Podcast 265: Elderberry Syrup Isn’t Everything

Elderberry syrup isn’t everything an herbalist has to offer to someone suffering from a cold, the flu, COVID, RSV, or any of the many other respiratory ailments to which we humans are susceptible. Despite being the first thought to come to many minds when asked if they’re prepared for winter illnesses, we’d encourage you to broaden your view both of what elder does, and what herbs can do in these situations.

Elderberry is famous for inhibiting viral replication, most notably of the flu virus, by interfering with its capacity to replicate. Elderberry constituents have been shown in petri-dish studies to bind the neuraminidase ‘spike’ on the virus. It can therefore reduce the virus’ capacity to ‘break into’ our cells and convert them into virus-making factories.

Sounds good! Note, however, that this particular mode of action was identified through in vitro studies. The limitation here is that the required concentration of those constituents may not be attained in our bloodstream when we ingest elderberry syrup. It may not reach the tissues which are under attack by the virus. So while this is an interesting mechanism of action – and one we’ve ourselves taught about often when discussing elderberry – we now consider it as potentially less relevant to the general impacts of elderberry on viral illness.

So what matters more? The effects of elderberry on inflammatory patterns in the body. An efficient immune response includes inflammatory and anti-inflammatory actions, both at the right times and in the right amounts; elderberry supports this. And here’s the good news: so do other berries! Every berry with deep pigmentation – blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, cranberry, serviceberry, aronia berry, and many more – will work to improve inflammation management within the body. At the same time, they’ll enhance vascular integrity and flexibility (particularly important given the capacity of COVID to damage these tissues).

So elder isn’t the only berry who can help us. And berries aren’t the only supportive herbs, either – nor are herbs the end of our options! First of all, elder offers flowers as much as berries, and those are helpful for managing fever.

Working with elder in formula with other herbs – like our homemade winter elixir – is an excellent way to enhance its actions. But there are also plenty of good herbs beyond elderberry syrup, including pungents like ginger, decongestants like sage, expectorants like elecampane, and aromatics like pine. Last but by no means least: nourishing food, gentle movement, and restorative sleep can each be just as important as any herbal remedies we choose.

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Episode Transcript

Katja (00:13):
Hi, I’m Katja. And I’m here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts. Today Ryn is working on some new material for the Clinical Nutrition course, and I want to talk to y’all about elderberry syrup. Is it really all it’s cracked up to be? Let’s find out together. Before I do that, let me do our reclaimer where we tell you… Well, it’s just me today actually. So, I will tell you that I’m not a doctor. I’m an herbalist and a holistic health educator. The ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalist in the United States. So, these discussions are for educational purposes only. We want to remind you – we both do, even though it’s just me today – that good health doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn’t exist as an objective standard. It’s influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals. So, keep in mind that we’re not trying to present a single, dogmatic right way that you should adhere to. Everyone’s body is different. So, the things that we’re talking about may or may not apply directly to you. But we hope that they’ll give you some new information to think about and some ideas to research and experiment with further. Finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. Which does not mean you’re alone on the journey, and it doesn’t mean that you’re to blame for your current state of health. It just means that the final decision when you’re considering any course of action, whether it’s discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, is always your choice to make.

Katja (01:50):
Okay, so let’s talk about elderberry. I feel like every single person that I have talked to over the last six weeks about cold and flu. Like are you ready for fall? Are you ready for cold and flu season? And every single person has replied with yep, I’ve got some elderberry syrup. And I just want to let y’all know there’s more than elderberry syrup out there. So, I guess that kind of gives away the ending. But let’s explore a little bit about elderberry. Because I feel like everybody is putting all their eggs in the elderberry basket, and the basket is bigger than that. We can have other things. Or maybe I’m saying we can have other baskets to put eggs in. I don’t know. My analogy is breaking down, but you know what I’m saying.

Why Does Everybody Love Elderberry for Cold & Flu?

Katja (02:45):
All right. So, why does everybody love elderberry so much? Well, because it has a reputation of being able to shorten a cold or flu – especially the flu – and reduce the severity of it. And that is backed up by a scientific study that gets mentioned a lot. And it’s important to know that it was a Petri dish study. What does that mean? It means that when we say that elderberry can damage the spike so that the flu virus can’t replicate, we don’t know for certain that exactly that happens inside the body. We know for certain that that happens in a Petri dish. But in a petri dish where they’re taking viruses and squirting elderberry syrup directly onto it, then the proportion of elderberry syrup to virus is very high. So, we know that that does work. But what we don’t know is what would the dose be required to be inside the human body to have that same effect? And that Petri dish study doesn’t give us any information about that. So, the Petri dish study could be saying any dose of elderberry will do this. Or it could be saying you would need to turn your bloodstream into a high percentage of elderberry syrup in order to get this effect. Or anything in the middle, and we just don’t know what that result is.

