| Herbs and Helpers at Herbfest Wed 23rd July 2008 | Herbs and Helpers will be exhibiting again at Herbfest this year August 1st-3rd. We hope to welcome you to our stand and help you take advantage of some excellent offers on selected products and Batch Master PRO.
Due also to annual holiday Herbs and Helpers will reopen on Monday 11th August 2008 as usual. We hope we can fulfil your needs before or after this date.
Lorraine Hodgkinson. | | Mediterranean diet 'cuts cancer' Tue 8th July 2008 | The Mediterranean diet is rich in fruit and vegetables
Adopting just a couple of elements of the Mediterranean diet could cut the risk of cancer by 12%, say scientists.
A study of 26,000 Greek people found just using more olive oil alone cut the risk by 9%.
The diet, reports the British Journal of Cancer, also includes higher amounts of fruits, vegetables, cereals, and less red meat.
A separate study found adding broccoli to meals might help men vulnerable to prostate cancer cut their risk.
It shows there are a number of things you can do, and there is no one 'superfood' that can stop you developing the disease
Sara Hiom
Cancer Research UK
The Mediterranean diet came under scrutiny after researchers noticed lower rates of illnesses such as heart disease in countries such as Spain and Greece.
They noticed that people living there generally ate more vegetables and fish, less red meat, cooked in olive oil and drank moderate amounts of alcohol.
The latest study is one of the largest yet to look at the potential impact on cancer of the various parts of this diet.
'No superfood'
Researchers from Harvard University persuaded thousands of Greek people of various ages to record their food intake over an eight-year-period.
Broccoli
Broccoli may help ward off prostate cancer
Their adherence to the Mediterranean diet was ranked using a scoring system, and the group with the worst score compared with those who followed a couple of aspects of the diet, and those who followed it the most closely.
The biggest effect they found - a 9% reduction in risk - was achieved simply by eating more "unsaturated" fats such as olive oil.
But just two changes - eating less red meat, and more peas, beans and lentils, cut the risk of cancer by 12%.
Dr Dimitrios Trichopoulos, who led the study, said: "Adjusting one's overall dietary habits towards the traditional Mediterranean pattern had an important effect."
Sara Hiom, from Cancer Research UK, said the research highlighted the importance of a healthy balanced diet.
"It shows there are a number of things you can do, and there is no one 'superfood' that can stop you developing the disease."
Broccoli benefit
The other study suggesting that food had the power to prevent cancer came from the Institute of Food Research in Norwich.
Scientists compared the effects of adding 400 grams of broccoli or peas a week to the diet of men at high risk of prostate cancer - and in the case of broccoli found differences in the activity of genes in the prostate which other studies have linked to cancer.
Their findings raised the possibility that broccoli, or other "cruciferous" vegetables, such as cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, could help prevent or slow down the disease, particularly if the man had a particular gene variant - GSTM1.
Professor Richard Mithen, who led the research, published in the Public Library of Science journal, said: "Eating two or three portions of cruciferous vegetables per week, and maybe a few more if you lack the GSTM1 gene - should be encouraged."
Professor Karol Sikora, medical director of CancerPartnersUK, said the study was the first time in a properly controlled clinical trial that broccoli had been shown to change the expression of specific genes in the prostate gland.
"Although the observation period was too short and the numbers too small to show that the incidence of cancer actually fell, it is the first clear demonstration that broccoli and presumably other cruciferous vegetables may well reduce cancer risk."
Source:BBC | | Regulate unorthodox therapy call Tue 17th June 2008 |
Regulate unorthodox therapy call
Man receiving acupuncture
The government is already looking at the issue
Acupuncture, herbal medicines and other traditional treatments should be regulated in the UK "without delay", experts say.
The government-appointed steering group said patients were put at risk by the "incoherent" way the industry was run.
The report does not cover other forms of alternative therapy like homeopathy, but would affect 8,000 practitioners.
Ministers have already been looking at the issue and now plan to run a quick consultation on how to proceed.
But the group of experts expressed frustration changes were not happening immediately.
The current incoherent state of affairs is simply not sustainable
Professor Mike Pittilo, chairman of steering group
The issue was raised by a House of Lords report in 2000 and that has been followed by various consultations.
One of the key problems has been how to regulate treatments for which there is limited evidence of effectiveness.
But the experts, led by Professor Mike Pittilo, the vice chancellor of Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University, said unregulated treatments were putting patients at risk.
They said acupuncture had been known to cause kidney damage when the needles were inserted too deeply, while herbal medicines had been found contaminated with steroids.
Professor Pittilo said he wanted to see the public "safeguarded".
"The current incoherent state of affairs is simply not sustainable.
"Without statutory regulation, I believe vulnerable members of the public will be at continuing risk and the efforts of responsible and well-trained practitioners to follow high standards will be undermined."
The steering group was looking at everything from the use of garlic, ginseng and mushrooms in herbal medicine along with a range of traditional therapies such as ayurveda which combines diet, yoga, massage and herbal remedies.
It did not include homeopathy, aromatherapy or massages.
Health minister Ben Bradshaw said a three-month consultation would be run this summer along with negotiations with the devolved administrations before making a decision.
He said: "Patient safety is paramount and people should always seek their GP's advice to ensure that any other therapy does not conflict with any ongoing treatment."
Source: BBC
| | Ginkgo 'does not treat dementia' Tue 17th June 2008 |
Ginkgo 'does not treat dementia'
Ginkgo biloba leaves
The herbal preparation is extracted from the ginkgo biloba tree
A herbal extract used by an estimated 10% of people with dementia is not an effective treatment for it, an Imperial College London study suggests.
Ginkgo biloba is commonly marketed as an aid to memory and some studies have reported benefits.
But a six-month trial of 176 people with mild to moderate dementia found no difference between those taking ginkgo biloba and those taking placebo.
The results are in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
The researchers tested 120 mg daily of ginkgo biloba in patients recruited from London general practices.
