Medical Herbalism

keiran110

Hey there, eventually this is going to be my career if all goes well and i make it through the long haul of college.

I was just wondering what people's are on using herbs as medicine. I'd be very interested to hear people's views (especially other medical pracitioners).

From my experience people either accept and practice it or think its a waste of money.

For the people who believe the latter, I would love to hear why you think that, even though countless medical trials exist proving herbs to work and they have been used for thousands of years as medicine as apposed to a hundred years or so for pharmaceuticals

tallaght01

As this is a scientific discussion board, why don't you post up some of those studies, and tell us why they're strong enough evidence to incorporate herbs into clinical practice.

if you can do that, you might get some converts

Dr Galen

what is it your studying OP? something directly related to medical herbalism or something that will allow you to go on to do that?

keiran110

tallaght01 wrote: »

As this is a scientific discussion board, why don't you post up some of those studies, and tell us why they're strong enough evidence to incorporate herbs into clinical practice.

if you can do that, you might get some converts

Pick any herb, then pick a night where you have about 2 hours reading time spare!!
The amount of clinical and pharmaceutical studies on a single herb is intense, we can be talking thousands for some herbs such as St.Johns Wort for example.
I accidently came across about 20 on nettles in the space of 2 minutes without even specifically looking for studies on that herb, I was looking for something completely different!
So, yeah....intense....:)

O,and Mystik Monkey, I'm currently studying my Bsc Hons in "Herbal Science" and soon hope to go on to complete the Msc in "Clinical Practice". The 4th years who graduated from the degree stage of the course this year were the first 4th years to do so as it is a relatively new course. They were like guinea pigs in a way. Unfortunetly because of the economy, theres no masters set up for them yet as no college in the country seems to be able to run it without charging the students a crazy amount of money.
I think whats going to happen is the masters stage of training to be a medical herbalist will have no base and will take place in various colleges across the country.
Hopefully a masters will be up and running next year.

Ostrom

keiran110 wrote: »

Pick any herb, then pick a night where you have about 2 hours reading time spare!!
The amount of clinical and pharmaceutical studies on a single herb is intense, we can be talking thousands for some herbs such as St.Johns Wort for example.
I accidently came across about 20 on nettles in the space of 2 minutes without even specifically looking for studies on that herb, I was looking for something completely different!
So, yeah....intense....:)

I'm curious about this myself - can you post citations for studies of St. John's wort mentioned above? And also some of the citations for the nettle studies? What journals publish such studies?

JuliusCaesar

keiran110 wrote: »

I'm currently studying my Bsc Hons in "Herbal Science" and soon hope to go on to complete the Msc in "Clinical Practice".

Are these courses accredited by NUI?

GradMed

This would echo my opinion

from
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e2772e34-45a0-11de-b6c8-00144feabdc0.html

Even Colquhoun concedes that not all alternative medicines are bogus. Herbal medicine, he says, is plausible to the extent that many pharmaceutical drugs contain versions of substances found in plants. “Of the common ones,” he says, “St John’s Wort is said, on some plausible evidence, to be good for mild depression, but the evidence is that it’s no more effective than conventional anti-depressants. The other very common one is echinacea: there’s some evidence that it may reduce the duration of your cold by about six hours. Even if that’s right, it’s such an entirely trivial effect that it’s barely worth having.”

A cochrane library review of the use of St. John's wort for major depression http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab000448.html

A cochrane library review of the use of echinacea for preventing and treating the common cold http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab000530.html

keiran110

Homeopathy and medical herbalism are completly different areas. I have very little faith in homeopathic medicine, I've never used it and i doubt i ever will.

Echinacea is a tricky subject. Many health shops sell the wrong species of Echinacea and claim it to rid yourself of colds and flus. One must ensure you have the correct species for it to work.
Herbal medicine is a delicate matter. Herbs give a push and boost your system so our body can treat the problem with our own natural mechanisms stonger and more efficiently. So for example, taking echinacea for a cold and flu, one must do so on the on-set of the sickness for it to work. Otherwise, echinacea will not do much help. Taking echinacea a few days into the flu or cold will not really help.

