Dandelion Root: Weed or Powerful Medicine?

Another guest post by Prof. Dr. Dana Flavin

Over hundreds of years mankind has relied on herbs and plants for their medicine, even Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. We know now how important diet is in our health, but where do herbs come into this scenario in our modern day living?

Our ancestors knew which herbs to use for different illnesses, regardless if it were a gout diagnosis or viral infections. One of the most important herbs that is resurfacing today for its antiviral and anti cancer efficacy is indeed Dandelion root.

The scientific name for dandelion root extract is Taraxacum officinale (Dandelion). Dandelion root can help to fight inflammation, boost the immune system, act as an anti-aging agent and even treat type 2 diabetes, cancer, arthritis, HIV and more. Its use has been ignored for many years as people saw it as a weed rather than a herb, yet many scientific papers have been written about the effects of dandelion as a medicine. (For scientific articles, see dandelion and cancer, dandelion and inflammatory conditions, etc.)

Don’t kill Dandelion, it’s Food and Medicine

Many pesticides, in particular, glyphosate (Roundup), have been and still are used to kill dandelion roots and prevent it from spreading, but this is huge mistake. Dandelion contains all kinds of bioactive constituents, including flavonoids, amino acids, fatty acids, organic acids, phenolic acids, coumarins, lignans, polysaccharides, phytosterols, terpenes, glycoproteins, oligosaccharides, alkaloids, etc. All of these compounds play a role in their medicinal activities and, when used as food (in teas and salads), it is easy to see that dandelion is a great example of “food as medicine.”

Dandelion and Covid

The way I found out about dandelion root was from a patient from Barbados who was given an antiviral injection against Covid. She told me she could not see after the injection as she was not making tears and had to keep closing and opening her eyes. Then she said she remembered her grandmother always told her to drink dandelion tea for her health. When she arrived home she made herself a cup of dandelion tea and shortly thereafter, her eyes began making tears.

At that point I was very curious about the mechanisms and wondered if it could affect the spike protein produced in the body after Covid injections, and perhaps also help the immune system.

After examining the literature, I concluded that constituents of dandelion root most likely block Covid spike protein production at its docking point on the ACE2 receptors. This explained why and how dandelion root works against Covid symptoms. I started to use it and found that, when I combined it with other herbs in some Chinese formulas, it also helped treat people with long term Covid symptoms.

It is remarkable to me that a former “weed” is not a weed at all, but medicinal support for many of our Covid-related health issues!

Dandelion and Cancer

The anticancer properties of dandelion root are quite extensive showing efficacy in many models of cancer in vitro and in vivo. Among the cancers extensively studied are breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer. In all studies the dandelion root showed enhancement of the immune system, blockage of important tumour growing pathways, macrophage improvement and many more mechanisms.

By adding dandelion root to cancer therapies, as a clinician treating cancer patients, I see an improvement in patients’ outcomes. Dandelion root seems to aid recovery from damages incurred from conventional anti-cancer therapies too.

Thus, it seems that the future of medicine is not only to be found in the past, but in places we never dreamed we would find “new” healing solutions – namely, the weeds in our front yard!

Prof Dr. Dana F. Flavin, Dr. med univ, N.D.

www.collmed.org