New antiquack blog

[JJM]

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

Haven't we been her before?

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?

You are "grasping at straws." You cannot prove who you are and neither can we. In a sense, that is good because you have to address our arguments as opposed to perceived authority. So far, you have not established that you understand neither the topic nor the argument.

{snip}

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

No, you claim the efficacy of herbs.

There it is- you don't understand "argument."

 

[vaidya]

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

this isn't an introduction, its an internet chat forum
get a couple hundred hours of training under your belt and then you have an introduction

i am talking _real time_ experience, as an scholar, researcher or clinician that devotes a good portion of time to the study of herbs

if you are none of these then you do not have an informed opinion

of course you can can still have an opinion, but you are handily dismissed as an armchair skeptic

if you have your basic biochem i suggest reading "Trease & Evans' Pharmacognosy" (William Charles Evans) or the "Fundamentals of Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy" (Michael Heinrich, Joanne Barnes, Simon Gibbons, and Elizabeth M. Williamson) - straight-forward, science-based knowledge, something you and gord_in_toronto would benefit from

read these, and get back to me

 

[vaidya]

You are "grasping at straws." You cannot prove who you are and neither can we. In a sense, that is good because you have to address our arguments as opposed to perceived authority. So far, you have not established that you understand neither the topic nor the argument

.

you haven't put forward a single argument - just circular opinion

i on the other hand have provided ample evidence that you claim to have read, but clearly you could not have because there is simply too much to go through in too little time

why don't you provide some analysis of the sites that i provided - let's hear your refutation - the onus is on you

 

[JJM]

Yeah, I'll get back to you.

 

[fls]

Take a close hard look at a drug pharmacopeia some time. You will find that for many drugs, the pharmacology is either poorly understood, simplistic or hypothetical. Now, add into this this mix a medical doctor's capacity to prescribe off label. All of this would hardly suggest a strong scientific basis. Often the use of these drugs are based on a prevailing theory that has a questionable basis, for e.g., that depression is caused by a relative serotonin deficiency, or that CVD is caused by high cholesterol. These are scientifically flawed paradigms that persist only because it is financially expedient. This in not good science.

You have neglected to mention the body of science that guides our use of drugs - clinical trials. It is not necessary to have the pharmacology completely worked out in order to observe that there is a beneficial effect. And even the most thoroughly understood drug will not be used if trials show that it does not lead to a useful outcome.

thanks for the correction - what i failed to add is that this does not tell the whole story, since 106,000 deaths relates ONLY to hospitalized patients not given the wrong drug or the wrong dose

as reported by Lazarou (1998), the IOM (2000), and Starfield (2000), if we factor in out-patient deaths we need to add in another 199,000, and then if we want to add in physician error (which seems fair, after all, an argument can be made that most drugs are _inherently_ toxic), we should add in another 98,000 deaths

thus the total damage from drugs alone? 403,000 deaths annually in the United States, which makes it number three - and these are rather old data

I'm almost afraid to correct this, as it seems your errors multiply every time I do.

From the sources you quoted....

The number of outpatient deaths from medications was 1459, not 199,000 (no clue where that number came from). The number you quoted for physician error was for errors of all types, not just medication related. Medication errors represented 19 percent, or 18,620. This puts your total at 126,079 or about 5 percent of all deaths. However, I'd prefer to give you your made up number for this reason - it supports my cause and it supports the blog entry made by Steve Novella. If a highly monitored and regulated system still leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths, why on earth would anyone think that an unregulated, unmonitored system would be safer?

this belief that we need to kill a certain portion of the population to save another is a false argument

It doesn't look like you read the information that I linked to. I encourage you to do so.

i guess it is easy to be so casual with other people's lives when they are reduced to statistics

Actually, this is related to the point that I brought up on the thread about saving someone from the HIV deniers (and is something I've wanted to mention for a while). It is easy to be casual with other people's lives when you are not involved with treating people who are truly ill. Homeopaths, herbalists, acupuncturists (oops, almost spelt that wrong, Rolfe) and the various other practitioners of DIM can afford to be cavalier because they don't usually have access to people who are truly sick and about to die.

