New antiquack blog

[vaidya]

That makes no sense. The quote you are attacking didn't say herbs aren't treated as food, it said they are pharmaceuticals . Of course something can be used as food and contain pharmaceuticals.

please read all my comments
the author of the blog stated that "herbs are drugs"

since this is the primary argument upon which the post was based, all of my arguments center around this point

 

[vaidya]

Because Dr. Novella has already responded appropriately and because I do not think it is productive to enter a debate with someone who has already shown that he has misunderstood Dr. Novella's arguments and who has made up his mind that Dr. Novella and I are not informed.

did or did not novella state that "herbs are drugs"?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Nope. It is disinformation by uniformed people that needs to be corrected. Herbs are NOT drugs. Period.

Why? Because they are "Natural"?

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.

And what have "Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine" ever cured?

Millions of children (and adults) have died of cholera throughout history while been treated by having feathers burned under their noses, drinking flavourful (or not) broths, being smeared with chicken blood and cow dung, being forced to ingest poisons (including lead and mercury), bled, and prayers to 10,000 gods.

Today cholera (and other patients of servere diarrhea) can survive and revive due to the nasty, nasty "allopathic" -- really Evidence Based -- medicine called ORT. You know what ORT is? It is a solution of salt (not a drug) and salt (not a herb) in water.

Come back when you can show any herb cures anything.

 

[The SkepDoc]

did or did not novella state that "herbs are drugs"?

Yes, and he explained what he meant and you failed to understand his points.

 

[vaidya]

Why? Because they are "Natural"?



And what have "Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine" ever cured?

Millions of children (and adults) have died of cholera throughout history while been treated by having feathers burned under their noses, drinking flavourful (or not) broths, being smeared with chicken blood and cow dung, being forced to ingest poisons (including lead and mercury), bled, and prayers to 10,000 gods.

Today cholera (and other patients of servere diarrhea) can survive and revive due to the nasty, nasty "allopathic" -- really Evidence Based -- medicine called ORT. You know what ORT is? It is a solution of salt (not a drug) and salt (not a herb) in water.

Come back when you can show any herb cures anything.

oh my gawrsh - finally the appearance of an armchair skeptic that apparently lacks the basic skill set to put together a viable search string on PubMed

i won't do the work for you pal, but i got over 44,000 citations in about 2 seconds that refer to the use of herbal medicine

but just so we are clear, as practicing medical herbalist i don't think i have ever used cow dung or chicken blood, and i don't see why i should have to either just to make you feel better

but when i have the capacity to post urls, i will send you some links that examines so of these strange remedies, and why in India and Egypt animal dung is occasionally used as medicine

as for salt water being an ORT clearly you aren't familiar with morbidity/mortality associated with hypernatremia

one recent "breakthrough" ORT for cholera and infantile diarrhea is a rice-starch based preparation that has been used in India for thousands of years

the ironic thing, is that the WHO had a policy for years of encouraging people to use its formula that tended to promote hypernatremia instead of the traditional rice broths

now, the research has come full circle, and rice starch is seen to be a more effective and safer approach than the conventional ORT, and because you must _boil_ the rice, the water has zero chance of being contaminated

in ayurveda, rice-starch broths called kanji or peya are often prepared with herbs that have antimicrobial and antispasmodic effects in the gut, such as Zingiber officinalis and Piper nigrum, as well as mineral salts such a pink/himalayan rock salt (rather than the pure NaCl which is more likely to interfere with mineral metabolism)

see gord_in_toronto - was it that difficult to have your eyes opened, even just a little wee bit?

 

[vaidya]

Yes, and he explained what he meant and you failed to understand his points.

no he didn't - he's just running scared (or ignorant, or both), and because you have failed to posit any argument in his/her defense, you are apparently as well

 

[vaidya]

Because Dr. Novella has already responded appropriately and because I do not think it is productive to enter a debate with someone who has already shown that he has misunderstood Dr. Novella's arguments and who has made up his mind that Dr. Novella and I are not informed.

then stay out of the debate
what's the point of coming on to say nothing?

 

[JJM]

{snip}
i won't do the work for you pal,

This is becoming a common refrain among AltMed proponents: "The information is available, I have found it, now you must find it." A problem is, that if I address an article that you are not considering, you can say I am out-of-line. You must defend your own assertions with your own citations. Otherwise, there can be no useful discussion.

but i got over 44,000 citations in about 2 seconds that refer to the use of herbal medicine
{snip}

You have, previously, made a similar assertion. However, one needs the perspicacity to evaluate those citations.

