Herbal medicines and stuff

[Stereolab]

Can someone please tell me if there are any herbal remedies that actually help anything at all?

I've become pretty skeptical over the years...with everything I've read in Mr. Randi's commentaries, and all these emails promising to enlarge my manhood with their special herbal formulas, and all that.

But I was talking to a nurse recently, and she was going on and on about how herbs work so well for all kinds of things, but doctors don't "prescribe" them, since they're in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, and they can't patent an herb, etc. etc...

Which herbal medicines (if any) have been proven to work? And which have any of you had positive experiences with?

 

[teddygrahams]

Why didn't you ask the nurse for a list when you had the chance ?

 

[geni]

I have no personal experance of herbal medicine but it is worth noteing that many of our drugs come from plants in the first place. However once the chemical responsible has been identified it is far better to use it in isolstion as it makes it easiser to control the dose and to elimate any effects the other chemicals in the herb may be having.

 

[BillyJoe]

I thought echinacea was one of the few herbs that was supposed to have evidence of eficacy but this week the following appeared in my email from my friend Bob Park....

ECHINACEA: IT FLUNKS AMID INDICATIONS OF A BAD FLU SEASON.

The most important of all medical discoveries is not antibiotics, or immunization; it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we find out what works and what doesn't. Among the many alternative therapies, herbal medications would seem to be the most promising. Until about 50 years ago, pharmacology depended almost entirely on the empiricism of the herbalist. Angiosperms in particular, contain bio-active chemicals in their leaves, bark and flowers. The task has been to identify the active substance, purify it, synthesize it, and then test it. Herbal therapists, however, believe this process weakens the effect.

Echinacea is the most popular herbal for colds and flu, with annual sales of more than $300M. But in a study at the University of Washington, funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Echinacea extract was no more effective than a placebo.

Some scientists regard herbs as simply dilute drugs, but so far, controlled studies of herbal therapies have been disappointing.

BillyJoe

 

[Rolfe]

I have no personal experance of herbal medicine but it is worth noteing that many of our drugs come from plants in the first place. However once the chemical responsible has been identified it is far better to use it in isolstion as it makes it easiser to control the dose and to elimate any effects the other chemicals in the herb may be having.

What Geni said.

Although it's still perfectly possible that there may be plants with pharmacoactive properties which have not yet been identified, the pharmaceutical companies are very much on the lookout for these. They even finance expeditions to remote areas looking for new plants which might be in this category. Of course, they want to identify the mechanism of such an effect and hopefully produce a better and safer version for marketing.

I'm pretty certain that they've already had a pretty close look at the "usual suspects" which are peddled by the natural remedies brigade, and if nothing has come of this it's probably because there's nothing there for them to work on.

In any case, I'd be very wary of taking an unregulated herbal medicine. You don't know what you're getting, in Chinese medicine it's apparently OK to substitute a plant which just looks like the one you wanted, and even though the most poisonous ones have been banned, that's no safeguard. A woman in Brighton went into kidney failure after a Chinese herbalist gave her a banned plant. The herbalist was acquitted because she pleaded that she had just taken her supplier's word that the plant was what it was supposed to be.

Trials have shown that herbal products can have widely differing constituents from batch to batch, and as they slide around the medicines regulation by calling themselves "supplements", you don't have any security about what you're getting. It may do you good, it may do nothing, it may do you harm, and nobody is looking out for your interests but yourself.

Take an asprin, not extract of willow. And if there isn't a licensed drug derived from the herb you're interested in, there may be a reason for that.

Rolfe.

 

[Stereolab]

Why didn't you ask the nurse for a list when you had the chance ?

She talked about a few of the herbs, but I didn't really pay attention because she didn't mention anything that would make my thingie bigger.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

She talked about a few of the herbs, but I didn't really pay attention because she didn't mention anything that would make my thingie bigger.

ROFLMAO!! Give me five dude!

Next time let her know you won't listen because she isn't mentioning...

lol

Where does that rather ignorant nurse work? Please tell me, and I will avoid the place like I would avoid the plague.

 

[Stereolab]

At a hospital in Maryland...but if you ever happen to get sick or injured in Maryland, USA, don't worry about it because for the most part the hospital and staff are really quite good.

 

[epepke]

Can someone please tell me if there are any herbal remedies that actually help anything at all?

Coffee works for me.

But I was talking to a nurse recently, and she was going on and on about how herbs work so well for all kinds of things, but doctors don't "prescribe" them, since they're in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, and they can't patent an herb, etc. etc...

I was married to a nurse. Yes, I know, this was stupid. Don't add insult to injury.

The psychology of nurses can be written on a 3 by 5 card:

1. Have sex with docs or cops or, failing that, anyone brutal.
2. Be resentful that you aren't a doc.

That having been said, there are a few instances where nurses have come up with good treatments that were largely ignored, like the one that came up with an effective treatment for polio. But this vanishes in the noise of nurses who believe patently stupid things.