In addition to the issue I raised about whether or not a death was truly preventable or whether the cause of death was simply altered, in the post I linked to earlier, the idea that I would stand in front of a patient who was literally dieing before my eyes and deliberately withhold life-saving treatment because of the much smaller risk that saving them would lead to a fatal complication is something that these piddlers in health will never have to face. If you are waiting for an angry mob to gather at your doorway in order to guide your recommendations, the mob that represents "people saved" is much larger than that represented by "people harmed". Who are you going to side with?

Of course we are interested in preventing all deaths, but just because we don't yet have perfect magic pills doesn't mean I'm not going to help those I can in the meantime.

Linda

 

[fls]

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?

Nobody denies that traditional and herbal medicine contains nuggets of useful information. The problem is that we have discovered that it also contains a plethora of useless information. And that the tools used by traditional medicine (careful observation without controls or blinding, extrapolating information without testing, subjective perceptions used to provide clues as to physiologic processes) are incapable of distinguishing between the the useful and the useless. Fortunately, science comes to the rescue. The scientific method happens to be very good at distinguishing between the two. So when the scientific method is applied to traditional knowledge, yes we do occasionally discover that it (traditional medicine) happened upon some useful information. However, it doesn't tell us anything about the rest of what you believe.

The mere existence of citations in PubMed does not help your cause. What you really need to demonstrate is that those citations conform, in some strong and reliable manner, to the information gleaned from traditional use.

Linda

 

[fls]

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

The problem is that your billions of hours are of the type that we already know to be highly unreliable. And we already know that using unreliable information often leads to false conclusions. Does it really make sense to you to assume that something likely to be false, is true until proven otherwise?

Linda

 

[MinorityView]

There is a big division here.

Speaking as someone who has been a patient of "regular" doctors and alternative doctors, for minor problems, say constipation, or a tendency to catch a lot of colds, or occasional insomnia, or many other of the small difficulties to which most of us succumb now and then, the alternative doctors were always much more effective and much less dangerous. Not scientific, but based on a lot of experience, both my own and that of other people I know.

To give one sad example, my mother had a miscarriage and went to the hospital because she was bleeding heavily. She wasn't on the verge of death, but it was probably a good thing that she had a hospital to go to. So score one for conventional medicine. However, after the doctor had dealt with the bleeding, he proceeded to tell her that she had a tumor on her ovary and needed surgery. At first my mother believed him, but then she decided to do a follow up with a second doctor, so she went to a nearby clinic, asked for a pelvic exam to check her condition after a recent miscarriage and then waited for the doctor to tell her about her tumor. Well, alas, it turned out there wasn't a tumor at all. Only, after they told her that her ovaries were fine, she told them about the other doctor. They closed ranks to protect their colleague (this was in the 50s) and rushed her out of the clinic.

What would have happened if she hadn't had the sense to get a second opinion? Unnecessary surgery. And surgery is always dangerous and can and does kill or permanently damage people. Now, I know everyone will say that this is simple malpractice and has nothing to do with the effectiveness of good, regular medicine. But, it does, actually, because medicine, as it is currently practiced, focuses on large interventions. Drugs, surgery, radiation, etc. When needed and appropriate these are not evil. The habitual use of such treatments and the habituation of people to the idea that their health is dependent on doctors and on invasive medicine, makes them extremely vulnerable to unnecessary treatment. How many people do you know, who ask for a second opinion, or turn down a drug because they don't really need it? Do you really think that every single drug prescribed is life saving? How many are due to advertisements, doctor samples, patient willingness to do whatever the doctor suggests, incorrect diagnosis...

Current medicine isn't nearly as good as you all would like to believe, and alternative medicine isn't nearly as bad as you all fantasize.

Cheers!

 

[vaidya]

You have neglected to mention the body of science that guides our use of drugs - clinical trials. It is not necessary to have the pharmacology completely worked out in order to observe that there is a beneficial effect. And even the most thoroughly understood drug will not be used if trials show that it does not lead to a useful outcome.

clinical trials can also be designed and interpreted to yield the answers researchers want, while ignoring or sidelining other "effects", or failing to do accurate comparisons with alternative

while extensive clinical research has been conducted on SSRIs, very little of these trials have compared them against herbal alternatives - however, when they have, the results have been very promising, eg.

