250+ Examples of Natural Remedies Beating Pharmaceuticals

You hear a lot about 'natural healing' these days, but did you know that a sizable body of scientific literature actually supports the idea that natural medicine is safer and more effective than conventional, drug-based medicine? 

One of the greatest if not the greatest triumph of biomedical science today is its role in validating ancient healing modalities that long before the advent of science, and even recorded history itself, were passed down "orally" from generation to generation in the vast body of folkloric medical knowledge that still forms the basis for the majority of the world's primary health care system.

These so-called "natural" or "alternative" modalities, which our species owes its present day survivorship to after eons of dependency on them, are increasingly gaining the attention of men and women in white lab coats intent on unlocking the mysteries of how they work, and in many cases, why they work better than patented, synthetic, chemical-based medications.

As you may already know, at GreenMedInfo.com, we now have over 10,000 database sectionsdedicated to finding scientific support for natural alternatives, with six main indexes: Natural Substances, Ailments, Therapeutic Actions, Problematic Actions, Pharmacological Actions, and Problem Substances. You'll find about 47,000 study abstracts distributed across these databases, with new research added on a daily basis. You can take the dashboard for a spin by clicking the icon below: 

Check out the new GreenMedInfo Research Dashboard (a byproduct of 12 years of development)

One section, however, you will not find in the aforementioned six indexes. It is titled, “Superiority of Natural Substances vs. Drugs,” and is part of another database I am developing called Keywords, and which will be released on our site in a few weeks. These include random and salient threads of thoughts, concepts, and themes that I ran into as I gathered, curated, and indexed all the research on GreenMedInfo.com over the past seven years, but do not naturally fit into the six major indexes.  

In this database Keyword alone, there are listed over 180 natural substances which have been demonstrated, mostly in preclinical research (for reasons discussed elsewhere), to be superior to their conventional drug counterparts in over 270 different diseases. Take a look at this remarkable, and always growing, resource below:

Screenshot of one of over 10,000 GreenMedInfo database nodes: Superiority of Natural Substances vs. Drugs. 

We also have a section called “Natural Substances versus Drugs” with an additional 292 studies relevant to 242 diseases where there is established at least an equi-potency between the natural and conventional treatment.

It is extremely encouraging to the natural health movement to know that research actually proves the potential superiority of ancient, natural interventions versus conventional ones. The point of bringing this information to the attention of the public is to show that, at the very least, there is a legitimate place for natural medicine alongside the conventional, drug-based form, and that this is not based strictly on subjective or anecdotal experience (which is valuable), but also the scientific evidence itself, which many critics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) often claim does not even exist.

If you like what you see here, please consider supporting our research project by becoming a member, which provides significantly enhanced features intended to expand and optimize the evidence-base of their health practice(s) and/or advocacies. Learn more here. 

Originally published: 2016-06-23 

Article updated: 2019-05023

Sayer Ji is founder of Greenmedinfo.com, a reviewer at the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, Co-founder and CEO of Systome Biomed, Vice Chairman of the Board of the National Health Federation, Steering Committee Member of the Global Non-GMO Foundation.