Pharmaceuticals generally enter your body and destroy the problem using their own chemical mechanisms rather then assiting our body. Note:"generally".
This is why it is possible to take pharmaceuticals a few days into the cold and flu and still have a good effect.

As for St.Johns Wort, literally thousands of trials have been completed on this herb and have shown it to be just as good as pharmaceutical anti-depressants. However, St.Johns Wort is much much more then an anti-depressant.

The "Herbal Science" degree is done through the CAO and uses the Leaving Cert points system like any other degree course. It is government recognised just like any other CAO course and takes place in C.I.T.
As for the masters, yes it is validated and accredited also but has not taken place yet.

keiran110

as a side note, heres what shadows my opinion on homeopathic medicine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

This is not herbal medicine.

enjoy! :pac:

2Scoops

keiran110 wrote: »

Herbal medicine is a delicate matter. Herbs give a push and boost your system so our body can treat the problem with our own natural mechanisms stonger and more efficiently. ....
Pharmaceuticals generally enter your body and destroy the problem using their own chemical mechanisms rather then assiting our body.

I'm all for herbal science where it has proven efficacy, but the above reads more like the propaganda I normally associate with Big Pharma conspiracy theorists. If either herbs or medications work, it is due to their active ingredients. End of story. This 'boost' your 'natural' defense mechanisms vs. 'chemical mechanisms rather then assitsing our body' false dichotomy demeans the good science that has been done in this area, IMO.

Ostrom

keiran110 wrote: »

As for St.Johns Wort, literally thousands of trials have been completed on this herb and have shown it to be just as good as pharmaceutical anti-depressants.

Can you post some citations?

YFlyer

[SIZE=-1] BMJ 1996;313:253-258 (3 August) [/SIZE]
Papers

St John's wort for depression--an overview and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials

Klaus Linde, scientific assistant,a Gilbert Ramirez, codirector,b Cynthia D Mulrow, professor of medicine,b Andrej Pauls, consultant psychiatrist,c Wolfgang Weidenhammer, biostatistician,a Dieter Melchart, project leader a[SIZE=-1]a Projekt "Munchener Modell," Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Kaiserstrasse 9, 80801 Munich, Germany[/SIZE], [SIZE=-1]b San Antonio Cochrane Center, Audie L Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital, San Antonio, TX 78284, USA[/SIZE], [SIZE=-1]c Private Practice for Neurology and Psychiatry, 80796 Munich[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Correspondence to: Dr Linde.[/SIZE]
Abstract

Objective: To investigate if extracts of Hypericum perforatum (St John's wort) are more effective than placebo in the treatment of depression, are as effective as standard antidepressive treatment, and have fewer side effects than standard antidepressant drugs.
Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of trials revealed by searches.
Trials: 23 randomised trials including a total of 1757 outpatients with mainly mild or moderately severe depressive disorders: 15 (14 testing single preparations and one a combination with other plant extracts) were placebo controlled, and eight (six testing single preparations and two combinations) compared hypericum with another drug treatment.
Main outcome measures: A pooled estimate of the responder rate ratio (responder rate in treatment group/responder rate in control group), and numbers of patients reporting and dropping out for side effects.
Results: Hypericum extracts were significantly superior to placebo (ratio = 2.67; 95% confidence interval 1.78 to 4.01) and similarly effective as standard antidepressants (single preparations 1.10; 0.93 to 1.31, combinations 1.52; 0.78 to 2.94). There were two (0.8%) drop outs for side effects with hypericum and seven (3.0%) with standard antidepressant drugs. Side effects occurred in 50 (19.8%) patients on hypericum and 84 (52.8%) patients on standard antidepressants.
Conclusion: There is evidence that extracts of hypericum are more effective than placebo for the treatment of mild to moderately severe depressive disorders. Further studies comparing extracts with standard antidepressants in well defined groups of patients and comparing different extracts and doses are needed.

locum-motion

keiran110 wrote: »

I'd be very interested to hear people's views (especially other medical pracitioners).