Herbalists make thousands of assertions that, despite their claims, are not supported by clinical research. I cannot prove that no good, clinical data exists; but, if your counterclaim is that good data does exist- show us. Cite the articles you find convincing, we are not psychics and cannot figure out what you think they are.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

oh my gawrsh - finally the appearance of an armchair skeptic that apparently lacks the basic skill set to put together a viable search string on PubMed

i won't do the work for you pal, but i got over 44,000 citations in about 2 seconds that refer to the use of herbal medicine

And how many are positive?

but just so we are clear, as practicing medical herbalist i don't think i have ever used cow dung or chicken blood, and i don't see why i should have to either just to make you feel better

Why not? They have been used just as long as Natural Herbs -- so they must work. Why don't you take up homeopathy -- it rarely poisons anyone?

but when i have the capacity to post urls, i will send you some links that examines so of these strange remedies, and why in India and Egypt animal dung is occasionally used as medicine

I thought you were against dung?

I get 59,031 journal articles in the PubMed database for "dung". See I did the work for you.

as for salt water being an ORT clearly you aren't familiar with morbidity/mortality associated with hypernatremia

No, just just the extra lives saved by real medicine.

one recent "breakthrough" ORT for cholera and infantile diarrhea is a rice-starch based preparation that has been used in India for thousands of years

Is that rice the food or rice the herb?

the ironic thing, is that the WHO had a policy for years of encouraging people to use its formula that tended to promote hypernatremia instead of the traditional rice broths

And the children that were dieing before the WHO got involved? That was whoes fault?

now, the research has come full circle, and rice starch is seen to be a more effective and safer approach than the conventional ORT, and because you must _boil_ the rice, the water has zero chance of being contaminated

And how do we know it is safer and more effective? We know because it has been tested in double blind testing.

in ayurveda, rice-starch broths called kanji or peya are often prepared with herbs that have antimicrobial and antispasmodic effects in the gut, such as Zingiber officinalis and Piper nigrum, as well as mineral salts such a pink/himalayan rock salt (rather than the pure NaCl which is more likely to interfere with mineral metabolism)

So that's why children never died in India? 500,000 estimated cholera deaths in 1885.

see gord_in_toronto - was it that difficult to have your eyes opened, even just a little wee bit?

Tell me how herbs cured smallpox.

If you think you can cure warts with an onion, sobeit. If you think you can cure a real disease any better with a herb rather than real medicine, you are most likely deluded.

 

[vaidya]

This is becoming a common refrain among AltMed proponents: "The information is available, I have found it, now you must find it." A problem is, that if I address an article that you are not considering, you can say I am out-of-line. You must defend your own assertions with your own citations. Otherwise, there can be no useful discussion.

This wasn't a thread to discuss the benefits or lack thereof of herbal medicine. It was a critique of the supposedly "science-based" medicine blog. Do you guys not know how to use PubMed? Its an exceptionally easy tool to use. Given that I cannot post urls yet, you will have to adapt the following link:

www(dot)ncbi(dot)nlm(dot)nih(dot)gov/sites/entrez

I typed in the search string "herbal OR herb" and limited the search to human clinical trials, meta-analyses and randomized trials and came up with 1987 citations. Do I really need to list all 1987 citations? Note that we would get many more citations by expanding the general search terms, such as "chinese medicine", "ayurveda", "phytotherapy", "botanical medicine" etc etc. If we add these search terms we get 3179 human clinical trials. By searching with different terms we can get more and different citations.

For interests sake, choose a particular herb with the same limits above, such as Curcuma longa, Zingiber officinalis, and Panax ginseng. For each of these I got 19, 17, 117 citations on human clinical trials respectively, and these are just their Latin binomials, not other synonyms such as common names (i.e. for Curcuma longa: tumeric, haridra, haldi, jiang huang, huang jiang, zard-chobah, manjal, etc etc)

You might also want to know that despite their being an enormous amount of literature on herbal medicine, the field of research is limited by its funding source. Since herbs cannot be patented there is little incentive for anyone with money to invest in research. But this changing, slowly.

If you cannot use PubMed or choose not to, I can provide a couple links that will help inform. Once again, please excuse my posting limitations:

www(dot)herbalscienceresearch(dot)com/pubmed/abstracts
www(dot)herbs(dot)org
abc(dot)herbalgram(dot)org/site/PageServer
www(dot)herbal-ahp(dot)org
www(dot)ahpa(dot)org

This is just a small sample of the information that is out there. If you peruse you local university library, you will find an extensive section on medical herbal medicine, including therapeutics. My own publisher, Elsevier, is one of the largest scientific and medical publishers in the world. Other similar texts have also been published, such as Mills and Bone's "Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy" (Churchill-Livingstone).

