalists take a different tack; burdock, plays into this approach. It goes like this: why not boost the immune system so that it can fight the infection on its own?

The root of burdock has been used in its native haunts, which include much of Africa and Europe, to improve immunity and overall health for at least 3,000 years. Like the honeybee, it has followed civilization. The plant produces a burr that gets stuck on people’s clothing, and in this manner it has been carried to every continent. In recent years, the burdock has come to be considered a weed, despised by lawn owners for its tenacious growth habits.

The plant is a biennial, which means that in its second year it blooms and then dies. Burdock spends its first year of life working industriously to store all the necessary elements to bloom the following year. The part of the plant we use in clearing the skin is the root. All the richness of the plant is safely packed away in the long, tapered root just as the leaves start to fall, and that's the time to pluck it from the ground, in the autumn of the plant’s first year.

The root contains lignans including arctigenin, glycoside arctiin and matairesinol; polyacetylenes including tridecadienetetraynes, tridecatrienetriynes and a sulphur-containing arctic acid. It also contains amino acids including alpha guanidino-n-butyric acid, inulin, organic acids, fatty acids, and phenolic acids.

THERAPEUTIC USES

Burdock works on the skin on two levels. First, poor skin may be a symptom of poor overall health. It is a mirror into the soul and the innards, and if your skin doesn’t look great, it gives you some indication of how your insides might look. Burdock has the ability to gently stimulate health and, as a consequence, to improve the appearance of the skin. Elements contained in the plant improve the digestion and absorption of food, which makes the body stronger and better able to fight infection. Furthermore, one of the powers attributed to burdock is its ability to cleanse the body. In days gone by, it was considered a blood cleanser; today we say that it offers a stimulating effect on the excretory systems, helping them rid the body of toxins.

Second, beyond its general health-stimulating abilities and like many of the members of the daisy family – chamomile, elecampane and calendula included – burdock has the specific ability to speed the healing of the skin. Psoriasis, dandruff, wounds, ulcers, eczema, eruptions on the skin, boils, carbuncles, sties, sores, aphthous ulcerations and chronic acne are all treated effectively with burdock. Whereas calendula is used externally to improve the skin’s appearance, burdock is taken internally.

In the European capitals, burdock was always the plant of choice when it came to improving the skin and when colonials moved on to the New World, the burr-covered plant went with them. In the Appalachian woods of North America, burdock was, and still is, made into root tea to clear poor complexions. In the European medical tradition, it has also been a classic blood purifier for several hundred years.

Like the Europeans, the Chinese were mad about the plant. They recommend its use for just about any kind of skin problem you might have, including cancers, induration and tumors of the breast, glands, intestines, knees, lips, tongue, liver, sinuses, stomach, or uterus; ulcerated, glandular and white tumors; canker and other sores, leprosy, prurigo, psoriasis, abscesses, acne, corns, warts and scaly skin. The Chinese feel that, in addition to clearing up the skin, burdock will clear up problems with all the glands that lie under the skin. This is noteworthy because we now know acne is caused by infected sebaceuous glands.

Chinese researchers have proven burdock to be anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, diuretic, antitumor, antifungal, estrogenic, hypoglycemic and antibacterial. Right here you can see how burdock would help skin improve itself. Its antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antitumor properties are just what the doctor ordered (or should have) for acne.

A traditional Chinese physician would tell you that burdock cleanses the body of toxins so that the skin can clear on its own accord. Acne or eczema is seen as a symptom of toxins in the system, and the solution is to get the skin cleaned out. Interestingly enough, the Pennsylvania Dutch say the same thing on the other side of the world.

The Pennsylvania Dutch are an ethnic group famous preserving their traditions, and one of these is home doctoring. They prefer to handle most medical problems themselves and only call in a professional when necessary. As acne and poor complexions aren’t highly rated health issues, the Pennsylvania Dutch turn to a weed from the backyard to cure them instead of an M.D. They brew burdock root into a strong tea. Applied externally, this is used to cure dandruff; taken internally, it is said to clear up skin afflictions of all sorts.

If in fact poor complexion is caused by toxins in the system, burdock and its clinically proven ability to act as a diuretic would indeed help the body cleanse itself through the traditional means, urination. It is also mildly laxative and will get things moving out from that exit point as well. Doctors in the medical establishment tend to dismiss the notion that poor skin is caused by toxins in the system, but it makes a lot of sense. Alcoholics, smokers, drug addicts and people who eat chemical-laced food always have horrible skin. Those who work with chemicals all the time, such as painters and farmers, similarly suffer from poor skin. Burdock’s ability to rid the body of excess fluids may be the reason for its skin-clearing powers. At any rate it’s worth a try.

The 1917 booklet entitled Health from Field and Forest reiterates this idea of burdock as a cleansing plant:

"The root is one of the best blood purifiers, used in scorbutic, syphilitic, scrofulous and leprous diseases, eliminating very rapidly any impurity or poison from the blood. It is also very useful in gout. The leaves form a cooling and healing poultice for boils, carbuncles, etc., and the seeds are excellent for dropsy and kidney trouble, and are also an effective remedy for neuralgia."

At the time the booklet was written, all forms of skin conditions were treated with burdock, even leprosy!

This is also true today. Though we have focused on acne here, everything from dandruff to eczema to psoriasis is improved with daily burdock tea. But much like the acne "miracle drug" Accutane, which generated 125 million dollars in sales in the United States last year, it does not work overnight. Burdock tea must be taken three times a day for three to six months before you will notice a significant improvement. Fortunately, though, burdock tea is also generally boosting to the constitution so that you can expect to enjoy better overall health in the process.