Hi, Kieran,

I'm just a little curious about the above sentence, particularly the bracketed part. Do you mean by that that you consider yourself to be a medical practitioner? You may want to be careful about that: there are certain restricted titles in law, and I'm fairly sure 'Medical Practitioner' is one of them. It may have been better to say something like 'practioners in other health professions'. I would not have used the above sentence myself for fear of giving the impression that I'm a Medical Doctor.

That said, as a pharmacist I'm all for the correct and appropriate use of herbal medicines that are backed up by proper scientific evidence. Unfortunately many practitioners of herbal medicine (and I am aware that herbal medicine is not the same thing as either homoeopathy or any other of the so-called alternative therapies) take a less than rigourously scientific approach to their work. Many people seem to be willing to put forward the view that 'if it's natural it's harmless', and even more seem willing to believe it. The various therapeutic substances that are found in plants do definately have a place in modern medicine. But in order to claim that place, those substances should ideally be identified, isolated, and studied. Examples that spring readily to mind are Digoxin and Opium. That is a branch of science called Pharmacognosy.

I didn't know that there was a degree course in herbal medicine. If it's a proper, serious scientific course*, than I'm sure its graduates will be welcomed into the healthcare professions. If so, I wish you luck, but I'm afraid you'll have an uphill battle to differentiate yourself from the many quacks out there. (I'd be interested to know, for example, if there's a Pharmacognosy module in your course)

Welcome to the board. I'm sure there's some interesting debate on the way!

* Unfortunately, the fact that it's a CAO course is no guarantee of that. I don't have Irish figures to back that statement up, but UCAS (the UK's equivalent) offered 49 degree level courses in various 'Complementary and Alternative Medicine' disciplines in 2008, including:
BSc in Aromatherapy (Anglia Ruskin University)
BSc in Ayurvedic Medicine (Middlesex)
BA (Hons) in Accounting and the Healing Arts (University of Derby) and
Complementary Therapies (Stress Management) is offered as an option in Greenwich.
(Source: Suckers - How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All, Rose Shapiro, Vintage Books, 2009, pp. 248-9)

SomeDose

2Scoops wrote: »

I'm all for herbal science where it has proven efficacy, but the above reads more like the propaganda I normally associate with Big Pharma conspiracy theorists. If either herbs or medications work, it is due to their active ingredients. End of story. This 'boost' your 'natural' defense mechanisms vs. 'chemical mechanisms rather then assitsing our body' false dichotomy demeans the good science that has been done in this area, IMO.

I think this is basically the bottom line wrt herbal medicines. Any substance entering the body that exerts a therapeutic effect (be it food, synthetic pharmaceuticals or herbal/natural products) does so by some kind of chemistry. For example, Echinacea was mentioned above in terms of treating colds, URTIs etc by "boosting" the immune system. This is in fact thought to be due to its action on TNF and other immunomodulatory cytokines*, so in that sense it's no different to any other drug. I think the OP will find that many of us from a traditional scientific background will agree that some herbal medicines do indeed have therapeutic benefits, and there will be a certain degree of evidence to support such claims.

*Referenced from naturaldatabase.com (one of the very few natural medicines resources trusted as a reference source in conventional medicine).

2Scoops

samson09 wrote: »

You're very funny

You too

keiran110

locum-motion wrote: »

Hi, Kieran,

I'm just a little curious about the above sentence, particularly the bracketed part. Do you mean by that that you consider yourself to be a medical practitioner? You may want to be careful about that: there are certain restricted titles in law, and I'm fairly sure 'Medical Practitioner' is one of them. It may have been better to say something like 'practioners in other health professions'. I would not have used the above sentence myself for fear of giving the impression that I'm a Medical Doctor.