Herbalists make thousands of assertions that, despite their claims, are not supported by clinical research. I cannot prove that no good, clinical data exists; but, if your counterclaim is that good data does exist- show us. Cite the articles you find convincing, we are not psychics and cannot figure out what you think they are.

Come now: do the research, check out the sites, and get back to me if you have more questions.

 

[The SkepDoc]

Dr. Steven Novella has asked me to pass this on since he is not yet registered on the JREF forums. "Please point out that no one is banned from the comments on the science based medicine blog. Her follow up comment was flagged as SPAM (she should repost it). I am working on de-spamming, but that function is not working at the moment."

 

[JJM]

This wasn't a thread to discuss the benefits or lack thereof of herbal medicine. It was a critique of the supposedly "science-based" medicine blog.

In that case, your argument failed; move on and start your own herbal thread.

Do you guys not know how to use PubMed?

Do you know many of us teach how to use PubMed? It is easy to learn, not so easy to use in that it requires medical expertise to evaluate the results that come back.

{snip}
You might also want to know that despite their being an enormous amount of literature on herbal medicine, the field of research is limited by its funding source. Since herbs cannot be patented there is little incentive for anyone with money to invest in research. But this changing, slowly.

You contradict yourself: "an enormous amount of literature" vs. "research is limited by" ... The real problem is that the enormous amount of "research" is of the most inferior quality- it is useless. And the highest quality research rarely supports herbalists' claims. The real problem with funding for research into herbs is that, despite the fact that the USA has a center dedicated to funding stupid research (NCCAM), herbalists mostly cannot write competitive grant proposals.

{snip} I can provide a couple links that will help inform. {snip}

Yes, we know there are many, ill-informed fan-sites.

{snip} Come now: do the research, check out the sites, and get back to me if you have more questions.

I have done the research; which is why I am confidant in saying that you cannot support the vast majority of herbalist claims. Come now: do the research; and cite adequate support for your herbal claims.

 

[JJM]

Dr. Steven Novella has asked me to pass this on since he is not yet registered on the JREF forums. "Please point out that no one is banned from the comments on the science based medicine blog. Her follow up comment was flagged as SPAM (she should repost it). I am working on de-spamming, but that function is not working at the moment."

Yes, and may I add that one of my comments was "held for review" before it posted. Delay is not the same as denial.

 

[vaidya]

And how many are positive?

Many. Just look at a simple herb such as garlic. Clinical and epidemiological research in China has shown that this herb dramatically reduces this risk of several types of cancer.

I suggest you do some _reading_ there gord_in_toronto, and stop firing back replies until YOU come up with some evidence to the contrary. Herbal medicine has been with humanity since the dawn of our evolution as homo sapiens. As such, the onus is on you to disprove its benefits, not the other way around. Otherwise you are and will remain an armchair skeptic.

I thought you were against dung?

no, its you that apparently has the poo-prejudice
you brought it up after all

i am simply telling you that i don't use it nor feel compelled to use it, and that your characterization of herbalists as necessarily using poo as a kinf medicinal agent is simply wrong

however, in places like India where cows are sacred, cow dung is an important commodity, as a fuel, and also in construction (if you have never walked on a floor manufactured from cow dung then you have missed out - nonsmelling, aseptic, and feels like cork)

some people also use it topically there, for example in the treatment of vitiligo - in this case the pigments in the dung actually stain the skin with repeated use, given the skin a more normalized appearance

i am not saying i advocate its use or otherwise - nonetheless, cow dung is not a herb it is off topic

I get 59,031 journal articles in the PubMed database for "dung". See I did the work for you.

this is meaningless because there is no context - dung isn't recognized in any of these citations as a therapy, whereas "herbs" usually are

you have to read the citations gord_in_toronto

Is that rice the food or rice the herb?

rice the herb and food, but NOT drug

And the children that were dieing before the WHO got involved? That was whoes fault?

It was urbanization caused by European colonialism, which has been similarly replicated all over the world. White power and their lust for money and greed. Our ancestors.

If you have done any research, you would know that India had the first flushing toilets and garbage collection in the world in the ancient city states of Harappa and Moenjodharo (c. 3000 BCE), thousands of years before Europeans dropped like flies during the plague.

So that's why children never died in India? 500,000 estimated cholera deaths in 1885.

Yep, at the height of British Colonialism.