Katja (04:25):
Okay. It’s true that some of the manufacturers of elderberry syrup have also done other kinds of studies that seem to show that it helps. Is that because of this one specific ability that elderberry has or not? That’s an important question because elderberries are expensive. I mean, unless you happen to live in a place where you have an elderberry… Technically it’s a tree, but most of the time it looks more like a bush. If you happen to have access to fresh elderberries that you can harvest yourself, okay. Then that’s not really such an issue because obviously something is going on there that is helpful. Even if it is not exactly the same thing that’s happening in the Petri dish, there still is a benefit. And if you can get elderberries that you can just harvest yourself, well, okay. Then there’s not a cost analysis that we really have to make there. But if you don’t have your own elderberry bush tree thing, then elderberries are really expensive. So, then it’s worth asking the question: does it have to be elderberry? Could it be any other berry? And we can investigate what do the different berries… What are the berries doing for us?

Other Berries with Similar Benefits for Less Money

Katja (05:42):
Okay yes, there was this study about the spike that allows the virus to replicate specific to elderberry. We don’t have that kind of study with blueberries, or cranberries, or blackberries, or raspberries. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t do it. It just means the study isn’t there. Maybe they can do it, I don’t know. But I actually don’t need to know because we know some other things about these berries. All of the berries reduce inflammation and have a lot of other sort of beneficial actions that would be relevant to a person who is having a viral infection. Especially now that we know that at least some viruses are doing significant damage to the endothelial lining throughout the body. And they’re doing damage wherever it is that they are jamming themselves into to replicate themselves. There is inflammatory damage that is happening during a viral infection. Okay, well that’s important. When we think about that aspect of a cold, of a flu, of whatever virus, actually any berry can do the job. And frozen blueberries are way cheaper than elderberries. Frozen blackberries, frozen raspberries, they’re all cheaper. That’s also relevant because if that’s the action that we really want, the dose is kind of high. A squirt of elderberry tincture isn’t really going to give you that action. A whole serving of blueberries or a matching serving size of elderberries would do that job. Because it is literally the color, the pigments inside the berry that creates that purply blue, red color. That is the chemical in the plant that is doing the bulk of the anti-inflammatory action.

Katja (07:46):
So, when you think of it that way you realize okay, well how much color do I need to get into myself to get that action? Oh, like a cup of berries, or two cups of berries, or three cups of berries would be great, right? So, when you start to think about that as part of your grocery list, then ooh, okay. This is now starting to be a large budget. Because two or three cups of elderberries is wicked expensive, right, again unless you can go get them yourself. So, if we’re going to go to the store… I mean you could get fresh berries too, don’t get me wrong. But because I’m thinking of this in terms of a cost-benefit analysis, frozen berries are available all year round and are less expensive. So, let’s go with those. And if we’re doing it, if we’re thinking about blueberries, I would rather have the wild blueberries that are smaller. There are a couple different brands, but there’s one that starts with a W, like Wyman’s or something like that, that is the most common brand that I see in the grocery store. You could get the big, plump blueberries, and that’s not bad. But if you get those little blueberries, the wild ones, they’re actually higher in that antioxidant activity. So, that would actually be my first choice. But maybe you don’t like blueberries, or maybe you just want something different. Frozen raspberries are great. Frozen blackberries are great. Cranberries are great. Yes, they’re super sour. But you can put a little honey in, and then they actually have a really pleasant taste.

Katja (09:23):
And so okay, how would you work with frozen blueberries if you had a bunch of people coming down with the flu around you, right? I would just eat a lot of them in whatever manner you can get them into yourself. So, if you like yogurt and granola for breakfast, toss a ton of frozen blueberries on top. Or if you normally have a smoothie, then have your smoothie with lots and lots of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, whichever ones. Or if you are a pancake kind of person, okay, but put a ton of blueberries on top, right? Because that way you’re getting that antioxidant action. In fact anytime that you’re going to have a sugary breakfast, put blueberries on top, raspberries, any of the berries on top. Because any of the sugar inflammatory action you’re going to help offset with the berry anti-inflammatory action, right? So, kind of recognizing that there’s two parts to elderberry – oh, there’s probably more than that, but there’s two that I’m focusing on right now – that get you benefits when you have a cold, a flu, a viral infection. And one part we know it exists in a Petri dish, and we’re not exactly certain how it works inside the body. But the other part we know that all berries can do and some berries are less expensive than others. So, that’s my first thinking is if you are on a budget, and you want those benefits, get the frozen berries instead.

