Re: R: St s wort & the MCA

[Guest guest]

Hi Graham,

I too was pondering on Iannone's approach on the matter. I do not know

how far we could stretch this in purely physiological terms, but undoubtely

the trouble with recent banning and limiting is the fact that every sort of

interaction that herbs have on the physiology (and how couldn't they have

it, I

wonder) is interpreted as a negative-unless-proved-otherwise matter, and

taken in the most negative way.

The thing is, the more the actions of medicinal herbs are studied in terms

of biochemical-molecular interactions, the more is likely that herbs will be

declared pharmacologically-active and therefore medical matter. When

herbalists said that Hypericum was a hepatic and nervine restorative they

were ignored, because the language used worked as a barrier, limiting mutual

understanding but also providing a sort of 'safe place'; when the hepatic

restorative action is translated in terms of P450, all of the sudden this is

a negative thing, to be worried about, and all the safety record of the

herbs can be dismissed as aneddotal. The same goes with nervine tonic or

restorative vs. antidepressant (a more limiting definition as well).

ùNow, I am not sayin that we should abandon a certain track of research, we

couldn't even if we wanted, but I think we must operate on a different

level, declaring that we do not accept the logic of: " either a plant is

inactive or it is active, and therefore potentially dangerous " . We must

stress the degrees of activity, the profound differences between MD use of

plants and herbalist's one. I, for a thing, live and operate in a country

where MD have declared that phytotherapy (no herbal medicine for them) is

just part of the medical science, and that to say the contrary puts someone

outside of the scientifical community.

Ooops, sorry for the rant.

Gotta go convince them I'm not a wizard.

BTW, dear Anne, I too would like a copy of P & P

Cheers

take care

Marco Valussi