Echinacea: anti cancer properties and treatments

Echinacea is also attributed anti-carcinogenic properties, however, before underlining this type of activity it is necessary to support the claim with further clinical data. Although phytotherapy attributes antitumor properties to echinacea, it should not be forgotten that this science collects therapeutic notions from different cultures.
Shamans who populated the southern Dakota plains believed that this plant had the ability to drive out evil demons from the body. For them the evil demon was a supernatural entity able to kill the person, for the researcher who studied their knowledge in order to discover the therapeutic properties of the plant, the demon is the tumor. The researcher who asks shaman for advice then compares the malignant to cancer, adapting that phytotherapeutic knowledge to his own intellectual education.
The researcher, thanks to the study of Indian phytotherapy, attributes to the echinacea antitumor properties. However, in order for this statement to be considered valid, its cultural preparation obliges it to seek clinical evidence to support this hypothesis. The scholar will then investigate the presence of certain substances with anti-carcinogenic properties. Thus, from the study of echinacea extracts, it has been traced back to a substance called 8-pentadecatiene, which seems to possess, in vivo, a direct antitumoral action. This property is reinforced by the action of the phytocomplex echinacosidic phytocomplex, which exploits the immunostimulating action of the plant.
Of course, this is preliminary evidence, which is not in any way sufficient to justify the use of echinacea in modern anti-cancer treatments.