Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 06/98) - Many people endure teasing when they swear the herb echinacea prevents colds.

But aspirin originally came from willow bark and leaves, so are ginseng tea totallers or ginkgo groupies really that radical?

Advocates of so-called "alternative" therapies are already in a conservative mode, trying not to oversell the ideas.

"You can't stay on echinacea forever," Sundance Health products owner Dan O'Neill told the NWT Registered Nurses Association during its weekend biennial conference.

"Or your body will get immune to it and it will not ward off colds."

He said three weeks is the maximum length of time someone should be on the herb, which is credited with the ability to shore up supplies of white blood cells.

Many believe it also improves resistance to and recovery from viral, fungal and bacterial.

Speaking as a physician, NWT chief medical officer Andre Corriveau said treatments are always being discovered.

"There are new things that are coming out all the time that do say that certain foods protect you against cancer and with herbs it is the same," he said.

"Penicillin was from a mould and was discovered almost by accident."

Corriveau said controlled experiments in which people are randomly assigned to different treatments with the results measured are all that's required to turn a new discovering into an accepted therapy.

Traditional touch therapy is another aspect of alternative health care that many greet with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Corriveau said touch therapy should not be rejected outright, though he does not give credence to explanations of why it works.

"Tension headaches and migraines respond very well to relaxation techniques," he said, explaining that if people have confidence in their care-givers, the technique could easily work.

"(If) the therapeutic process becomes a mechanism for you to relax and relieve some of the stressors that are causing your headache, then for sure it would work. But it's not the touch, it's the context of the relationship with your healer and the trust you have."

Yoga and meditation can also promote health, and there is scientific support for the techniques.

Breathing through your right nostril can affect different nerve endings and parts of your brain, than breathing through your left nostril, Corriveau said.

"Research is uncovering stuff like that."