That said, as a pharmacist I'm all for the correct and appropriate use of herbal medicines that are backed up by proper scientific evidence. Unfortunately many practitioners of herbal medicine (and I am aware that herbal medicine is not the same thing as either homoeopathy or any other of the so-called alternative therapies) take a less than rigourously scientific approach to their work. Many people seem to be willing to put forward the view that 'if it's natural it's harmless', and even more seem willing to believe it. The various therapeutic substances that are found in plants do definately have a place in modern medicine. But in order to claim that place, those substances should ideally be identified, isolated, and studied. Examples that spring readily to mind are Digoxin and Opium. That is a branch of science called Pharmacognosy.

I didn't know that there was a degree course in herbal medicine. If it's a proper, serious scientific course*, than I'm sure its graduates will be welcomed into the healthcare professions. If so, I wish you luck, but I'm afraid you'll have an uphill battle to differentiate yourself from the many quacks out there. (I'd be interested to know, for example, if there's a Pharmacognosy module in your course)

Welcome to the board. I'm sure there's some interesting debate on the way!

* Unfortunately, the fact that it's a CAO course is no guarantee of that. I don't have Irish figures to back that statement up, but UCAS (the UK's equivalent) offered 49 degree level courses in various 'Complementary and Alternative Medicine' disciplines in 2008, including:
BSc in Aromatherapy (Anglia Ruskin University)
BSc in Ayurvedic Medicine (Middlesex)
BA (Hons) in Accounting and the Healing Arts (University of Derby) and
Complementary Therapies (Stress Management) is offered as an option in Greenwich.
(Source: Suckers - How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All, Rose Shapiro, Vintage Books, 2009, pp. 248-9)

Indeed there is pharmacognasy module in my course. In fact, the vast majority of my course if made up of biochemistry. I have no time for quacks and find them an insult.

As for people who believe that "beause its natural, it is safe", thats insanity and i absolute ignorence if anything. People these days are under the impression herbs are safe. They are not. There are so much more herbs and chemicals than digioxin and opium that cause problems.

locum-motion

keiran110 wrote: »

Indeed there is pharmacognasy module in my course. In fact, the vast majority of my course if made up of biochemistry. I have no time for quacks and find them an insult.

As for people who believe that "beause its natural, it is safe", thats insanity and i absolute ignorence if anything. People these days are under the impression herbs are safe. They are not. There are so much more herbs and chemicals than digioxin and opium that cause problems.

Glad to hear it.
All the best.

ps. I loved the Homoeopathy A&E sketch. Absolutely brilliant.

keiran110

2Scoops wrote: »

I'm all for herbal science where it has proven efficacy, but the above reads more like the propaganda I normally associate with Big Pharma conspiracy theorists. If either herbs or medications work, it is due to their active ingredients. End of story. This 'boost' your 'natural' defense mechanisms vs. 'chemical mechanisms rather then assitsing our body' false dichotomy demeans the good science that has been done in this area, IMO.

Im sorry Scoops if this sounds like propaganda and something you`d hear off a television advert. Im not trying to throw out buzz words like "free radicals" and "anti-oxidants" etc.

But in the case of Echinacea, it most certainly does nothing more then boost your bodys immune system. It does not target and destroy any cold or flu virus like pharmaceuticals do. You do indeed have to take the herb on the onset of the cold or flu otherwise it will not work.

Herbs for the most part do not target and destroy illness, they drive the bodys natural system to fend for itself. They do this via the endorcrine system for the most part.

I used "the most part" twice in the above paragraph. There are herbs which target specific illness and use other bodily systems to their advantage.

keiran110

locum-motion wrote: »

Glad to hear it.
All the best.

Thank you very much.