Which herbal medicines (if any) have been proven to work? And which have any of you had positive experiences with?

The problem is that, as soon as an herbal medicine is shown to be effective, people get to work to figure out what is it in the plant product that causes the effect, figure out how to refine it, and make it much better and safer. And then all the herbal medicine touts go "icky poo, that's not Herbal™ any more."

That having been said, there was a certain preparation of yohimbe bark and other stuff I found useful as a general mood elevator, but it doesn't seem to be around any more. Perhaps they were caught putting real antidepressants in it. And there were the Chinese formulations that had benzodiazepines in them. I don't object to that at all; I just want to know what brand, so I can get some.

 

[Badger]

My wife markets herbal products for a particular company.

From what I see, it's all bun, no burger, if you know what I'm saying. They have no studies to support their claims.

There seems to be a big hate-on for pharmacutical companies. [sarcasm] Doctors, and parmaceutical companies are trying to suppress this herbal stuff, don't you know, because they lose money. Of course studies show that herbs don't work. After all, the studies are done by these same doctors, or funded by the pharmaceutical companies, so they'll say whatever they want them to say.[/sarcasm]

Nope, this herbal stuff appears to me to be a big scam. I did manage to convince my wife that penta-water was just distilled water, though.

It may be unethical, but I don't mind so much that fools money is paying for part of my mortgage.

 

[bug_girl]

i would be very cautious about taking any herbs without consulting your doctor. Some have interactions (St. Johns Wort, for example) with antidepressants and some hypertension drugs.

For that matter, if you smoke any "herbs" you should tell your doctor that too--he/she can't turn you in and whatever you smoke is also potentially interactive.

course, if you don't take any prescription drugs, feel free to self medicate

 

[BillyJoe]

Any takes on echinacea?
300M per year and evidence that it's no better than placebo.

BillyJoe
(Sh!t give me jsut 0.3% of this, peopel and I won't need to keep getting me lotto ticket )

 

[uneasy]

Can someone tell me if X works?
I'm really skeptical. Really I am.
Someone stranger once told me about X.
Do you think X is any good?
I'm really skeptical. Really I am.

 

[Zep]

You can try these "herbal non-pharmaceuticals" as they have known active ingredients that really do stuff to you that you can feel:

Tea
Coffee, Gurana
Orange (also the juice of same)
Cannabis sativa (and other varieties)
Mushrooms (all types, results vary)
Senapod
Ipecac
Curare
Belladonna
Poison ivy
Peyote
Fermented grape juice

 

[Rolfe]

.... jsut 0.3% of this, peopel .... )

BillyJoe, are you dropping any hints here?

Rolfe.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Yeesh,

I just read TRiXz's post, and I can't even get half of what is posted for all the spelling mistakes. These people aren't even edumacated enough to write anything articulately, and they expect us to believe they can heal with water? Ugh.

 

[Rolfe]

I just read TRiXz's post, and I can't even get half of what is posted for all the spelling mistakes.

Yeah, but I was actually trying to point to the 4th post on the thread, a single interjection by a poster whose only spelling mistakes are in his assumed name, and who has been mildly suspected as being someone from the JREF forum. The assumed name - jsut peopel.

Look again at the snippet of BillyJoe's post I quoted.

Rolfe.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Shhhhh, don't let the cat outta the bag, lol. I admire anyone who can stick around and read all the nonsense on those boards, and reply without getting booted. Heck, just saying that on some of the woo boards I've stumbled onto has gotten me booted, I was even being nicer too. Yeah, yeah, heavy hints. Okay. I know.


Aieyi yi...for crying out loud...would someone please explain what 'diluted' means to these morons. If you have 2 clumped molecules is 1ml water, then you add another 1ml of water, then take away a ml, the 1ml of water with the clumped molecules is not any more diluted than it first was.


and clumped molecules are a new discovery? WTF? Isn't there such a thing as polar and non-polar or something. Damn, it's been 10 years since I had a real chemistry class. Wouldn't "H2O" be 'clumped' molecules? and maybe even ozone (O3)???

 

[Rolfe]

Shhhhh, don't let the cat outta the bag, lol.

Oh, I've no idea at all who "jsut peopel" is. I was only making a joke when I saw the same spelling in BillyJoe's post.

These forums can be terribly funny when you know who the sock puppets really are. Kumar is posting on one of them as "kayveeh" and on the other as "vijay0507", and reading his totally creduloid beliefs there against his pseudo-questioning posts here is extremely revealing.

Rolfe.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Hmmm, did BillyJoe know the board existed there? It's really funny that the guy is telling people to stop making taxpayers pay for placebo meds and that is also a complaint here somewhere...I think in the "How was your day" thread.