Anghelescu IG, Kohnen R, Szegedi A, Klement S, Kieser M.
Comparison of Hypericum extract WS 5570 and paroxetine in ongoing treatment after recovery from an episode of moderate to severe depression: results from a randomized multicenter study.
Pharmacopsychiatry. 2006 Nov;39(6):213-9.


i am not against clinical trials per se, and have demonstrated that there are many clinical trials for botanicals, such as the above, if forum readers would take the time to peruse the sites i mentioned

for e.g., Azadirachta indica is in phase II clinical trials as reversible and male/female contraceptive, with very promising results



I'm almost afraid to correct this, as it seems your errors multiply every time I do.

From the sources you quoted....

The number of outpatient deaths from medications was 1459, not 199,000 (no clue where that number came from). The number you quoted for physician error was for errors of all types, not just medication related. Medication errors represented 19 percent, or 18,620. This puts your total at 126,079 or about 5 percent of all deaths. However, I'd prefer to give you your made up number for this reason - it supports my cause and it supports the blog entry made by Steve Novella. If a highly monitored and regulated system still leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths, why on earth would anyone think that an unregulated, unmonitored system would be safer?

sorry, missing reference:

Weingart et al, Epidemiology of medical error
see: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7237/774

"..drug related problems accounted for 116*million extra visits to the doctor per year, 76*million additional prescriptions, 17*million emergency department visits, 8*million admissions to hospital, 3*million admissions to long term care facilities, and 199*000 additional deaths"

Actually, this is related to the point that I brought up on the thread about saving someone from the HIV deniers (and is something I've wanted to mention for a while). It is easy to be casual with other people's lives when you are not involved with treating people who are truly ill. Homeopaths, herbalists, acupuncturists (oops, almost spelt that wrong, Rolfe) and the various other practitioners of DIM can afford to be cavalier because they don't usually have access to people who are truly sick and about to die.

not true - i have dealt successfully with severe cases, including diabetic gangrene and retinal hemorrhage, as well as cancer

according to WHO stats, CAM accounts for roughly 80% of health care on planet earth, and a great deal of these are acute, life-threatening conditions

if you reviewed the books on Samuel Thomson that I posted earlier, you will see that although he was an illiterate farmer, he was dealing with life threatening infectious disease including cholera, scarlet fever and yellow fever - successfully, even after they had been poisoned and abandoned by the quack medicos of the mid-1800s

in both China and India, where herbal medicine is a licensed profession, practitioners work in hospitals and provide first line care, and in China esp, there is a level of integration between traditional and conventional that is barely imagined in the west

In addition to the issue I raised about whether or not a death was truly preventable or whether the cause of death was simply altered, in the post I linked to earlier, the idea that I would stand in front of a patient who was literally dieing before my eyes and deliberately withhold life-saving treatment because of the much smaller risk that saving them would lead to a fatal complication is something that these piddlers in health will never have to face. If you are waiting for an angry mob to gather at your doorway in order to guide your recommendations, the mob that represents "people saved" is much larger than that represented by "people harmed". Who are you going to side with?

this is a false dichotomy from a failure to offer adequate choice to the patients, which is what i provide - at least 50% patients seek my attention because of dissatisfaction with conventional medicine

however, i don't live in an either/or world

there is a great deal of opportunity for our disciplines to work constructively, but the respect needs to be both ways - i won't pretend to be a doctor if you don't pretend to be a herbalist

and herbs are NOT drugs

 

[vaidya]

Nobody denies that traditional and herbal medicine contains nuggets of useful information. The problem is that we have discovered that it also contains a plethora of useless information. And that the tools used by traditional medicine (careful observation without controls or blinding, extrapolating information without testing, subjective perceptions used to provide clues as to physiologic processes) are incapable of distinguishing between the the useful and the useless. Fortunately, science comes to the rescue. The scientific method happens to be very good at distinguishing between the two. So when the scientific method is applied to traditional knowledge, yes we do occasionally discover that it (traditional medicine) happened upon some useful information. However, it doesn't tell us anything about the rest of what you believe.