O and i shall publish the trials on St.Johns Wort and Urtica Dioica (nettle) tomorow when i have them at hand.

locum-motion

keiran110 wrote: »

Herbs for the most part do not target and destroy illness, they drive the bodys natural system to fend for itself. They do this via the endorcrine system for the most part.

I used "the most part" twice in the above paragraph. There are herbs which target specific illness and use other bodily systems to their advantage.

Notwithstanding your disclaimer in the following para., the bit I've bolded seems a bit like a sweeping generalisation to me.

keiran110

locum-motion wrote: »

Notwithstanding your disclaimer in the following para., the bit I've bolded seems a bit like a sweeping generalisation to me.

First of all, sorry for ignoring your last query. I do not consider myself a medical practitioner, but i hope some day i will. I would like to hear the opinion of people that do consider themselves practioners to better myself. And im glad you like the homeopathic A and E! comedic genius!

Ok let me rephrase in a general sense.

Herbs drive, benefit and promote our bodys natural systems so they can function better, unlike pharmaceuticals which enter our body and change our natural functioning to the pharmaceuticals function. Most theraputic herbs use the endocrine system to drive their beneficial effects.

Other beneficil herbs directly target bodily systems without getting involved with hormones such as herbs which interact with the digestive system.

Hope this clears things up in what i meant.

If examples are needed let me know. I will post tomorow as like i said above with st.johns wort and nettle, I'm nowhere near any literature

YFlyer

It is better if one can stay healthy than be cured of a serious illness that they caught.

keiran110

Before I forget. I dont have literature for trials with me at the moment. However, i do have some herbal trivia!

At the recent Chinese Olympics, an Irish horse was banned from racing as the trainer was using chilli as a painkiller. This was seen as medication in the eyes of the Chinese but not in our culture.

More trivia! The Greeks were the first to seperate body and soul in medical treatment. Up until that point, the two were treated together. It has now grown to the point where you go see a psychiatrist and a doctor for example.
In the beginning, for your mental health, one would go to "Aesclepian" temples where one would sleep in a bath of water and your health would be restored. Aesclepian was a God who was always pictured with snakes and for this reason the temples always had snakes in them.
When the Christians insisted that the Greeks were wrong about their religion, all the temples got burnt to the ground, except a few. The origin of baptism originated here where new christians were bathed in a bath of water.

Aesclepius still lives on though. He was always pictured with a tridant and snakes, this is the pharmacy logo.
He also had two mythical daughters "pangea" and "hygenia". You figure out what words they gave rise to.

locum-motion

keiran110 wrote: »

At the recent Chinese Olympics, an Irish horse was banned from racing as the trainer was using chilli as a painkiller. This was seen as medication in the eyes of the Chinese but not in our culture.

True-ish, but not quite!
An Irish horse (Waterford Crystal, ridden by Cian O'Connor) and three other horses were withdrawn (prior to actually competing) from show-jumping because they were found to have been administered a product containing Capsaicin. Yes, Capsaicin is the active ingredient of chilli, and could therefore be considered herbal. However, it is completely false to imply that the horse was banned because the Chinese see it as a medicine and westerners don't.
In fact, there are prescription-only products on the shelves of every pharmacy in Ireland containing Capsaicin (Axsain).
Capsaicin, when applied topically, can relieve musculoskeletal pain by a process called counter-irritation (think Deep Heat on steroids!), and it works just as well in horses as it does in humans.
The problem is that some unscrupulous horse trainers have been known to rub Capsaicin on the shins of horses in training. This makes the skin on their shins very sensitive, and therefore if the horse doesn't jump high enough to completely clear an obstacle, it's very painful to the horse if they brush the top of the fence. Basically, it's a cruel and therefore banned way of training horses to jump higher and tuck their legs in while jumping. However, it is also used to relieve pain in out of competition horses. The problem is that when a blood sample tests positive for Capsaicin, there is no way of knowing if the product was rubbed on a sore back (as Cian O'Connor claimed) or on the horse's shins. Therefore a positive test is a ban, but it may be used out of competition for pain relief.