Broader Action Through Steams & Mucous Membrane Support

Katja (11:09):
All right. But while we’re here, let’s talk about a few other things that go along with your elderberry syrup or any other frozen berry because it’s not a full spectrum solution. Elderberry syrup is helpful for some parts of being sick, but it is not going to do the full job by itself. So, when you think oh no, people around me are sick. I better take elderberry syrup. You can’t stop there. You need some more stuff so that you get a broader spectrum of action. And so my first favorite thing is a steam. And usually we say thyme steam, but it could be oregano, it could be sage, it could be lavender, rosemary. If you are feeling really sensitive in the mucous membranes – like they’re already hot and irritated – then it could be a chamomile steam. It could be yarrow if you have a bunch of that. Monarda is another really good one, any of your really smelly mint family plants. Yarrow is not a mint family plant, but it is really smelly that way. You could even do it with mugwort if you had a really good smelly batch of mugwort. Why do I keep saying smelly? It’s because the smelly part of a plant is the volatile oils, and those volatile oils are carried on the steam. And when you breathe them in, they have antimicrobial action, but they only have it on contact. So, this is not necessarily something that you can drink as tea, and have it run around your bloodstream, and just magically find your lungs. You have to get it to the lungs because it’s only going to work on contact. Okay, That’s why we love a steam so much. Because you breathe it in along the exact same pathway that the pathogen got into you to begin with. And this is also not a total solution, but it is reducing some of the pathogenic load. And in this case it’s indiscriminate: viruses, bacteria, whatever. So, whatever you can reduce with this antimicrobial action, that’s work that your body doesn’t have to do with the immune system.

Katja (13:35):
Okay. What else can we do? One of the key factors in your ability to fight off exposure to a pathogen is your mucous membranes. Basically, do you remember? Are you old enough to remember Nickelodeon? Which was a channel for kids and had all different kinds of kids programming. And there was this game show where when the kids lost, they would dump green slime on them from the ceiling, right? And then the kid was covered in it. It wasn’t just water, it was slime. It kind of stuck to them, and was viscous, and whatever. And it absolutely made you think of snot. And I think they were definitely going for that as well. Well, that’s what you should think about. All of our openings have mucous membranes, and they have some snot. Okay, in our ears we call it earwax instead of calling it snot, but okay. And that mucusy stuff protects you because it is slimy. It is kind of thick and hard to move in. And so when a pathogen, a virus or bacteria is in the air and you breathe it in, it’s not in you yet. It has to get through that mucous membrane to actually start infecting you. And if your mucous membrane is strong and healthy, that is not a guarantee. It’s not a hundred percent that you won’t get sick. Because some germs are just strong enough to get through even a healthy mucous membrane. So, it’s important to recognize that. But the harder you make it for those germs to get into you, the fewer of them will succeed and the less bad your infection will be, right? So, we want to make sure that the mucous membranes are strong.

Katja (15:39):
This is the barrier function of the immune system. It’s part of our innate immune system. So, before you even start thinking about creating antibodies, your body’s already protecting you through various mechanisms. And one of them is the mucous membrane. So, how do we support mucus membrane health? Well, first off, in the cold and flu time of the year, that’s usually when we start turning the heat on in our homes. And that means drying out your house. Which means that you’re breathing in dry air, and that’s drying out your mucous membranes. So, one simple not even herbal solution is humidifiers. Humidifiers can help raise the humidity in the air that you’re breathing so that the air is not drying you out as you breathe it. Now with a humidifier you do want to take a little precaution. Because if you have the cool mist kind of humidifier where they have that plate that kind of vibrates, and it turns the water into tiny little particles, and blows them out. If you have that kind of humidifier, which is the most common kind, then if there are minerals in the water, those also get spit into the air. And they come down as white dust, and you’ll get this fine white dust all over your stuff. And you might be like why is there white dust next to my humidifier or all over the bookshelves whenever I run the humidifier? It’s because of the minerals in the water. So, filtering your water before you put it in the humidifier is a really good idea.