Thousands of people with dementia, who are already struggling to make ends meet, may buy ginkgo biloba expecting an improvement in their memory
Professor Clive Ballard, Alzheimer's Society
They measured participants cognitive skills and quality of life at two, four and six months.
Tests included exercises such as recalling words from memory or answering questions about time or places.
There was no evidence that the standard dose of the herbal extract had any benefit on memory.
And quality of life as reported by the patient or by their carer did not improve over the course of the research.
Evidence update
A Cochrane review published in 2002 which had taken all relevant evidence into account found ginkgo may be a small beneficial effect on memory in dementia patients.
But the researchers say that is being updated in view of this latest research and has found that it is unlikely to provide benefits.
Study leader, Dr Rob McCarney who carried out the research at Imperial College London, said the lack of drug treatments in early dementia meant patients would try anything to slow down the progression of the disease.
"This isn't a hugely expensive treatment but if you're living on a state pension it can make a considerable dent in your budget.
"The findings add to the growing evidence that ginkgo provides no benefit."
He added that negative findings, such as these were in general less likely to be published.
"But we think this is equally important because people can clutch at straws when a diagnosis of dementia is made."
Professor Clive Ballard, director of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said the finding was very disappointing.
"However, this is an extremely important finding.
"Thousands of people with dementia, who are already struggling to make ends meet, may buy ginkgo biloba expecting an improvement in their memory."
Source: BBC
| | A sharp idea to look younger Mon 16th June 2008 | Acupuncture can give you a lift without facing the knife, says Katharine Shaw
A face full of needles may not be your idea of spa heaven. Yet as more and more of us seek natural alternatives to lasers and Botox, cosmetic acupuncture could well become the new "facelift" of choice.
Acupuncture
Point of the exercise: a half-hour relaxing with up to 14 needles in your face can help boost your skin tone and make you look younger
Being the kind of person who faints when having a blood test, I may not be acupuncturist Gemma Jimenez's dream customer. But as she takes a look at my overall health history, discussing everything from bowel movements to my tongue, she is reassuring. "They are tiny needles," she says. "Most people really don't feel them go in at all."
The treatment begins with cleansing. Then the needles go in: first a couple in the legs, which stings a little, then one on the belly. Still manageable. Then the face. Call me hysterical, but this feels like red ant bites along my jaw, brows, smile lines and crow's feet. Ouch. Jimenez, calm and efficient, expresses surprise at my low pain threshold and - perhaps because I am beginning to beg for mercy - she stops at 12 needles (normally you would get about 14 in the face). Once in, they are, indeed, painless.
Jimenez herself has been having the treatments regularly for years. A gorgeously fresh-faced 51, she has never been near a scalpel or an acid peel in her life. "I see many women in their 50s and beyond who do not want surgery or invasive treatments, but want to look their best," she says. Her clients include actresses who come for beauty maintenance or a quick boost before a big night under the flashbulbs.
The treatment can also help with medical conditions: Jimenez once treated a 25-year-old woman suffering from a pigmentation problem on her face; heavy-duty concealer had failed to hide the dark blotches. After a year of cosmetic acupuncture treatments, Jimenez claims, the woman no longer even has to wear make-up. One client went to her to correct lumps left by a plastic surgeon's "fillers", another to have treatment for herpes-induced facial paralysis.
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"I first saw Gemma when I lost a tooth and my face was slightly sagging on one side, making the smile line more prominent," says Renata Dutra, a 36-year-old actress and architect from London, who has been visiting Jimenez for 18 months. "I had 10sessions and was amazed - my facial muscles were more balanced, but also the skin tone was improved and I looked much younger. It's really wonderful." There is half an hour of relaxation with the needles in place, then they come out (just tweaks) and a facial massage ensues.
To my amazement, I look distinctly refreshed and two hours later even my husband notices (an event in itself). The effect wears off after a day, though a penny-sized bruise on my jaw remains. "You have to maintain the treatments," says Jimenez. "It isn't just a one-off." No pain, no gain?
# Cosmetic acupuncture with Gemma Jimenez costs £75 for a one-hour treatment in Kensington or Middlesex. Contact Jimenez at Healing Hands, 120 Preston Hill, Kenton, Middlesex (07957 298766).
Cosmetic acupunture
The pros
# Not a syringe, scalpel or laser in sight.
# Relaxing and holistic: your overall health really matters.
# Nurturing: Gemma Jimenez is sympathetic and kind DResults: it really does seem to make a short-term difference.
The cons
# Time consuming: initially you need sessions two to three times a week, then once every three weeks for maintenance.
# Ouch: the needles can smart.
# Pricey: over a lifetime, on a purely cost basis, you might be better off with a scalpel.
Source:Telegraph | | Acupuncture reduces pain after head and neck cancer surgery Tue 3rd June 2008 | Acupuncture helps alleviate lingering pain and decreased shoulder mobility in people who have had surgery, according to scientists.
The U.S researchers studied patients who had surgery for head and neck cancer.
They also found the ancient Chinese therapy also significantly improved extreme dry mouth or xerostomia, which often occurs in people who have had radiation treatment for head and neck cancer.
Acupuncture
The study highlights the potential benefits acupuncture has for people who had head and neck cancer surgery
Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York studied 70 patients who were at least three months past their surgery and radiation treatments.
About half got standard treatments, which include physical therapy and treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs. The other half got standard treatment plus a weekly acupuncture session.
After four weeks, 39 per cent of those who got acupuncture reported improvements in pain and mobility, compared with only seven per cent in people who got typical care.
'Although further study is needed, these data support the potential role of acupuncture in addressing post neck-dissection pain and dysfunction, as well as xerostomia,' Dr David Pfister said at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
Acupuncture, which has been used for more than 2,000 years, involves stimulating certain points on the body with needles, heat, pressure or electricity.
It is often used to treat cancer pain or help with chronic fatigue and depression.
