| As part of its ongoing educational mission for consumers, academia, health professionals, industry, media, and government, the nonprofit American Botanical Council (ABC), is pleased to announce the official launch of ABC’s YouTube channel, HerbTV. ABC is known world-wide for its reliable, science-based content, including its peer-reviewed publications, as well as its dedication to scientific research on the modern and traditional uses of herbs and other beneficial botanicals. HerbTV from the American Botanical Council on YouTube.com is currently the home of more than 200 educational videos on medicinal herbs and related health and wellbeing content and includes interviews and in-field tours with renown herbalists, ethnobotanists, and other medicinal plant experts. The channel already has 22,000 subscribers and nearly 1.4 million views. Concurrent with the launch of HerbTV, ABC announces the premiere of its Adopt-an-Herb (AaH) Video Program and the release of its first educational, single-herb-centric video, “Milk Thistle: A Tonic for Modern Times.” “The American Botanical Council has been working to expand its educational mission through videos for a number of years,” said ABC Founder and Executive Director Mark Blumenthal. “We’re highly pleased to finally release HerbTV as an international online portal that we anticipate will greatly expand the interest in and understanding about numerous herbs and botanical medicine for anyone seeking accurate and entertaining video content.” To provide easy access to the educational content on the channel, HerbTV features playlists organized by category and health conditions, as well as ABC’s new Adopt-an-Herb videos, videos and webinars on herbal sustainability, and curated videos from sources outside of ABC, including the public television series Healing Quest, “The Medicine Hunter,” and others. New content is being added weekly. The milk thistle (Silybum marianum) video, now available at HerbTV, was created via an educational grant from ABC Sponsor Member Euromed S.A., based in Barcelona, Spain. The video features broadcast-quality videography and graphics and includes commentary from experts in integrative medicine, academia, and the botanical sciences to help inform and entertain viewers with the history, research, cultivation, traditional and modern uses, processing, and tips for consumers related to this popular, clinically researched, phytomedicinal liver tonic. “We believe that the milk thistle video, with its engaging information, commentary, and visuals, is the standard bearer for the four additional videos already produced and for all future videos that will anchor the growing video content offerings on HerbTV,” Blumenthal added. The AaH Video Program is an extension of ABC’s longstanding Adopt-an-Herb Program, where adopting organizations help ensure that the most current information on their adopted herb is available in ABC’s extensive HerbMedPro database. The Adopt-an-Herb Program adoptions provide up-to-date research to consumers, researchers, educators, media, health practitioners, government agencies, and members of industry with rationally organized and easy access to research abstracts on ABC’s HerbMedPro database of the latest scientific and clinical research studies on over 260 herbs from the US National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Database. ABC has then distilled each abstract to a one-sentence summary with a link to the PubMed abstract. As of May 2025, the AaH Program has had 94 herbs adopted by 80 companies. |
| According to the Council for Responsible Nutrition’s 2024 Consumer Survey, three-quarters of Americans use dietary supplements, many of them being herbal.1 The World Health Organization estimates that around 4 billion people, or 80 percent of the people in developing countries, use herbal medicine.2 |
| Market data show that the statistics around online video viewing are impressive; people increasingly access social media outlets for educational videos, with YouTube leading the way with 2.5 billion monthly, active users worldwide in 2024.3 In 2022, 62 percent of internet users in the United States accessed YouTube daily, and 92 percent used it weekly.4 “This video usage presents a huge opportunity for ABC and its botanicals-based educational content,” said Blumenthal. “We encourage interested and curious consumers, healthcare practitioners, academics, researchers, media, and natural health products industry representatives to visit HerbTV, explore the channel, and ‘like’ and subscribe.“ HerbTV, started in 2008 by pharmacist, former herb shop owner, and videographer David LaLuzerne, was donated to ABC in 2018, and received an updating, rebrand, reorganization, and new content as part of the ABC-branded relaunch. HerbTV is supported by extensive promotion through ABC media, including its peer-reviewed journal HerbalGram, its herbalgram.org website, its numerous other communications vehicles, and social media outreach. Additionally, awareness of HerbTV will be enhanced through partnerships ABC is creating with its member companies, various media partners, and other nonprofit organizations. References
Founded in 1988, The American Botanical Council is an international 501(c)(3) tax-exempt research and educational nonprofit organization, supported by thousands of members around the world, and focused on the science behind herbs and other beneficial botanicals, phytomedicinals, essential oils, teas, and edible and medicinal fungi. ABC serves the public, researchers, educators, healthcare professionals, industry, and media. ABC publishes the quarterly, peer-reviewed HerbalGram journal, numerous other educational resources, and a content-rich website, much of which is also peer-reviewed. ABC operates multiple programs designed to promote the responsible use of herbal medicine, while reducing adulteration and increasing sustainability in the herbal community. ABC is headquartered on an historic, 2.5-acre property with extensive herb-demonstration gardens. For more information, visit herbalgram.org. |
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Riane Roldan American Botanical Council 512-926-4900 ext. 129 publicrelations@herbalgram.org
