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| similarity.''33 Other studies suggest that E. purpurea has a greater activity in some ways than either of the other two species.34 |
| Echinacea purpurea: For commercial reasons, a large number of studies have been conducted on a specific injectable preparation of the leaf juice of E. purpurea, which is rich in immuno-stimulating polysaccharides. Early on in echinacea research, scientists believed the primary activity of echinacea was associated with the polysaccharides, so this became the primary focus of echinacea studies. Because the German research found that the leaf juice of E. purpurea possessed higher amounts of polysaccharides than the roots or parts of other species, numerous companies and even some writers have suggested that E. purpurea is superior to other species of echinacea. Many commercial interests created a marketing program around this research. There were several basic flaws with this marketing direction. First, the research was conducted on the juice of fresh leaves. Many products subsequently were made from the entire above-the-ground portion of the dried plant including the woody, largely fibrous stems which account for approximately 70 percent of the dried weight of the above-ground portion of the plant. As often happens, companies capitalized on the fresh juice research even though their products were not comparable to those used in the studies. |
| The second flaw was that the majority of these studies were conducted with injectable preparations, not orally administered products. Although polysaccharides have a limited amount of activity when consumed orally, most polysaccharide researchers have found that the long chain sugars get broken down in |
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