Source: Daily Mail | | Acupuncture: the lie of the needle Mon 12th May 2008 | Acupuncture is gaining credibility in medical circles, but Simon Singh is not convinced by the evidence
This weekend there was yet another piece of research trumpeting the benefits of acupuncture; in this case, needling was said to relieve hot flushes in breast cancer patients by up to 50 per cent.
Acupuncture: just a placebo?
The new study, unveiled at a conference in Berlin, follows similar claims that the ancient treatment can benefit those with arthritis, back pain, migraine and infertility. But is acupuncture really the miracle treatment it seems?
It appears to have become a fashionable cure-all, with 3,000 practitioners now regulated by the British Acupuncture Council. Earlier this year the highly respected British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported that acupuncture could increase IVF success rates by 65 per cent, based on analysis of seven separate trials involving 1,366 women. This research put me in an embarrassing position: I had just sent a book about alternative therapies to the printers.
Co-written with Edzard Ernst, the world's first professor of complementary medicine, we had concluded that acupuncture works only as a placebo, except possibly in the treatment of pain and nausea. In the light of the BMJ study, should we be revising our opinion?
According to Chinese philosophy, acupuncture works by interfering at particular points along channels in our bodies, known as meridians, thereby enhancing the flow of life energy, known as Ch'i. Although the concepts of Ch'i and meridians make no sense in terms of science, medical researchers have been interested in testing the claims of acupuncture ever since the 1970s.
advertisementBut in order to test the impact of acupuncture, one must disentangle the placebo effect (which means that as long as a patient believes that a treatment will work, then they are likely to respond positively). The best clinical trials involve two groups of patients: one receiving the real treatment, the other taking something that feels real, but which is ineffective.
Researchers can then see if the new intervention offers any benefit beyond what is seen with the sham one. But how do you create a form of sham acupuncture? In recent years, researchers have developed three procedures. The first involves needling the patient at the wrong points on the skin, thereby missing the "meridians". In the second, acupuncturists insert the needles to shallow depths, again avoiding the meridian. The third procedure uses retractable needles: like theatrical daggers, the skin drives the needles back into the handle of the instrument, but the patient is none the wiser.
So how accurate were the trials analysed in the BMJ? The problem is that four out of the seven trials did not include a "sham" acupuncture group, but merely compared the effect of acupuncture with no acupuncture at all; any benefit could be due to the placebo effect and therefore these trials should be ignored. When focusing on the remaining three trials which had included such a sham group, the results are less than impressive. Two out of three failed to show that real acupuncture offers any significant benefit (in terms of likelihood of pregnancy) beyond the fake treatment.
The sensible conclusion is that acupuncture is still unproven in terms of increasing IVF success rates. So it is worth avoiding acupuncture in the context of IVF, since 10 per cent of patients complain of pain, bleeding or bruising, and some even experience fainting, dizziness, nausea or vomiting. These adverse effects are not serious, but the known risks outweigh the unproven benefits.
'Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial' by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst (Bantam) is available from Telegraph Books for £14.99 + £1.25 p&p. To order, call 0870 428 4112 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk
The needles helped me conceive, says Lydia Slater
AS A doctor's daughter, I was brought up to despise alternative medicine. But then, about five years ago, I found myself struggling with a variety of conditions that my GP seemed unable to treat. I had developed irritable bowel syndrome; I had put on weight, was unable to sleep and full of unspecified rage at my unexplained failure to conceive. All that modern medicine seemed to offer was a course of soporific antidepressants.
Then I met a friend who was being treated for polycystic ovary syndrome by a Harley Street acupuncturist, a practitioner who, incidentally, specialised in unexplained infertility. I booked myself in, without telling my parents.
The weekly sessions weren't cheap - some £80 a time. Initially, I was scared of the needles, but the acupuncturist was so skilled I felt nothing. I soon had them sticking out of my ears and in my finger joints.
As the needle went in, I sometimes felt a violent jolt of electricity in one limb, or flashing along my body's nerve networks. Often, I would be visited by a burst of exhilaration or was suffused with a feeling of calm.
The experience was positively addictive. I increased the sessions, sometimes to twice a week, which I could ill afford. Instead, I gave up shopping and eating out.
The effects were startling: first, the IBS cleared up; then I ceased to comfort-eat and lost weight. I booked sessions to coincide with difficult situations, such as prior to a work meeting at which I had to negotiate a new contract.
The acupuncturist told me that he would arrange the needles so as to boost my oestrogen levels, reduce stress and thus improve my chances of conceiving. It sounded like mumbo jumbo, but although I'm normally diffident, I found myself storming into the office and insisting on precisely the deal I was after. It was about the same time that I discovered I was pregnant. I now have two daughters, Asya, nearly four, and Rosie, two.
I can't believe that my return to health can be attributed to a placebo effect. So many people I know can attest to the benefits of acupuncture: it has helped friends with everything from healing torn muscles to boosting low self-esteem.
These days when I'm ill, I still go to my GP. But if a problem is nebulous or intractable, I'll be straight back to the needles.
Source:Telegraph | | Why flat-screen TVs are dangerous but frozen peas are a cooling treat Wed 7th May 2008 | You may never think about this but the neck is highly complex and is one of the body's most important structures.
It is also prone to injury as a result - not surprising given the average human head weighs about 12lb and constitutes around eight per cent of your whole body mass.
The neck comprises seven bony vertebrae that sit in concave-shaped and cushioned intervertebral discs.
It is one of the most common sites in the body for stress to accumulate. And unfortunately, up to 70 per cent of us will suffer neck pain at some point in our lives - there are a number of potential causes from, simply, poor posture to the more debilitating whiplash.
Agony: Up to 70 per cent of us will suffer neck pain at some point in our lives
One of the most common reasons for neck pain is repetitive strain from prolonged sitting where the head is held in a fixed position.
