Botanical/Herbal Medicines
terrasig | March 13, 2007As cited by news services and the original source yesterday,
In a survey of 97 new patients being seen at an infertility clinic, reported in the Australia & New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology [April 2007 issue], Stankiewicz and colleagues discovered that two-thirds reported using complementary medicine.
Nearly half of them said they had consulted with a complementary therapy provider, such as a chiropractor, acupuncturist, or naturopath.
Over three-quarters of the patients reported taking over-the-counter multivitamins, and about a quarter to one-third used herbal remedies…
terrasig | March 8, 2007We've spoken here before about the premature extrapolation of in vitro data on curcumin to the misleading human use of the spice-derivative for a whole host of cancers. Unfortunately, curcumin is not absorbed into the bloodstream at concentrations necessary for anticancer effects, even when combined with a black pepper-derived compound called piperine (sold under the brand name, Bioperine). In fact, piperine/Bioperene may present a risk of drug interactions and potentially increase the side effects of some types of chemotherapy if taken unwittingly along with certain drugs.
However, a…
terrasig | March 7, 2007While spending so much time last week on the issue of conscientious objection by pharmacists, I overlooked the 26 February publication in Archives of Internal Medicine of a very well-designed clinical trial to test the hypothesis that garlic/garlic supplements lower LDL-cholesterol. The trial, conducted at Stanford University Medical School, was notable in that several of the authors are well-recognized experts in the chemistry and preclinical pharmacology of garlic and paid particular detail to the bioavailability of the sulfur-containing amino acids thought to exert garlic's beneficial…
terrasig | February 1, 2007Between the news offices for New England Journal of Medicine and NIH's National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), you have no doubt already heard the report that topical application of lavender and tea tree oil-containing products has been linked with gynecomastia in three boys.
Yes, imagine being a private practice pediatrician whose 10-year-old male patient presents with "firm, tender breast buds measuring 3.5 cm by 4.0 cm in length and width and 3.5 cm in depth, with stretching of the areolae." In fact, imagine being the parent...or the boy himself.
In all three cases,…
terrasig | January 25, 2007In an insult to dietary supplement companies who at least try to play by the rules, a company has agreed with the US FDA to recall its product because it might work too well:
FDA and Ebek, Inc. notified healthcare professionals and consumers of a voluntary nationwide recall of the company's dietary supplement because the product contains tadalafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction.
Yes, you read correctly: if the herbal product doesn't work, just add an actual prescription drug to the concoction. Tadalafil is better known in the US as Cialis. In fact, this adulteration of herbal "…
terrasig | January 24, 2007I don't even know where to begin with this beautifully-crafted but very sad article in today's Wall Street Journal (sub req'd..sorry) by Suzanne Sataline.
This has all the features that are sure to send PZ Myers and Orac convulsing in a corner somewhere. As detailed in FDA allegations from an ongoing investigation as reported by Sataline:
A Pentacostal minister physician touting cancer cure rates of 60% or better, without chemotherapy
The sale/promotion of dietary supplements and herbal formulas, sometimes along with diets inspired by Biblical descriptions, at hundreds to thousands of…
terrasig | January 18, 2007This is a recipe for disaster: a demographic prone by need to polypharmacy, also using supplements, etc., without informing their primary care provider.
A joint study by AARP and NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reveal that nearly three-quarters of patients over age 50 do not discuss their use of complementary and alternative medicines and other over-the-counter medicines with their doctors.
"We know that people 50 and older tend to be high users of complementary and alternative medicine, but this study was the first to explore gaps in communications regarding…
terrasig | January 17, 2007While I wait for my copy of Dan Hurley's book, "Natural Causes: Death, Lies and Politics in America's Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Industry," it is interesting to read the media reports on his interviews and the responses from the dietary supplement industry.
While the Natural Products Association has simply responded with a measured, educational piece that does not mention Hurley by name, the Council for Responsible Nutrition was all over the wires today dismissing the book as, "not credible."
Some of the most thoughtful discussion today came from CBS News's Public Eye site and a post by…
terrasig | January 16, 2007Dan Hurley's new book, "Natural Causes: Death, Lies and Politics in America's Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Industry," has the industry on the defensive.
Cited by Katie Couric's two-part CBS News series on dietary supplements and excerpted today in the New York Times, Hurley seems to have created a buzz reminiscent of Marcia Angell's similar indictment of the prescription pharmaceutical industry.
Hurley's book is already #953 on Amazon and had been picking up heat from supplement advocate bloggers since before it was even released on 26 December.
Unfortunately, I was not privy to the…
terrasig | January 14, 2007A thoughtful reader of mine and Kevin MD's just brought to my attention the plight of six members of a California family who apparently ingested Amanita phalloides (deathcap) mushrooms following a New Year's Day outing.
