Dr & Herbs

[Undodog]

Whats with all these 'Dr & Herbs' Chinese Herbalist shops popping up all over the UK?
There's suddenly two (that I know of) in Manchester alone and the one in the Trafford Centre is double the size of those shops around it.
I thought there was a recent crack-down on this sort of thing.
Whats going on?

 

[Groo]

Must be a conspiracy of some sort. I think you are being followed too... You'd better check.

 

[Rolfe]

I saw one in Sussex at the weekend. Fairly screamed "quack". Acupuncture, reflexology, you name it. Looked like a new shop, too.

Rolfe.

 

[Suezoled]

Just go in complaining about pain in your neck and butt. Explain the further away you are from a cure-all store like this, the better you feel, but when you atually see one, the pain shoots right up.

 

[cbish]

I would guess they are popping up all over because they can make money.

They are taking advantage of the idealisitic segment of the population that sbuscribe to the idea that "science can't know everything" and that there is a mysticism to food, medicine, & life that we'll never understand. Oriental treatments are very romantic to these people.

 

[Undodog]

http://www.chinese-remedy.com/

Q. What is the main difference between Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine?
A. Chinese Medicine is more likely to treat the causes of the illness than Western medicine and it is safer than Western medicine.

Theres only one way to settle this... FIGHT!!!!

 

[Craig]

There was one here that opened in a new shopping centre (it was amongst the first "batch" of shops that filled it). It didn't last for very long, however, which isn't a bad sign.

 

[DVFinn]

Theres only one way to settle this... FIGHT!!!!

Or just wait until natural selection weeds out the gullible. Only problem is they tend to cause a lot of collateral damage.

 

[Suezoled]

http://www.chinese-remedy.com/

Q. What is the main difference between Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine?
A. Chinese Medicine is more likely to treat the causes of the illness than Western medicine and it is safer than Western medicine.

Theres only one way to settle this... FIGHT!!!!

Yeah... that's why there's a big demand for Western medicine, Western doctors, etc in Asia, and there's a (supposed) shortage of it in China. I doubt it's Western romanticism working, either.

 

[arcticpenguin]

Or just wait until natural selection weeds out the gullible. Only problem is they tend to cause a lot of collateral damage.

"Won't someone think of the children?"

 

[materia3]

is it about time? or not? or is this some big rip off? So what if this stuff cured 97% of every malaria sufferer in Viet Nam in 1965. It'sstill anecdotal. Meaningless drivel. Where's the proof?


"Herbal Drug Is Embraced in Treating Malaria
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Published: May 10, 2004-NY Times (link below)


"After years of hesitation, world health agencies are racing to acquire 100 million doses of a Chinese herbal drug that has proved strikingly effective against malaria, one of the leading killers of the poor.

"The drug, artemisinin (pronounced are-TEM-is-in-in), is a compound based on qinghaosu, or sweet wormwood. First isolated in 1965 by Chinese military researchers, it cut the death rate by 97 percent in a malaria epidemic in Vietnam in the early 1990's. .(...truncated)"

From today’s NY Times OnLine at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/10/health/10MALA.html?th

The full article can be read at the website.

 

[Dragon]

Artemisinsin is not woo-woo.
My son caught malaria in Zambia in 2002 and was given it (as well as i/v antibiotics).
Of course we looked it up when he got back. IIRC it had been shown to be effective in single-blinded trials especially against quinine-resistant strains of malaria and as it's cheap to produce was being used widely in the third world.

A link.

 

[geni]

That one herb thats passed now lets see the other 9000 odd pass. Oh and if those herbs are having pharmicalogcal effects then why on earth are we alowing people without proper training in diagnosis and all the other things doctors learn perscribe them.

 

[Pantastic]

Aspirin from Willow bark. Digitalis from Foxgloves. Penicillin from mould. Porcine and bovine insulin. Morphine from opium poppies. Heck even blood transfusions. Need I go on?
Western medicine has no objection of any kind to using naturally derived substances to cure disease. The difference between it and much of Chinese medicine, is that western medicine has been shown to be effective in properly conducted trials. It has no 'philosophy' to defend, it tests and evaluates treatments, and if they work, they are made available.

Most people who embrace herbal remedies fail to realise that western medicine is based on plants.

----------------------------------------
Q. What is the main difference between Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine?
A. Chinese Medicine is more likely to treat the causes of the illness than Western medicine and it is safer than Western medicine.
----------------------------------------

That answer is a flat out insult based on ignorance.

 

[Hellbound]

Another point with any type of herbal rememdy.

There is a reason that western medicine finds the active ingredients from the various plants/animals, isolates them, and then processes or synthesizes them. Taking the remedies in herbal form provides a grossly inadequate dosage control, as well as introducing many other elements of the material that can cause additional side effects, complications, or act as allergens. By isolating and processing/sysnthesizing the active ingredient you can get a precisely measured dosage (dosage in plants can vary from almost half to five times the amount of active ingredient in the same amount of plant material) and remove any impurities.

This is in addition to the points others have brought up about testing, studies, etc.