I have recently seen a massive surge in patients - young and old - with quite acute neck pain, which isn't necessarily physical in origin.
Neck tension can reflect underlying stress factors caused by today's pressurised lifestyles. And while the neck is a highly erogenous zone, sadly, not all neck pain can be kissed better.
The key to effective treatment for neck pain is to be able to isolate which structures are involved in the pain and whether there are any other contributing factors.
STRETCH YOUR NECK EVERY DAY - SIX WAYS
It's important to understand how the neck works - it's pretty simple in that it moves in only six directions.
It flexes (bends forward), extends (bends backward), side bends and rotates - left and right.
Stretching, which maintains a good range of movement of the neck, is imperative for everyday neck health.
To improve mobility in your neck you should stretch the muscles by assisting the movement.
For example, to improve flexion bending forward, place your hands behind your head, tilt your head towards your chest and when you reach the end of your natural range apply light pressure to take it that little bit further.
At the end of the range of movement, just add a little more pressure to achieve a thorough stretch. It is this stretch at the end of the range of movement that makes the difference.
To strengthen the same muscles, you resist the movement: For example, to strengthen the muscles that flex your head, rather than put your hands behind your head, put them in front (on your forehead) and resist the movement.
This causes the neck muscles to contract and in so doing it increases the strength of those muscles. It is important to do this for all the muscles of the neck - in all six planes of movement.
YOUR FLAT-SCREEN TV HAZARD
I've also been treating more patients with neck pain triggered by new hazards - by that I mean injuries I would not have seen 20 years ago.
Today's neck problems seem to be caused by working at computers for extended periods with monitors at awkward angles placed on tables at the incorrect height, combined with poor posture on non-ergonomic chairs.
Then there are large-screen TVs positioned too high on walls, meaning the head gets locked back in a fixed position; using laptops and computer games where the head is held in an abnormal, stretched position; and, curiously, people who have been leaning
As one of the country's foremost practitioners of osteopathy and acupuncture, Garry Trainer's A-list clients include Gwyneth Paltrow and Robbie Williams.
Here, he explains why we don't give our necks enough attention but that with basic knowledge and his practical advice we can avoid injury and pain. back over sinks at the hairdresser's.
Even sitting in the blast of an office's cool air-conditioning causes neck muscles to contract, which can cause pain and stiffness.
The age-old cricked neck is often due to sleeping in a different bed or with different pillows and is one of the top ten causes of neck pain.
WHY WHIPLASH PROTECTS YOUR BODY
Road traffic accidents are a common cause of neck pain, namely "whiplash", which takes several months to improve.
It is caused by a sudden forced movement of the head or neck in any direction and the resulting "rebound" in the opposite direction gives it its name.
The sudden whipping motion causes injury to the surrounding and supporting tissues of the neck and head. Muscles react by tightening and contracting, creating muscle fatigue resulting in pain and stiffness.
Muscle spasm is a way the body protects itself and so reduces movement through the painful area. Inhibiting movement allows the body time to heal.
Severe whiplash can also involve injury to the intervertebral discs, joints, ligaments, muscles, and nerve roots.
If you've had a head injury, more than likely your neck has been affected, too - even if you don't feel it right away. So it's wise to seek medical attention immediately.
WHY WON'T MY PAIN IN THE NECK GO AWAY?
If you've had neck pain for a long period, it's a good idea to consult your GP and a physical therapist as some modern diagnostic techniques may be needed - namely an X-ray or MRI scan - as a positive diagnosis is imperative before treatment starts.
Given time, neck pain can self-regulate or get better by itself. However, treatment assists the natural healing processes and should also ensure a more rapid recovery.
WHY DO I GET PINS AND NEEDLES?
The nerves that supply the fingers, and the muscles of the arms and hands have their origins in the base of the neck.
It seems bizarre, but if you trap any of these nerves, through injury to the neck, then pins and needles and numbness can manifest in the arms or hands.
You can also get pins and needles in the fingers due to an inadequate blood supply - by lying on your arm or sleeping with your arm above your head.
These disappear quickly when you change position, whereas pins and needles caused by trapped nerves will not resolve so easily.
In the long term, the best way to treat neck pain is via prevention and a good exercise and stretching. A strengthening regime can help, too.
Also be aware of your posture on a daily basis and explore ergonomic solutions within the workplace.
Remember, the majority of neck pain is not serious and simply mechanical in nature - you probably just made the wrong move at the wrong time. What a pain in the neck!
HOW TO TREAT LONG-TERM NECK PAIN
I would recommend the following choice of physical therapy as being effective for longer-term neck pain:
• Osteopathic or chiropractic treatments that concentrate on the joints, ensuring they are moving freely.
• Physiotherapy is the traditional treatment for physical ailments and focuses on exercises to strengthen muscles and prevent reoccurrence.
• Acupuncture can provide pain relief for significant numbers of those with chronic neck and shoulder pain, by releasing endorphins, which have a similar chemical structure to morphine, hence its pain-relief effect.
• Massage is an age-old technique that Hippocrates described as the "mother of all therapies". It stimulates blood circulation, which keeps the muscles supple and mobile.
• The Alexander Technique - a gentle form of exercise, not unlike yoga, aimed at aligning the spine - is good if the problem appears to be of postural origin.
• Yoga and pilates have a lot to offer in the treatment and management of neck pain as they concentrate on stretching and strengthening, but I would suggest refraining from headstandsas this may compress and compromise neck structures.
FIVE WAYS TO FIX YOUR NECK: DON'T STOP MOVING
When neck pain strikes, don't do activities that make your pain worse but do try to stay as active as possible by going to work and keeping up normal everyday activities.
Bed rest is not necessary and can actually make neck pain worse, particularly if you have a television in the corner of the room and you have to twist your head to watch it.
If you are given a neck collar try not to use this for more than one or two days.
You can even tie a scarf tightly around the neck to give a bit more support. This allows the neck muscles to relax as they do not have to work as hard.