If you think you can cure warts with an onion, sobeit. If you think you can cure a real disease any better with a herb rather than real medicine, you are most likely deluded.

yep, i am deluded. or maybe you are just ignorant and uniformed
here is a recent email from a glaucoma patient:

Hi XXXXX,

Good news! I just had my eye doctor appointment to measure my IOP (Inter
Ocular Pressure) and it has dropped down into the normal range (19 in each
eye). Whether it was losing 14 lbs, taking the Forskolin Extract and the
herbal tincture and the supplements, or all of the above, it worked. So it's
possible to do it without drugs.

IOP (normal range is 7-22):

Here's my IOP readings:

July 8/05 - 20 R eye, 22 L eye
Sept 13/05 - 26 R eye, 27 L eye (NOTE: taken right after Visual Field Test)
Mar. 27/07: 22 R eye, 23 L eye
May 1, 2007 - 26 in both eyes (NOTE: taken right after Visual Field Test)
Oct. 2, 2007 - 19 in both eyes, after use of supplements, herbal
tincture, losing 14 lbs and exercising 2x week.

As well, the skin condition I had for almost a year is now completely
cleared up."

 

[vaidya]

I have done the research; which is why I am confidant in saying that you cannot support the vast majority of herbalist claims. Come now: do the research; and cite adequate support for your herbal claims.

[/QUOTE]

you HAVE NOT done the research, clearly
you only think you have, but really its just abbreviated, editorialization of the evidence, not actual research

there is no way you could have thoroughly reviewed the sites i posted in the last hour or so since i posted them

your comments are the best illustration of the self-imposed ignorance of supposedly rational-minded skeptics

 

[JJM]

{snip} there is no way you could have thoroughly reviewed the sites i posted in the last hour or so since i posted them {snip}

I assure you I have reviewed all the data. Or, can you point out something you think I missed?

 

[vaidya]

In that case, your argument failed; move on and start your own herbal thread.

Do you know many of us teach how to use PubMed? It is easy to learn, not so easy to use in that it requires medical expertise to evaluate the results that come back.

You contradict yourself: "an enormous amount of literature" vs. "research is limited by" ... The real problem is that the enormous amount of "research" is of the most inferior quality- it is useless. And the highest quality research rarely supports herbalists' claims. The real problem with funding for research into herbs is that, despite the fact that the USA has a center dedicated to funding stupid research (NCCAM), herbalists mostly cannot write competitive grant proposals.

There is no contradiction - would you not agree that lake superior is both enormous and limited? There is A LOT of evidence but there ALWAYS could be more. I am speaking to the reality of the situation, which is a lot more nuanced than you can apparently grasp.

The problem with the research model is that herbal practice doesn't conform well to the double-blind placebo controlled trial, as was evidenced by the the report from a recent glaucoma patient that I posted. As a practitioner, I could give a crap, as long as my patient is better, both objectively and subjectively. CAM practitioners are doing a lot more than trying to find a magic bullet solution, or tickle one particular receptor site (as if the meds even do this LOL!!) - this is the basis of the "holistic" paradigm.

If you want more information regarding the problems of developing adequate research models for CAM, I suggest your contact Dr. Marja Verhoef at the Canadian Interdisciplinary Network for CAM Research in Calgary AB. I won't waste any more time trying to debate with closed minded people such as yourself.

 

[vaidya]

I assure you I have reviewed all the data. Or, can you point out something you think I missed?

you did not! you are laughable transparent
the few sites i forwarded would take days to go through in detail

but i will give you another, for fun:

www(dot)herbological(dot)com/herblog

 

[vaidya]

you did not! you are laughable transparent
the few sites i forwarded would take days to go through in detail

but i will give you another, for fun:

www(dot)herbological(dot)com/herblog

this is all besides the point that the original thread was the "science-based" blog itself, not the legitimacy of herbal medicine

i would like to know what kind of training any of you skeptics have to apparently cast an informed opinion against herbal medicine? what is your training? how are you qualified, both academically and clinically?

as far as i go, i went to school for 4 years and then did an internship in india. i also spent 10 years in education, developing core curriculum for a clinical program and supervising practicum. i have been published in scholarly journals and have written a textbook. i have several thousand hours of clinical experience, all over the world, and have worked with a broad range of conditions

c'mon skeptics - what is your _experience_ with herbal medicine? so far, not a single poster here or on the blog has any convincing knowledge, just meaningless opinion

as i side, given the empirical history of herbal medicine, which comprises billions of hours of clinical evidence, the onus is on you to disprove its efficacy - not the other way around

 

[JJM]

you did not! you are laughable transparent
the few sites i forwarded would take days to go through in detail{snip}

You assume, incorrectly, that this would be my introduction to herbal "therapy," it is not.