"nuggets of useful information" is a derogatory statement, and speaks more to your bias and ignorance about the state of practice

The mere existence of citations in PubMed does not help your cause. What you really need to demonstrate is that those citations conform, in some strong and reliable manner, to the information gleaned from traditional use

.

investigate a couple then - i have provided a couple already, but many more exist for herbs such as Commiphora mukul, Withania somnifera, and Terminalia arjuna

i have posted a lot of info already, but either you will do the research or you won't - if you don't, you cannot adequately pass judgment on herbal medicine

the onus is on YOU to disprove, not me, since my practice antedates conventional medicine

 

[vaidya]

The problem is that your billions of hours are of the type that we already know to be highly unreliable. And we already know that using unreliable information often leads to false conclusions. Does it really make sense to you to assume that something likely to be false, is true until proven otherwise?

Linda

reliable only because you say so
the small piece i posted about rice gruel being used in India as ORT for thousands of years, initially dismissed but now validated, is only a tiny example

many more exist - if you are rational, do the research

 

[vaidya]

And surgery is always dangerous and can and does kill or permanently damage people.

a good point

look at the simple cholecystectomy - once removed, the patient often suffers from biliary dyskinesia, leading to digestive issue and impaired lipid absorption (incl. fat-soluble vitamins and EFAs); i have seen several patients that later developed IBD from this surgery - coincidence? who knows, because nobody studies it, but i clearly see the correlation (just like anemia and antiacids, or thyroid disorders and antipsychotics, to mention only a few clinical observations)

i have "saved" several gall bladders simply by using herbs that upregulate bile secretion, which overtime, gradually thins the congested heavy bile sitting in the gall bladder, and may or may not gradually break down cholesterol stones (never had it confirmed by ultrasound, but every time pt was negative for murphy's sign after treatment, even after years of portal tenderness)

don't believe this? too bad - do the research
here's a little tidit on the exceptionally bitter Bhunimba (Angrographis panniculata), but I can rattle off at least 40 other herbs that upregulate bile secretion

Planta Med. 1992 Apr;58(2):146-9.

Choleretic effect of andrographolide in rats and guinea pigs.

Shukla B, Visen PK, Patnaik GK, Dhawan BN.

ICMR Centre for Advanced Pharmacological Research on Traditional Remedies, Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India.

Andrographolide from the herb Andrographis paniculata (whole plant) per se produces a significant dose (1.5-12 mg/kg) dependent choleretic effect (4.8-73%) as evidenced by increase in bile flow, bile salt, and bile acids in conscious rats and anaesthetized guinea pigs. The paracetamol induced decrease in volume and contents of bile was prevented significantly by andrographolide pretreatment. It was found to be more potent than silymarin, a clinically used hepatoprotective agent.

 

[fls]

Current medicine isn't nearly as good as you all would like to believe, and alternative medicine isn't nearly as bad as you all fantasize.

Cheers!

The extent to which current medicine is considered "good" is the extent to which evidence shows that it's useful. Our inclination is to apply that same standard to alternative medicine. But doing so illustrates the actual distinction between medicine and alternative medicine.

Linda

 

[vaidya]

reliable only because you say so
the small piece i posted about rice gruel being used in India as ORT for thousands of years, initially dismissed but now validated, is only a tiny example

many more exist - if you are rational, do the research

sorry, obviously should have said UNreliable
i type too fast for my own good sometimes

 

[vaidya]

since i started this thread by referring to ginger, here is a recent interresting study on its efficacy in cancer - this in a herb which herbalists AT BEST consider an adjunct, not a primary anti-tumor herb:

Ginger ingredients reduce viability of gastric cancer cells via distinct mechanisms

Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007 Oct 12;362(1):218-23 Authors: Ishiguro K, Ando T, Maeda O, Ohmiya N, Niwa Y, Kadomatsu K, Goto H

Ginger has been used throughout the world as spice, food and traditional herb. We found that 6-gingerol, a phenolic alkanone isolated from ginger, enhanced the TRAIL-induced viability reduction of gastric cancer cells while 6-gingerol alone affected viability only slightly. 6-Gingerol facilitated TRAIL-induced apoptosis by increasing TRAIL-induced caspase-3/7 activation. 6-Gingerol was shown to down-regulate the expression of cIAP1, which suppresses caspase-3/7 activity, by inhibiting TRAIL-induced NF-kappaB activation. As 6-shogaol has a chemical structure similar to 6-gingerol, we also assessed the effect of 6-shogaol on the viability of gastric cancer cells. Unlike 6-gingerol, 6-shogaol alone reduced the viability of gastric cancer cells. 6-Shogaol was shown to damage microtubules and induce mitotic arrest. These findings indicate for the first time that in gastric cancer cells, 6-gingerol enhances TRAIL-induced viability reduction by inhibiting TRAIL-induced NF-kappaB activation while 6-shogaol alone reduces viability by damaging microtubules.