FROZEN PEAS
For the first two to three days, you may get help by applying a homemade cold pack.
Simply place crushed ice in a plastic bag or, alternatively, use a bag of frozen peas or a chilled beer.
When you're ready to use the cold pack, wrap it in a towel or wet flannel. Place it on the sore area for up to 15 minutes a few times a day.
WARM THE PAIN
Once the acute symptoms are controlled in two to three days, you may get good relief using a heating pad - the padded packs containing wholewheat that you heat in the microwave, available at most health stores and online, are pretty good.
Check your skin regularly to make sure you are not getting too much heat.
You may find more relief by using a "contrast" of ice and heat. This is where you begin by placing a cold pack on the sore area for ten minutes.
Then place a heating pad on the area for another ten minutes. You can repeat the process a couple times, finishing with the heat.
Hot and cold will desensitise the pain, yet hot is best suited to stimulate circulation and cold is best suited if there are signs of inflammation.
STIMULATE THE NERVES
Try TENS - transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.
This is a small, pocket- sized device the size of a personal stereo connected by wires to sticky pads that are placed on the skin in the area of pain to deliver a mild electrical pulse.
If you've been treated with electrical stimulation, your therapist will have a good idea if this kind of treatment helps you.
Your therapist may choose to issue one of these, but only if you can't get good pain relief in other ways. They can also be bought from many healthcare websites.
EXERCISE
After you have completed your chosen therapy visits, your therapist will have a much better idea what types of exercise will help you control your pain. They should go over the exercises that will give you the best relief if you get sore again.
Remember to do the exercises only in the way your therapist has instructed. Overdoing them could make your pain worse.
Source:Daily Mail | | Mushroom extract may stop breast cancer growth Wed 23rd April 2008 | LONDON (Reuters) - Extracts from a mushroom used for centuries in Eastern Asian medicine may stop breast cancer cells from growing and could become a new weapon in the fight against the killer disease, scientists said on Tuesday.
Laboratory tests using human breast cancer cells show the mushroom called Phellinus linteus has a marked anti-cancer effect, probably by blocking an enzyme called AKT. AKT is known to control signals that lead to cell growth.
Phellinus linteus -- called song gen in Chinese medicine, sang-hwang in Korean and meshimakobu in Japanese -- has previously been shown to have anti-tumor properties on skin, lung and prostate cancer cells.
The new research on breast cancer, however, marks the first time that scientists have started to understand how it works.
Dr Daniel Sliva of the Methodist Research Institute in Indianapolis said the mushroom extract reduced uncontrolled growth of new cancer cells, suppressed their aggressive behavior and blocked new tumor-feeding blood vessels.
"We're not yet able to apply this knowledge to modern medicine, but we ... hope our study will encourage more researchers to explore the use of medicinal mushrooms for the treatment of cancer," he said.
The findings were reported in the British Journal of Cancer.
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Matthew Jones)
| | Acupuncture: the lie of the needle Mon 21st April 2008 | Acupuncture is gaining credibility in medical circles, but Simon Singh is not convinced by the evidence
This weekend there was yet another piece of research trumpeting the benefits of acupuncture; in this case, needling was said to relieve hot flushes in breast cancer patients by up to 50 per cent.
Acupuncture: just a placebo?
The new study, unveiled at a conference in Berlin, follows similar claims that the ancient treatment can benefit those with arthritis, back pain, migraine and infertility. But is acupuncture really the miracle treatment it seems?
It appears to have become a fashionable cure-all, with 3,000 practitioners now regulated by the British Acupuncture Council. Earlier this year the highly respected British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported that acupuncture could increase IVF success rates by 65 per cent, based on analysis of seven separate trials involving 1,366 women. This research put me in an embarrassing position: I had just sent a book about alternative therapies to the printers.
Co-written with Edzard Ernst, the world's first professor of complementary medicine, we had concluded that acupuncture works only as a placebo, except possibly in the treatment of pain and nausea. In the light of the BMJ study, should we be revising our opinion?
According to Chinese philosophy, acupuncture works by interfering at particular points along channels in our bodies, known as meridians, thereby enhancing the flow of life energy, known as Ch'i. Although the concepts of Ch'i and meridians make no sense in terms of science, medical researchers have been interested in testing the claims of acupuncture ever since the 1970s.
advertisement
But in order to test the impact of acupuncture, one must disentangle the placebo effect (which means that as long as a patient believes that a treatment will work, then they are likely to respond positively). The best clinical trials involve two groups of patients: one receiving the real treatment, the other taking something that feels real, but which is ineffective.
Researchers can then see if the new intervention offers any benefit beyond what is seen with the sham one. But how do you create a form of sham acupuncture? In recent years, researchers have developed three procedures. The first involves needling the patient at the wrong points on the skin, thereby missing the "meridians". In the second, acupuncturists insert the needles to shallow depths, again avoiding the meridian. The third procedure uses retractable needles: like theatrical daggers, the skin drives the needles back into the handle of the instrument, but the patient is none the wiser.
So how accurate were the trials analysed in the BMJ? The problem is that four out of the seven trials did not include a "sham" acupuncture group, but merely compared the effect of acupuncture with no acupuncture at all; any benefit could be due to the placebo effect and therefore these trials should be ignored. When focusing on the remaining three trials which had included such a sham group, the results are less than impressive. Two out of three failed to show that real acupuncture offers any significant benefit (in terms of likelihood of pregnancy) beyond the fake treatment.
The sensible conclusion is that acupuncture is still unproven in terms of increasing IVF success rates. So it is worth avoiding acupuncture in the context of IVF, since 10 per cent of patients complain of pain, bleeding or bruising, and some even experience fainting, dizziness, nausea or vomiting. These adverse effects are not serious, but the known risks outweigh the unproven benefits.
'Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial' by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst (Bantam) is available from Telegraph Books for £14.99 + £1.25 p&p. To order, call 0870 428 4112 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk
The needles helped me conceive, says Lydia Slater
AS A doctor's daughter, I was brought up to despise alternative medicine. But then, about five years ago, I found myself struggling with a variety of conditions that my GP seemed unable to treat. I had developed irritable bowel syndrome; I had put on weight, was unable to sleep and full of unspecified rage at my unexplained failure to conceive. All that modern medicine seemed to offer was a course of soporific antidepressants.
Then I met a friend who was being treated for polycystic ovary syndrome by a Harley Street acupuncturist, a practitioner who, incidentally, specialised in unexplained infertility. I booked myself in, without telling my parents.
The weekly sessions weren't cheap - some £80 a time. Initially, I was scared of the needles, but the acupuncturist was so skilled I felt nothing. I soon had them sticking out of my ears and in my finger joints.
As the needle went in, I sometimes felt a violent jolt of electricity in one limb, or flashing along my body's nerve networks. Often, I would be visited by a burst of exhilaration or was suffused with a feeling of calm.
The experience was positively addictive. I increased the sessions, sometimes to twice a week, which I could ill afford. Instead, I gave up shopping and eating out.
The effects were startling: first, the IBS cleared up; then I ceased to comfort-eat and lost weight. I booked sessions to coincide with difficult situations, such as prior to a work meeting at which I had to negotiate a new contract.
The acupuncturist told me that he would arrange the needles so as to boost my oestrogen levels, reduce stress and thus improve my chances of conceiving. It sounded like mumbo jumbo, but although I'm normally diffident, I found myself storming into the office and insisting on precisely the deal I was after. It was about the same time that I discovered I was pregnant. I now have two daughters, Asya, nearly four, and Rosie, two.
I can't believe that my return to health can be attributed to a placebo effect. So many people I know can attest to the benefits of acupuncture: it has helped friends with everything from healing torn muscles to boosting low self-esteem.
These days when I'm ill, I still go to my GP. But if a problem is nebulous or intractable, I'll be straight back to the needles.
Source: Telegraph | | Chinese medicine 'eases eczema' Thu 13th March 2008 | Chinese medicine 'eases eczema'
Eczema is linked to inflammatory immune system chemicals
A traditional Chinese herbal medicine consisting of five herbs may ease eczema symptoms, a study suggests.
Researchers found the treatment reduced the need for conventional medicines, and improved the quality of life for young patients with atopic eczema.
The study of 85 patients by the Chinese University of Hong Kong is reported in the British Journal of Dermatology.
However, UK experts warned against using Chinese herbal medicine without first consulting a doctor.
HERBS IN THE MEDICINE
Flos lonicerae (Japanese honeysuckle)
Herba menthae (peppermint)
Cortex moutan (root bark of peony tree)
Atractylodes Rhizome (underground stem of the atractylodes herb)
Cortex phellodendri (Amur cork-tree bark)
Eczema is a group of inflammatory skin disorders that make the skin dry, itchy, flaky, red and sore. In more severe forms the skin can become broken and weep or bleed.
The Hong Kong team assessed the effects of the "pentaherbs formulation" on patients with atopic eczema - the most common type of the disease which affects at least one in ten children.
The capsules contained extracts of five raw herbs based on a widely used ancestral Chinese concoction.
In the study, 85 patients were either given the medicine, or a placebo.
Patients who took the medicine reported that their quality of life improved by a third, while those who took the placebo reported no improvement.
The researchers also found the herbal remedy reduced patients' needs for the conventional treatment of topical steroids by an average of four days a month, compared to just one day a month in the placebo group.
Inflammatory chemicals
Further analysis revealed that patients who took the herbal remedy showed lower blood levels of four proteins thought to have inflammatory effects linked with eczema.
This finding was confirmed in lab tests in which the pentaherbs formulation was added to blood cells in a test tube.
Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: "These early studies show that children with atopic eczema may benefit from a specific concoction of traditional Chinese herbs, which could eventually pave the way for this remedy to find its way into mainstream medicine.
"However, we would warn against using Chinese herbal medications without first speaking to your doctor.
"Some retailers may not be reputable and the product they sell you may be of a low standard or could contain harmful ingredients."
Source: BBC
| | Natural deodorants: Scent packing Thu 6th March 2008 | The battle to smell fresh has raged for centuries. The ancient Egyptians shaved underarm then slapped on citrus oils and spices.
Chemical-free: natural alternatives really work
The Greeks and Romans blended deodorising perfumes. Nowadays we have a full arsenal of chemicals at our disposal - chemicals that do not just mask the smell of sweat, but block the ducts and prevent perspiration from emerging in the first place. Have we gone too far?
A recent study found high levels of aluminium - a common ingredient in modern anti-perspirants - in the breast tissue of cancer patients who had undergone mastectomies.
Cancer Research UK maintains that there is absolutely no link between deodorants and breast cancer but I cannot help regarding my chemical-packed antiperspirant with some ill-informed distrust. It could be time to get less high-tech about smelling good.
Body odour is caused not by perspiration itself but by the bacterial breakdown of it. Deodorants simply mask the pong. Antiperspirants go a step further, plugging the ducts to stop the perspiration from emerging (aluminium compounds react with the electrolytes in perspiration to form a gel plug in the duct of the sweat gland).
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Pure deodorants tend not to contain aluminium but the roll-ons and sprays that most of us cover ourselves with daily tend to combine antiperspirant and deodorant functions.
"Bacteria are a healthy part of the normal flora of the skin," says Dr Richard Bojar, director of the Skin Research Centre at Leeds University. To stay fresh there is no need to try to kill everything on the skin, he says.
Most modern deodorants also involve a mix of cheap perfumes. The good news for those either aesthetically or ideologically leery of these whiffy chemicals is that a new wave of more "natural" deodorants has recently hit the market. You can now buy sprays and roll-ons that blend essential oils and plants such as lavender, Aloe vera, lemon or coriander, and smell a lot better than their chemical peers. But do they work?
