Apparently my capacity to add further comments to the "Science-based medicine" blog have been disabled (so much for rational debate!), and so I post his/her comments, followed by mine:
You are confusing “having nutritional value” with “used as food.” I never said herbs were not used as food or in food, just that when they are taken as medicinals the doses used have negligible nutrition, but do contain possible biologically active doses of drugs. (Incidentally, it is also possible to use herbs to add flavor to food while still adding negligible nutritional value.)
Also - using as a food and taking as a drug are not mutually exclusive, as you suggest. Many people drink coffee as a beverage, but they are definitely dosing themselves with caffeine, which is unquestionably a drug.
The real and only question is - what is causing a potential biological response? Is it calories, vitamins, minerals, and building blocks (food), or is it chemicals that have pharmacological activity (drugs)?
I also never said that medicinal plants are not potentially useful or are without effects or benefits. I simply think they need to be properly studied and regulated.
Your argument that herbs are food because they are regulated as foods in some countries is not valid. It is based upon the false assumption that regulations must be rational or science-based - often they are not. Scientific conclusions are not based upon existing regulations - regulations should be based upon scientific conclusions, but often are not.
In fact, one of the points of my article is that plant-based medicinals should be regulated as drugs and not as food or even supplements. However, the question of regulation is a complex one and was not the primary focus of my article, so I did not explore all of the nuances of this topic."
and my comments:
You clearly know little of the actual practice of herbal medicine, let alone the volumes of academic literature on the subject. The fact of the matter is that herbs transcend the narrow definitions of food or drug. A good example are the many medicinal food recipes used in both Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, for example, to add to the functionality of foods such as broths. For example, in China, people have for thousands of years fortified soups with the use of medicinal herbs, such as Angelica sinensis, Lycium barbatum, Astragalus membranaceus, Panax ginseng and Paeonia lactiflora. These herbs are usually added in quantities that _far_ surpass the typical recommended dosage on dietary supplements sold in the USA.
Your argument that herbs do not add to the nutrient value was already addressed in my earlier post, which you seem to completely miss. What is a "nutrient"? Only a carb, protein or fat? Of course not, because you would be excluding vitamins, minerals and an entire host of accessory nutrients, many of which are being discovered as we speak. Even Wikipedia seems to know this differences: en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Nutrient. Thus your "nutrient" argument is false. Herbs contains nutrients and these nutrients support human metabolism.
To clarify, I have not said that herbs are necessarily food (although I have provided several examples already), but neither are they drugs, or at least "drugs" in the sense of being highly purified chemical extractives that have a very small therapeutic window, and hence, have a much greater capacity to cause adverse effects. If you survey the literature, you will find that the adverse effects attributed to the vast majority of herbs are comparable to foods, and nowhere close to drugs.
Herbal constituents are not drugs until removed from their biochemical milieu, isolated and purified many, many times beyond their natural occurrence. A select few "special" herbs such as cannabis, coffee, coca and the tropane alkaloid-containing nightshades (e.g. Hyocyamus) contain chemicals that exert drug-like properties, but all of these herbs in their own way, at some point in human history, have been added to or used as foods. However, it is important to note that the vast majority of herbs do not contain constituents that exert these "drug-like" properties - you cannot rationally tarnish the entire spectrum of herbal medicines because a few at the most extreme end of the spectrum have drug-like properties. To do so is irrational.
As such, while you lay claim to rationality, it is easy to see that your argument is NOT rational: it is based on a belief, a belief that "herbs are drugs". While you accuse others of creating a false dichotomy, in reality, it is you who does so by refusing to see the subtlety and nuance that can only come with a greater level of sophistication than you are clearly able to bring to the subject.
Once again, please do yourself a favor and gather a little more data and _experience_ before you feel yourself capable of pronouncing such silly judgments. If not for the herbs, at least for science itself. I worry when people like you who lack basic knowledge on the subject call for "regulation" (even when sound regulatory models exist, such as in Canada). In real terms, what you (perhaps unwittingly) propose is simply an affront to individual liberty, creating a tempest in teapot where none exists, with the only people to benefit being big pharma, who we all know would love to see herbs classified as drugs if not to enhance their own revenue, at the least, to do away with the competition.