Anyone interested in botanical medicine and cancer specifically, please review:

"Natural Compounds in Cancer Therapy: Promising Nontoxic Antitumor Agents From Plants & Other Natural Sources" by John Boik

not so much useful for practice, but good place to _start_ for science-based research junkies, like the ones supposedly in this forum

 

[vaidya]

The extent to which current medicine is considered "good" is the extent to which evidence shows that it's useful. Our inclination is to apply that same standard to alternative medicine. But doing so illustrates the actual distinction between medicine and alternative medicine.

Linda

no it doesn't - it only show in which direction the great eye of Mordor stares

in other words, if you cannot validate the benefits of herbal medicine because you don't look for it, you cannot by that same measure say that it has no benefit

what research have you personally conducted into the field of CAM, and herbal medicine specifically? are you familiar with basic pharmacognosy even?

 

[vaidya]

i also mentioned another herb, called Arjuna (Terminalia arjuna)
here are the only studies on PubMed (there are many others besides) that refer to its efficacy in CVD:

1: Int J Cardiol. 1995 May;49(3):191-9.

Salutary effect of Terminalia Arjuna in patients with severe refractory heart failure.

Bharani A, Ganguly A, Bhargava KD.

Department of Medicine, M.G.M. Medical College, Indore, India.

Twelve patients with refractory chronic congestive heart failure (Class IV NYHA), related to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (10 patients); previous myocardial infarction (one patient) and peripartum cardiomyopathy (one patient), received Terminalia Arjuna, an Indian medicinal plant, as bark extract (500 mg 8-hourly) or matching placebo for 2 weeks each, separated by 2 weeks washout period, in a double blind cross over design as an adjuvent to maximally tolerable conventional therapy (Phase I). The clinical, laboratory and echocardiographic evaluation was carried out at baseline and at the end of Terminalia Arjuna and placebo therapy and results were compared. Terminalia Arjuna, compared to placebo, was associated with improvement in symptoms and signs of heart failure, improvement in NYHA Class (Class III vs. Class IV), decrease in echo-left ventricular enddiastolic (125.28 +/- 27.91 vs. 134.56 +/- 29.71 ml/m2; P < 0.005) and endsystolic volume (81.06 +/- 24.60 vs. 94.10 +/- 26.42 ml/m2; P < 0.005) indices, increase in left ventricular stroke volume index (44.21 +/- 11.92 vs. 40.45 +/- 11.56 ml/m2; P < 0.05) and increase in left ventricular ejection fractions (35.33 +/- 7.85 vs. 30.24 +/- 7.13%; P < 0.005). On long term evaluation in an open design (Phase II), wherein Phase I participants continued Terminalia Arjuna in fixed dosage (500 mg 8-hourly) in addition to flexible diuretic, vasodilator and digitalis dosage for 20-28 months (mean 24 months) on outpatient basis, patients showed continued improvement in symptoms, signs, effort tolerance and NYHA Class, with improvement in quality of life.

Publication Types: Clinical Trial Randomized Controlled Trial

PMID: 7649665 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

2: J Assoc Physicians India. 1999 Jul;47(7):685-9.

Safety and efficacy of Hartone in stable angina pectoris--an open comparative trial.

Kumar PU, Adhikari P, Pereira P, Bhat P.

Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of 'Hartone'--a proprietary herbal product primarily containing Terminalia arjuna in stable angina pectoris patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Ten patients with stable angina pectoris were given Hartone 2 caps twice daily for 6 weeks and 1 cap twice daily for the next 6 weeks. Haematological and biochemical investigations to assess safety were carried out on day 0, day 42 and day 84. Serum lipid profile was done before and after therapy. Efficacy was assessed by considering the reduction in the number of anginal episodes and improvement in stress test. The results were compared with 10 patients of stable angina pectoris on isosorbide mononitrate (ISMN) 20 mg twice daily. RESULTS: Hartone afforded symptomatic relief in 80% of patients and ISMN in 70%. The number of anginal attacks were reduced from 79/wk to 24/wk by Hartone and from 26/wk to 7/wk by ISMN. Although patients of both groups showed improvement in several stress test parameters compared to base line, the difference was not statistically significant. Hartone improved BP response to stress test in two patients and ejection fraction in one. Hartone was better tolerated than ISMN and showed no evidence of hepatic or renal impairment. Its effects on lipid profile was not consistent. CONCLUSION: Hartone is a safe and effective anti-anginal agent comparable to ISMN and is better tolerated. Large scale, randomised, double blind trials are needed to prove its efficacy.

Publication Types: Clinical Trial Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

PMID: 10778587 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

3: J Assoc Physicians India. 2001 Feb;49:231-5.

Antioxidant and hypocholesterolaemic effects of Terminalia arjuna tree-bark powder: a randomised placebo-controlled trial.

Gupta R, Singhal S, Goyle A, Sharma VN.

Department of Medicine, Monilek Hospital and Research Centre, Jaipur.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the antioxidant and hypocholesterolaemic effects of Terminalia arjuna tree bark (a popular cardiotonic substance in Indian pharmacopoeia) and to compare it with a known antioxidant, vitamin E, we performed a randomized controlled trial. METHODS: One hundred and five successive patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) presenting to our centre were recruited and using a Latin-square design divided into 3 groups of 35 each. The groups were matched for age, lifestyle and dietary variables, clinical diagnosis and drug treatment status. None of the patients was on lipid-lowering drugs. Supplemental vitamins were stopped for one month before study began and American Heart Association Step II dietary advice was given to all. At baseline, total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL and LDL cholesterol and lipid peroxide estimated as thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were determined. Group I received placebo capsules; Group II vitamin E capsules 400 units/day; and Group III received finely pulverized T. arjuna tree bark-powder (500 mg) in capsules daily. Lipids and lipid peroxide levels were determined at 30 days follow-up. RESULTS: Response rate in various groups varied from 86% to 91%. No significant changes in total, HDL, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides levels were seen in Groups I and II (paired t-test p > 0.05). In Group III there was a significant decrease in total cholesterol (-9.7 +/- 12.7%), and LDL cholesterol (-15.8 +/- 25.6%) (paired t-test p < 0.01). Lipid peroxide levels decreased significantly in both the treatment groups (p < 0.01). This decrease was more in vitamin E group (-36.4 +/- 17.7%) as compared to the T. arjuna group (-29.3 +/- 18.9%). CONCLUSIONS: Terminalia arjuna tree bark powder has significant antioxidant action that is comparable to vitamin E. In addition, it also has a significant hypocholesterolaemic effect.

Publication Types: Clinical Trial Comparative Study Randomized Controlled Trial

PMID: 11225136 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

4: Indian Heart J. 2002 Mar-Apr;54(2):170-5.

Comment in: Indian Heart J. 2002 Jul-Aug;54(4):441; author reply 441.

Efficacy of Terminalia arjuna in chronic stable angina: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study comparing Terminalia arjuna with isosorbide mononitrate.

Bharani A, Ganguli A, Mathur LK, Jamra Y, Raman PG.

Department of Medicine, MGM Medical College and MY Hospital, Indore, MP. tanmaybharani@im.eth.net