Jondi Gumz of the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported today on the circuitous route the attending physicians took to obtain a source and FDA emergency approval to try an intravenous formulation of an herbal medicine from Europe.
Using Google Scholar, a search engine of scholarly literature, he [Dr Todd Mitchell] found a promising avenue of treatment: Extract from milk thistle, a…
terrasig | January 10, 2007This blog was established originally to discuss the promise of natural products in human therapeutics, particularly to identify those herbal medicines that might have some potential for utility as medicines. However, a quick review of my posts reveals a majority of reports of negative outcomes of efficacy or other problems with herbal medicines.
Well, as many of my readers and fellow bloggers down under are aware, the situation in the US is not unique. According to this news report out of Australia:
Popular folk remedies such as aloe vera and lavender oil may not possess healing properties…
terrasig | January 3, 2007It's been over two years since I saw a notice for a conference entitled, "Developing an Adverse Event Reporting (AER) System for the Dietary Supplement Industry," in St. Paul, MN, sponsored by the Center for Dietary Supplement Safety at the University of Minnesota and the Utah Natural Products Alliance. At this conference, I first heard of the support of the dietary supplement industry for an adverse event reporting system similar to the MedWatch program for prescription drugs.
In general, industry representatives I spoke with justified their support with the expectation that herbal products…
terrasig | December 23, 2006In the US? Nope.
In England? No, sir.
In Australia? No, mate.
In Canada? No, eh?
Where??? In the United Arab Emirates.
terrasig | December 22, 2006The Wall Street Journal's Science Journal correspondent today "bestows holiday gifts" (sub req'd) on researchers, drugs, and other approaches that have advanced health and medicine, or set it back.
Given yesterday's discussion of the failed efficacy trial for black cohosh, I chuckled at this one:
To the herbal supplement called saw palmetto, taken by some 2.5 million men in the U.S., which failed to help urinary problems any better than a placebo: a framed copy of the 1994 law that lets dietary supplements be sold even if there is no evidence of their efficacy.
The funny thing is that I wrote…
terrasig | December 21, 2006As we discussed briefly on Tuesday, trial results published in the Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that alternative botanical supplements containing black cohosh were without benefit relative to placebo in treating the vasomotor symptoms (e.g., hot flashes, night sweats) of peri- and postmenopausal women.
The Cheerful Oncologist followed up with a post entitled, "Oh M'Gosh! Black Cohosh Squashed and That's No Bosh!, where Doc Hildreth cited another 2006 study from Mayo Clinic investigators demonstrating lack of efficacy of black cohosh extracts against hot flashes. (He noted later that…
terrasig | December 19, 2006Here is the NIH press release of a study published in today's Annals of Internal Medicine.
I'll have to take a closer look at the specific formulations of the supplements tested (two of which contained black cohosh extracts) and study design before commenting more extensively. The trial was supported jointly by NIH's National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
terrasig | December 3, 2006Yesterday, Revere (Effect Measure) threw down the gauntlet challenging those critical of alternative medicine to examine work done at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2000 on the medicinal properties of chicken soup.
The news release cites work that a chicken/vegetable soup, but not simple chicken broth, inhibits in vitro neutrophil migration, or chemotaxis. Inhibiting the migration of this class of white blood cells might reduce the nasopharyngeal symptoms of the common cold, thereby providing some evidence that grandma's chicken soup might very well help one feel better during…
terrasig | November 17, 2006"It's shameless," says David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at University College London. "Medicines work or don't work, and they should be labelled accordingly," he says.
Professor Colquhoun is quoted in today's New Scientist in response to the first registration of an herbal product (arnica gel) in the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Mind you, this effort aims only to provide a registry of a product's name and purity, not efficacy:
For a herbal medicine to be allowed on the register, its maker must show that it is safe and manufactured to a…
terrasig | November 2, 2006Earlier this week during Chris Mooney's NC visit, I noted two articles in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times on reports of caloric restriction (CR) and the possibility that some drugs might replicate the health benefits of CR. The coincidence seemed quite odd, so I suspected that some major scientific publication was in the hopper.
Indeed, as revealed by Shelley Batts at Retrospectacle, the red wine antioxidant resveratrol has now been shown to increase lifespan in mice in a paper reported in this week's issue of Nature (btw, vote for Shelley here to receive a $5000 student blogger…
terrasig | October 25, 2006Frequent commenter, anjou, just sent along a link to a MSNBC article by Robert Bazell entitled, "Ignoring the failures of alternative medicine." The article is subtitled, "The U.S. spends millions testing popular supplements. It's a futile effort."
Bazell is chief science and health correspondent for MSNBC. Most striking about Bazell's article is that the mainstream media has generally remained quiet on criticizing the alternative medicine industry. In contrast, the scientific community has long questioned both the legitimacy of NIH's alternative medicine-focused center, NCCAM, and their…