Katja (17:30):
And we just use a Zero filter, which kind of looks like a Brita, but it has a better filter. And it gets out all the minerals and everything else. That means that you probably don’t want to drink the water because now it has everything stripped out of it. On the other hand, if your water wasn’t safe for drinking, this would make it safe. And you can always add minerals back in later like magnesium and all the good stuff. But when you take it out of the water before you put the water in the humidifier, then you reduce the dusty particulate in the air. And dusty particulate also dries out your mucous membranes. Okay. So humidifiers, great idea. But then also there’s a lot of stuff that we can do in our own body to help create moisture environments to sustain the mucous membranes. And marshmallow root, slippery elm, especially when it is a different elm species like Siberian elm that doesn’t have as much environmental pressure on it as slippery elm does. But even linden, any of those muousy mucilaginous herbs where when you make them in cool water, they get a little slimy, a little thickened. Those really, really are soothing for your mucous membranes and help your body to keep them moist and plump, right? It’s hard to think of your mucous membrane in your nose as being plump because we just think of snot, right? But it is like that. If your mucous membranes are dried out, you may find that your mucus is very thin and drippy, like clear, thin, drippy snot. And then if it’s too thick, then you get that pasty, yellowy-green kind of snot. We want the Goldilocks moist and plump, but staying where it belongs. Not dripping out, not being too thick and pasty, great. So, cold infusions of any of the mucilaginous plants are going to help with that.

Additional Help Through Better Sleep & Food

Katja (19:36):
Now, there’s still more you can do. One thing is get plenty of sleep. I know that’s such a drag. I know it’s not popular. But your immune system does better fighting work when you can direct more resources to it. So, if people around you are getting sick, it’s the perfect time to go to bed early. Cancel some stuff you were going to do, go to bed early, sleep a little late. Really make sure that you’re giving your body time to divert as many resources as possible to your immune system so that you can fight off whatever is going around. And there’s stuff we can do in food too. When you eat sugary things, carby things, processed things, then your body has to do more work cleaning up the mess. Those kinds of foods create inflammation in the body. So okay, they’re also delicious, and it doesn’t mean that you can never have something sugary or something whatever. But if everyone around you is getting sick, that’s the time for more vegetables. That’s the time to say hmm, I’ll save the sugar for next week. Okay, I won’t have wine with dinner tonight. Oh, I won’t have a beer. Oh, I won’t have ice cream. Oh, I’ll get some broth, and I’ll get some vegetables. And I’ll make sure I have enough protein. And this week while everybody’s sick I’ll make sure that I’m eating all the best foods. Anytime I would eat a food that’s really good for me, I would cram all of it into this week, right? So, that you are giving your body the tools that it needs to do the work it has to do to keep you healthy.

Katja (21:22):
Okay? Even if you do all of those things, you might still get sick. Because the reality is that sometimes germs are stronger than we are. But if you do do all of those things instead of just take a little elderberry syrup, you have so much of a better chance of not getting sick, of getting less sick than you would have gotten, and getting over it faster. That it’s really worth doing the sort of whole complement of all the stuff, not just the elderberry. So, the next time that you are thinking about cold and flu stuff and thinking oh, I should really be getting ready for cold and flu. I better get some elderberry syrup. Well first ask yourself if elderberry syrup is expensive, then could you go with other berries instead? And what are you going to do to support the work that elderberry is doing so that you can create a broad spectrum of support for your body, for your immune system, against whatever bugs are going around?

Katja (22:30):
All right, well that is my little rant about elderberry syrup. And don’t get me wrong, I love elderberry syrup. And I do have a few elderberry bushes that are young. They’re not very big. So, I only really get a couple cups of elderberry right now. But I do turn that into elderberry syrup. It’s true. It won’t last very long, but it’s still nice to have it. But if you spread out your eggs across all these baskets, then it’s more cost-effective and more immune-effective as well. So, now is when I should tell you about our Cold & Flu course. If you have not yet gotten the Cold & Flu course, remember I made y’all a coupon code so that you can get this course for only 20 bucks. It has all of our cold and flu strategies in it. The coupon code is FALL2025, all one word, FALL2025. And you should do it. You should do it for yourself, you should do it for your family. And it gives you a broad, comprehensive system to help support your immune health and keep you going as best as possible all the way through cold and flu and everything season. So, again, that code is FALL2025, and you will find it at online.commonwealthherbs.com. All right. Well, this is the part of the podcast where Ryn would say take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea. And get some berries that aren’t elderberries because those are helpful for you too. Bye-Bye.