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| Commercial Considerations |
| Will the Best Echinacea Please Stand Up! |
| Various manufacturers of echinacea products have stimulated controversy as to which species or part of the echinacea plant is the most potent. Sometimes it is difficult to separate the wheat from the marketing chaff, and so a discussion follows of some of the varying opinions, and a chart outlines the documented uses of each species. |
| Echinacea angustifolia and Echinacea pallida: These were the two species first introduced into medical practice in the 1800s and thus were the species reported to be most widely used from the late 1800s to the 1950s and then again in the 1970s up to the present. Early physicians used these species seemingly successfully for treating many of the conditions which herbalists continue to use echinacea for today. |
| Modern pharmacology has validated many of these uses. In most instances, E. angustifolia and E. pallida have been shown to have similar effects as well as similar chemistry. One study demonstrated that E. pallida had a greater phagocyte-stimulating activity than either E. angustifolia or E. purpurea.8 Another study reported that the isolated compounds from the three species "exhibited a high degree of |
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