Herbal research

[Guest guest]

Nancie,

While I wouldn't want to claim that a particular herbal/non-synthetic was

safe/effective just because of European use and research....or that all research

on

herbs/supplements here is bogus if it is funded by manufacturers

(as most pharma tests are, too!) and not double-blind, placebo-controlled...

....I think there's a lot more reason to feel confident about the European

research. As

pointed out, they have always had an herbal tradition, and never got away from

it to

embrace pharma to the extent we have here in the US. Herbals are not looked

down on by

most Europeans as less safe or effective. But then, the particular ones they

buy there

are from companies that have conducted testing. As a rule, I believe you'll do

better

here to buy herbals that are imported from Europe, or made under their licenses

here.

(Many of the abstracts--see next paragraph--will tell you what products or

brands were

tested there.)

Germany has an official organization, Kommission E--equivalent to the FDA here,

but for

herbals/supplements,

not pharmaceuticals--which has brought European research on over 400 substances

together in separate abstracts, complete with journal citations. It was

finally

translated into English about 10 years ago by the American Botanical Society

(?), in

Texas, and can be bought. (I think it is kept up to date, but not sure.) Mean-

while,

the company that publishes the PDR (Physician's Drug Reference), the standard

directory

of drugs, which every doctor uses, also got the message about herbals. They

either

bought rights to use the ABS material, or translated the German under license,

and

brought out The PDR for Herbals (available on Amazon or B & N, etc).

The PDR also has a similar book, something like The PDR for Non-Traditional

Therapies,

or whatever. Just look up " PDR " titles.

Many of the Kommission E abstracts, as I recall, are meta-analyses, which bring

together all studies done on a substance, herb, drug, etc. giving less weight

to those

that used questionable methodology or small numbers of patients, for example,

and come

to a consensus about the subject substance. These are hardly perfect of course,

but more useful than most sources.

One problem, to my mind, about using herbs that seem to have worked in

traditional

societies for centuries or longer, is that these cultures all seemed to have had

herbalists, witch doctors, apothecaries, or whatever--early

doctors, in effect. They presumably recorded and passed on the details of

treatments--how to identify an herb, when to harvest it and what to use...how

and when

to administer it...what symptoms to give it for...ETC/ETC...

I think a lot of this traditional detail, assuming it's valid, has been lost

today.

How many people take these things under the supervision of a real expert...and

how many

just hear a positive report, buy a bottle (unregulated and over-the-counter, of

course)

and start popping pills?

Although there are starting to be some exceptions, pharma companies don't want

to sell

herbs/supplements because they can't normally be patented. (But you'll find

that one

company has gotten a patent on fish oil that is " concentrated and purified " ) and

is

selling it at exorbitant rates for lowering cholesterol. As long as the FDA is

in the

hands of the pharma industry, we aren't likely to see any real testing of

non-pharma

products, which could give Rx drugs even more competition than they already are

without

any regulation.

Just out of curiosity, I suppose that Armour wouldn't normally be patentable and

thus

protected commercially, since it is a food or animal product. Was it

grandfathered

because it had been used for decades?

--- hypothyroidism wrote:

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