BACKGROUND: Terminalia arjuna, an Indian medicinal plant, has been reported to have beneficial effects in patients with ischemic heart disease in a number of small, open studies. The need for a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study with adequate sample size has long been felt. The bark extract (IPC-53) contains acids (arjunic acid, terminic acid), glycosides (arjunetin arjunosides I-IV), strong antioxidants (flavones, tannins, oligomeric proanthocyanidins), minerals. etc. and exhibits antifailure and anti-ischemic properties. METHODS AND RESULTS: Fifty-eight males with chronic stable angina (NYHA class II-III) with evidence of provocable ischemia on treadmill exercise test received Terminalia arjuna (500 mg 8 hourly), isosorbide mononitrate (40 mg/daily) or a matching placebo for one week each, separated by a wash-out period of at least three days in a randomized, double-blind, crossover design. They underwent clinical, biochemical and treadmill exercise evaluation at the end of each therapy which were compared during the three therapy periods. Terminalia arjuna therapy was associated with significant decrease in the frequency of angina and need for isosorbide dinitrate (5.69+/-6.91 mg/week v. 18.22+/-9.29 mg/week during placebo therapy, p<0.005). The treadmill exercise test parameters improved significantly during therapy with Terminalia arjuna compared to those with placebo. The total duration of exercise increased (6.14+/-2.51 min v. 4.76+/-2.38 min, p<0.005), maximal ST depression during the longest equivalent stages of submaximal exercise decreased (1.41+/-0.55 mm v. 2.21+/-0.56 mm, p<0.005), time to recovery decreased (6.49+/-2.37 min v. 9.27+/-3.39 min, p<0.005) and higher double products were achieved (25.75+/-4.81x10(3) v. 23.11+/-4.83x10(3), p<0.005) during Terminalia arjuna therapy. Similar improvements in clinical and treadmill exercise test parameters were observed with isosorbide mononitrate compared to placebo therapy. No significant differences were observed in clinical or treadmill exercise test parameters when Terminalia arjuna and isosorbide mononitrate therapies were compared. No significant untoward effects were reported during Terminalia arjuna therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Terminalia arjuna bark extract, 500 mg 8 hourly, given to patients with stable angina with provocable ischemia on treadmill exercise, led to improvement in clinical and treadmill exercise parameters as compared to placebo therapy. These benefits were similar to those observed with isosorbide mononitrate (40 mg/day) therapy and the extract was well tolerated. Limitations of this study include applicability of the results to only men with chronic stable angina but not necessarily to women, as they were not studied.

Publication Types: Clinical Trial Comparative Study Randomized Controlled Trial

PMID: 12086380 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

5: Indian Heart J. 2004 Mar-Apr;56(2):123-8.

Terminalia arjuna reverses impaired endothelial function in chronic smokers.

Bharani A, Ahirwar LK, Jain N.

Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College and Maharaja Yashwant Rao Hospital, Indore. tanmaybharani@eth.net

BACKGROUND: Smoking, largely through increased oxidative stress, causes endothelial dysfunction which is an early key event in atherosclerosis. Smoking cessation and antioxidant vitamin therapy are shown to have beneficial role by restoring altered endothelial physiology. The present study was aimed to determine whether Terminalia arjuna, an Indian medicinal plant with potent antioxidant constituents, would improve endothelial dysfunction in smokers. METHODS AND RESULTS: Eighteen healthy male smokers (age 28.16+/-9.45 years) and equal number of age-matched non-smoker controls participated in the study. The baseline brachial artery reactivity studies were performed using high frequency ultrasound according to standard protocol under identical conditions to determine endothelium-dependent, flow-mediated dilation and endothelium-independent nitroglycerine-mediated dilation. The two groups were matched regarding age, body mass index, blood pressure, serum cholesterol, mean resting vessel diameters and post-occlusion flow velocities (all p=NS). While flow-mediated dilation was significantly impaired amongst smokers compared to controls (4.71+/-2.22 v. 11.75+/-5.94%, p <0.005), the nitroglycerine-mediated dilation was similar in the two groups (20.35+/-3.89 v. 19.68+/-3.74%, p=NS). Subsequently the smokers were given Terminalia arjuna (500 mg q8h) or matching placebo randomly in a double blind cross-over design for two weeks each, followed by repetition of brachial artery reactivity studies to determine various parameters including flow-mediated dilation after each period. There was no significant difference as regards vessel diameter and flow velocities between the two therapies. However, the flow-mediated dilation showed significant improvement from baseline values after Terrminalia arjuna therapy but not with placebo (9.31+/-3.74 v. 5.17+/-2.42%, p <0.005). CONCLUSIONS: Smokers have impaired endothelium-dependent but normal endothelium-independent vasodilation as determined by brachial artery reactivity studies. Further, Terrminalia arjuna therapy for two weeks leads to significant regression of this endothelial abnormality amongst smokers.

Publication Types: Clinical Trial Comparative Study Randomized Controlled Trial

PMID: 15377133 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

6: Int J Cardiol. 2005 Apr 28;100(3):507-8.