nesf

One word of caution for you, seeing that you're an undergrad and may not have had this explained properly to you yet. Just because a study shows a result doesn't necessarily mean anything. What matters in a study is not its result but its quality: i.e. sample size, study design, whether it was double blind, whether it has a control group, the journal it was published in, who did the study etc. Different journals have different standards for publishing, but conversely just because a study is published by a top rank journal doesn't mean it's automatically true! Some alternative/herbal medicine journals are crap, someone who's specialised in the rough area might be able to give you a list of the better ones. As a general rule of thumb, if a study doesn't have a control group, then treat its results with extreme scepticism and do not take them to be true. It's possible to "prove" loads of things that aren't true when you don't use a control group. Herbal and Alternative Medicine papers often use this trick, be it intentionally or unintentionally.

There are many good papers on these subjects, an easy way for a beginner is to look at the Cochraine Library reviews like those linked to above by Grad Med. They are meta studies where a group of extremely competent neutrals gather together papers on a question, pick those that satisfy some design requirements (such as the need for a control) and then weight them according to survey quality (i.e. sample size, whether it was double blind etc). The end result is a far better answer than any of the single studies give. With the Cochraine Library you are guaranteed that neutrals are doing the work, sometimes even with highly respected institutions like the WHO meta studies this is not the case.

When you read an article learn to pick it apart. Look for flaws, there will always be a couple, no matter how tiny. Remember always that a study published by neutral people (i.e. non-practitioners in a speciality or technique etc) is worth more than a study published by naturally biased people (i.e. practitioners/those with a financial interest) and that this is not because of people deliberately faking results but because of a thing called confirmation bias. If you believe something to be true then you're more likely to find that to be the case when presented with ambiguous results (you can look up studies on this if you're curious, it's amazing how even highly trained professionals of international renown can fall victim to it).


I'd echo the above comment about medical practitioner. You're not one and you won't be after your BSc either. Get that into your head before you give anyone advice, you know one area of medicine but are (through no fault of your own) ignorant of many other areas.

tallaght01

nesf wrote: »

One word of caution for you, seeing that you're an undergrad and may not have had this explained properly to you yet. Just because a study shows a result doesn't necessarily mean anything. What matters in a study is not its result but its quality:.

never a truer word said!

GradMed wrote: »

This would echo my opinion

from
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e2772e34-45a0-11de-b6c8-00144feabdc0.html

A cochrane library review of the use of St. John's wort for major depression http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab000448.html

A cochrane library review of the use of echinacea for preventing and treating the common cold http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab000530.html

YFlyer wrote: »

[SIZE=-1] BMJ 1996;313:253-258 (3 August) [/SIZE]
Papers

St John's wort for depression--an overview and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials

Klaus Linde, scientific assistant,a Gilbert Ramirez, codirector,b Cynthia D Mulrow, professor of medicine,b Andrej Pauls, consultant psychiatrist,c Wolfgang Weidenhammer, biostatistician,a Dieter Melchart, project leader a[SIZE=-1]a Projekt "Munchener Modell," Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Kaiserstrasse 9, 80801 Munich, Germany[/SIZE], [SIZE=-1]b San Antonio Cochrane Center, Audie L Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital, San Antonio, TX 78284, USA[/SIZE], [SIZE=-1]c Private Practice for Neurology and Psychiatry, 80796 Munich[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Correspondence to: Dr Linde.[/SIZE]
Abstract