The organic cosmetics company Green People bases its deodorants on the mineral salt alunite, which apparently stops underarm bacteria from thriving. I rolled this on liberally then danced for four hours at a friend's 40th birthday party.
Astonishingly, I came out smelling of roses (or, more accurately, of a faint blend of rosemary, lavender and peppermint).
Neal's Yard Remedies' lemon and coriander deodorant spray then got me through a child's birthday party the next day with relative confidence.
FIVE WAYS TO STAY FRESH
1 Ditch the antiperspirant: blocking the sweat entirely could be overkill. A good deodorant - most don't contain aluminium - will do the job just as well.
2 Shop around: "Each person's skin reacts differently," says Dr Bojar. "Try different deodorants until you get one that works well."
3 Go natural: clever new products containing blends of essential oils and minerals such as zinc ricinoleate, which "fixes" the odours produced by bacteria so they can't be released, can work brilliantly.
4 Be choosy: "Steer clear of internet sourcing from unproven names," says Bojar. "Poor quality or untested ingredients can cause terrible irritation." Buy from well-known "alternative" companies such as Neal's Yard, Green People and Culpeper.
5 Don't overdo it: over-zealous scrubbing under the arms with anti-microbial soaps can cause dermatitis (irritation).
Source: Telegraph by Lucy Atkins | | Could Gingko cause a stroke? Mon 3rd March 2008 | Gingko biloba, a Chinese herb, could be putting users at risk of strokes.
A herbal supplement taken by thousands of Britons to keep their memory sharp into old age may do more harm than good.
Ginkgo biloba, first used medicinally by the Chinese more than 5,000 years ago, has been thought to stave off Alzheimer's disease and improve circulation.
But research shows it increases the risk of a stroke, while its effects on memory are unclear.
The U.S. study looked at the effect of three tablets a day on 118 men and women aged 85 and over.
Half were given ginkgo biloba tablets or supplements and half were given placebos - dummy pills.
During the three-year trial, seven of those taking the supplement had a stroke or mini-stroke - but none of those in the placebo group did.
Study author Dr Hiroko Dodge, an expert in age-related mental decline, said:
"Ginkgo has been reported to cause bleeding-related complications but the strokes in this case were due to blood clots, not excessive bleeding, and were generally not severe."
During the Oregon State University study 21 people developed memory problems which could be classed as dementia.
Of these, 14 had taken placebos and seven the herbal supplement.
When the researchers took into account how well the volunteers had remembered to take their tablets, however, they found those who followed the instructions the best were 68 per cent less likely to have developed memory problems.
It was unclear whether this was purely chance, said Dr Dodge, whose study is reported in the journal Neurology.
He said: "These results need to be clarified with larger studies but the findings are interesting because ginkgo biloba is widely used, readily available and relatively inexpensive.
"One of the most pressing public health problems is the rapidly growing number of people who, due to age alone, are at high risk of developing dementia.
"The potential to delay or prevent this is of great importance.
"Further studies are needed to determine whether ginkgo biloba has benefits in preventing cognitive decline and whether it is safe."
Around 700,000 Britons have Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
The number is expected to double in the next 40 years, as the population ages.
Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said: "This study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting ginkgo biloba may not be effective.
"More research is needed on a larger scale."
Michael McIntyre, chairman of the European Herbal Practitioners' Association, also called for further research, but added: "I would have thought the fact they noted that people who reliably took the supplement had a 68 per cent lower risk of developing memory problems was very significant."
Source: By FIONA MACRAE Daily Mail
| | Acupuncture during IVF boosts a woman's chance of conceiving by 65 per cent Sat 9th February 2008 | Women having acupuncture while undergoing IVF increase their chances of getting pregnant by 65 per cent, according to new research.
Experts found evidence of success for women who had acupuncture within one day of embryo transfer.
The study, by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the US and the VU University Amsterdam, involved a review of seven published trials.
A total of 1,366 women undergoing IVF were included in the trials, which compared acupuncture given within one day of embryo transfer, sham acupuncture where needles are inserted away from points used in genuine acupuncture, and no additional treatment.
Women of various ages with different causes of infertility were included.
The timing of the acupuncture sessions in relation to embryo transfer differed somewhat among trials.
However, all the women received acupuncture immediately before or immediately after the embryo transfer.
All the acupuncture sessions also lasted 25 to 30 minutes.
The review found a 65 per cent increased chance of falling pregnant with acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture or no treatment.
But the researchers warned that this odds ratio "significantly overestimates" the rate ratio in this context, in which the event (pregnancy) is relatively frequent.
In absolute terms, 10 women would need to be treated with acupuncture to bring about one additional pregnancy, the study said.
The trials came from a search of the computerised databases Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central and the Chinese Biomedical Database.
All the trials were published in English since 2002, and conducted in four different Western countries.
The review, published online in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), found that, in trials where the baseline pregnancy rates were already high, the benefit of acupuncture was smaller and non-significant.
The researchers concluded: "Current preliminary evidence suggests that acupuncture given with embryo transfer improves rates of pregnancy and live birth among women undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF)."
A study published by the University of Oklahoma last year found that women given acupuncture while undergoing IVF were 37 per cent less likely to get pregnant.
The therapy is thought to affect the autonomic nervous system, which is involved in the control of muscles and glands.
One theory is that acupuncture could impact on this system with regards to fertility by making the lining of the uterus more receptive to receiving an embryo.
A previous study found acupuncture could double a woman's chance of getting pregnant when combined with IVF.
In 2000, around 200,000 babies worldwide were conceived through IVF.
Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine from the Peninsula Medical School, part of the universities of Exeter and Plymouth, said of the review: "An important point is that much of the observed effect could be due to a placebo response.
"IVF may not seem to be "placebo-prone" but it probably is: if women expect it to be helpful they are more relaxed which, in turn, would affect pregnancy rates."