Role of Terminalia arjuna in ischaemic mitral regurgitation.

Dwivedi S, Aggarwal A, Agarwal MP, Rajpal S.

The bark powder of Terminalia arjuna, an indigenous plant has been found to have antianginal, decongestive and hypolipidemic effect. We planned a study to evaluate the role of T. arjuna in ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR) following acute myocardial infarction (AMI). 40 patients with fresh AMI showing IMR were randomly divided into 2 groups of 20 each. They were given placebo or 500 mg of T. arjuna in addition to anti-ischemic treatment. After 1 and 3 months of follow up, patients receiving adjuvant T. arjuna showed significant decrease in IMR, improvement in E/A ratio and considerable reduction in anginal frequency.

Publication Types: Clinical Trial Letter Randomized Controlled Trial

PMID: 15837100 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

[Hawk one]

no it doesn't - it only show in which direction the great eye of Mordor stares

Yes, when you can't show any real evidence, start vilifying your opponents and imply a conspiracy. That is soooo effective.

in other words, if you cannot validate the benefits of herbal medicine because you don't look for it, you cannot by that same measure say that it has no benefit

A complete and utter failure to correctly comprehend anything fls has said. She said that we have indeed looked for the benefits of herbal medicine, only that in most cases, they fail to show usefulness when subjected to tests that follow the standards of scientific evidence.

Do you know what "double-blind testing" means and why it's so important, for excample? If you give me something that indicates you understand this basic principle, then maybe there's hope for you yet...

 

[vaidya]

and here's a study on the efficacy of Hypericum perforatum on depression, in addition to the one i posted earlier:

BMC Med. 2006 Jun 23;4:14.

Superior efficacy of St John's wort extract WS 5570 compared to placebo in patients with major depression: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center trial [ISRCTN77277298].

Kasper S, Anghelescu IG, Szegedi A, Dienel A, Kieser M.

Department of General Psychiatry, Vienna Medical University, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, A-1090 Wien, Austria. sci-genpsy@meduniwien.ac.at

BACKGROUND: The aim of the current study was to assess the antidepressant efficacy and safety of Hypericum perforatum (St. John's wort) extract WS 5570 at doses of 600 mg/day in a single dose and 1200 mg/day in two doses. METHODS: The participants in this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, multi-center clinical trial were male and female adult out-patients with an episode of mild or moderate major depressive episode (single or recurrent episode, DSM-IV criteria). As specified by the relevant guideline, the study was preceded by a medication-free run-in phase. For the 6-week treatment, 332 patients were randomized: 123 to WS 5570 600 mg/day, 127 to WS 5570 1200 mg/day, and 82 to placebo. The primary outcome measure was the change in total score on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D, 17-item version) between baseline and endpoint. Additional measures included the number of responders, the number of patients in remission, and several other standard rating scales. Efficacy and safety were assessed after 2 and 6 weeks. The design included an interim analysis performed after randomization with the option of early termination. RESULTS: After 6 weeks of treatment, mean +/- standard deviation decreases in HAM-D total scores of 11.6 +/- 6.4, 10.8 +/- 7.3, and 6.0 +/- 8.1 points were observed for the WS 5570 600 mg/day, 1200 mg/day and placebo groups, respectively (endpoint analysis). Secondary measures of treatment efficacy also showed that both WS 5570 groups were statistically superior to placebo. Significantly more patients in the WS 5570 treatment groups than in the placebo group showed treatment response and remission. WS 5570 was consistently more effective than placebo in patients with either less severe or more severe baseline impairment. The number of patients who experienced remission was higher in the WS 5570 1200 mg/day group than the WS 5570 600 mg/day group. The incidence of adverse events was low in all groups. The adverse event profile was consistent with the known profile for Hypericum extract preparations. CONCLUSION: Hypericum perforatum extract WS 5570 at doses of 600 mg/day (once daily) and 1200 mg/day (600 mg twice daily) were found to be safe and more effective than placebo, with comparable efficacy of the WS 5570 groups for the treatment of mild to moderate major depression

 

[vaidya]

you see guys, i can do this all freakin' day, but no matter what i post, the supposedly rational skeptics won't throw in the towel

at some point i will have to stop because i have better things to do