Objective: To investigate if extracts of Hypericum perforatum (St John's wort) are more effective than placebo in the treatment of depression, are as effective as standard antidepressive treatment, and have fewer side effects than standard antidepressant drugs.
Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of trials revealed by searches.
Trials: 23 randomised trials including a total of 1757 outpatients with mainly mild or moderately severe depressive disorders: 15 (14 testing single preparations and one a combination with other plant extracts) were placebo controlled, and eight (six testing single preparations and two combinations) compared hypericum with another drug treatment.
Main outcome measures: A pooled estimate of the responder rate ratio (responder rate in treatment group/responder rate in control group), and numbers of patients reporting and dropping out for side effects.
Results: Hypericum extracts were significantly superior to placebo (ratio = 2.67; 95% confidence interval 1.78 to 4.01) and similarly effective as standard antidepressants (single preparations 1.10; 0.93 to 1.31, combinations 1.52; 0.78 to 2.94). There were two (0.8%) drop outs for side effects with hypericum and seven (3.0%) with standard antidepressant drugs. Side effects occurred in 50 (19.8%) patients on hypericum and 84 (52.8%) patients on standard antidepressants.
Conclusion: There is evidence that extracts of hypericum are more effective than placebo for the treatment of mild to moderately severe depressive disorders. Further studies comparing extracts with standard antidepressants in well defined groups of patients and comparing different extracts and doses are needed.

Guys, there's no point in just linking papers, or cutting and pasting abstracts. You can find a link or an abstract with a conclusion to back up almost anything you want to claim. it's all about study design. So, link your papers by all means. but then talk about why they're good or bad papers. Even when something is published, you still have to sell it to people before they'll change their practice.

sam34

keiran110 wrote: »

The Greeks were the first to seperate body and soul in medical treatment. Up until that point, the two were treated together. It has now grown to the point where you go see a psychiatrist and a doctor for example.

psychiatrists are doctors.

furthermore, they treat disorders of the mind and brain rather than "the soul".

your sentence above is like saying that there is now a separation between treatment of the stomach and the rest of the body, that one now would go to a gastroenterologist and a doctor. makes no sense.

tallaght01

DrIndy and I have just taken the exceptional step of banning sampson09 for a week for his post earlier in this thread,within the context of his history of being disruptive to the forum.

keiran110

nesf wrote: »

One word of caution for you, seeing that you're an undergrad and may not have had this explained properly to you yet. Just because a study shows a result doesn't necessarily mean anything. What matters in a study is not its result but its quality: i.e. sample size, study design, whether it was double blind, whether it has a control group, the journal it was published in, who did the study etc. Different journals have different standards for publishing, but conversely just because a study is published by a top rank journal doesn't mean it's automatically true! Some alternative/herbal medicine journals are crap, someone who's specialised in the rough area might be able to give you a list of the better ones. As a general rule of thumb, if a study doesn't have a control group, then treat its results with extreme scepticism and do not take them to be true. It's possible to "prove" loads of things that aren't true when you don't use a control group. Herbal and Alternative Medicine papers often use this trick, be it intentionally or unintentionally.

I agree completely. There are alot of crap papers. The same can be said for pharmaceutical medicine. Also, I am well aware of the requirements, expectations and results needed to ensure a quality study

garythemong

I guess lots of modern drugs are derivatives of compounds isolated from herbs, trees, sealife etc so the pharma industry and common do-it-yourself herbalist in a small cottage are very closely related and doing much the same thing at the end of the day, if for different reasons.
All best to you, some herbs defo work, esp NYC diesel:D

JuliusCaesar

nesf wrote: »

When you read an article learn to pick it apart. Look for flaws, there will always be a couple, no matter how tiny. Remember always that a study published by neutral people (i.e. non-practitioners in a speciality or technique etc) is worth more than a study published by naturally biased people (i.e. practitioners/those with a financial interest) and that this is not because of people deliberately faking results but because of a thing called confirmation bias.

There's a brilliant feature article by Dr Ray O'Connor on that here, p.1 of the bulletin (p12 of the pdf)

I know it's a bit off topic here, but I'm so impressed with this! (I like his style too: "Most at this stage are suffering from terminal boredom and wondering how they can sit through the next 30 minutes without a
caffeine fix.")