Source: Daily Mail | | Batch Master PRO in Cape Town 18th-25th February 2008 Mon 21st January 2008 | We have almost finished upgrading Batch Master to a PRO version (BM PRO) according to feedback from current users. This will be available for demonstration to any practitioners or therapists who require it on my forthcoming visit to Cape Town.
If you would like me to visit you in your practise to introduce Batch Master PRO then please contact Lorraine Hodgkinson BatchMasterUP@aol.com or info@herbalmedicineuk.com with the location indicating which day and time would be most suitable for you. Alternatively you may visit me at my hotel if preferred (details sent on reply).
It is estimated that the retail price of BM PRO will be £210.00 GBP however anyone wishing to purchase on the day of demonstration can have a 20% discount. This will include a permanent license to use BM PRO, CD, DVD case, FREE USB drive and instructions etc. The current version of Batch Master will be discontinued once BM PRO is released (any previous customers being given a FREE upgrade to BM PRO).
I hope you will think it worthwhile investing your time in seeing the product whilst I am in Cape Town since once set up the program can ensure that you will continue to reap many benefits for years to come. The price is a one off fee which I think represents unbeatable value for this type of product.
Some of the new features will be:
BM PRO will:
Be fully compatible with Windows Vista and Windows XP. Also testing on Mac too (via Bootcamp system).
Automatic wizard to make up products from exisiting stock (it seems a lot of you make your own tinctures etc. and need to do this alot, and as efficiently as possible!)
Synchronise BM contact data with MS Outlook to use in managing appointments.
Import BM data into your accounts package via QIF file can also currently export any data into Excel.
Business development Tool: Charts and graphs to help you make vital decisions.
Attach Word documents to customer records: Write letters, keep extensive notes etc.
Attach Word documents to product records: Specifications, data sheets, max. doses etc.
Use in multiple clinics via a laptop or VPN. (Clear instructions will be provided on how to do this, which your IT person can then set up for you.)
More details can be found on the website at:
http://www.herbalmedicineuk.com/Pages/batchmaster.htm
Best wishes, hope to see you then,
Lorraine Hodgkinson
| | Cancer hopes pinned on acupuncture Sat 20th October 2007 | SCIENTISTS in Manchester are seeing if acupuncture could help beat the draining symptoms of breast cancer treatment.
Previous studies have already suggested the ancient Chinese art, which uses pins inserted at points around the body, may relieve the nausea caused by chemotherapy and even some sorts of pain. And it is estimated that as many as 60 per cent of cancer patients already use some form of complementary therapy alongside more traditional treatments.
Now medics from Manchester University are to lead a clinical trial designed to show whether acupuncture can relieve the fatigue experienced by breast cancer sufferers.
Prof Alex Molassiotis, who is heading the project for the university, said: "We want to find out whether there is an added benefit of reducing levels of cancer-related fatigue, which can be debilitating and distressing and often mistaken for depression.
"The results of this research could improve the quality of life for breast cancer patients and add to the limited treatment choices for managing cancer-related fatigue."
The study, which will be funded by Breakthrough Cancer and is expected to last for up to three years, is believed to be the world's largest clinical trial of its kind.
It will involve 320 women, who have all experienced high levels of fatigue following chemotherapy in the past five years and who will be randomly selected for a 10-week course of acupuncture.
Breakthrough Cancer chief executive Jeremy Hughes said: "Many women use complementary therapies to try and help alleviate treatment side effects, increase their quality of life and reduce stress. However, there is little information available for women to know whether or not something will work or whether it may interfere with their conventional treatment.
"There is a real need to understand more about the effectiveness and safety of complementary therapies such as acupuncture in cancer patients."
Breast cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in British women, accounting for nearly a third of all female cancers. More than 44,000 women are diagnosed with the disease every year.
Source: Manchester Evening News
| | Herbs and Helpers at the AHG Symposium Fri 19th October 2007 | From 24th October to the 4th November 2007 Herbs and Helpers will be closed in order to attend and display at the American Herbalists Guild symposium held in Maryland, Columbia.
This year we will be offering our unique Batch Master total traceability and complete stock management software which is in the process of being updated as a result of customer feedback. This means that there is the opportunity to test and try out some of the changes to the new PRO version and the opportunity to purchase the standard version which will include a free upgrade to PRO, saving at least £70/$140 off the full retail price.
In addition a special 20% discount will be given to all those purchasing a full license at the symposium and also a very useful free gift! (First come first served, while stocks last!)
Total savings approx. £100/$200!
Best wishes and if you are attending this year come and look us up. We will be very glad to see you.
Lorraine Hodgkinson MNIMH MRCHM. | | How powerful placebos could save the NHS millions - AND still cure illnesses Thu 18th October 2007 | Sticking needles randomly into your body is almost as good as real acupuncture when it comes to back pain, according to a new study published last month.
Random needles are also just as good at improving the quality of life for Crohn's disease patients, another study found.
Why is this so? Sceptics say it's because complementary medicine is nothing more than a placebo.
A placebo is a treatment that has no active ingredient but makes the patient feel better simply because they trust the person administering it and believe the treatment will help.
Sick? Try this pill - it won't have any effect whatsoever
The placebo effect has long been used by conventional doctors as a label to discredit alternative treatments.
However, in the past few years there has been a revolution in scientists' understanding of placebos - indeed, some experts now believe they could even replace treatments such as anti-depressants.
"The placebo effect tells us that we have a powerful natural ability to control pain and produce other beneficial effects," says Professor Irvine Kirsch, psychologist and expert on placebos at the University of Hull.
"We should be using this to boost the response to drugs and other treatments."
The medical interest in placebos has been stirred partly by brain scanning technology which has meant scientists can see what happens when you take a placebo.
Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that placebos can bring about genuine physiological changes in people suffering from pain, depression and even Parkinson's disease.
But the medical speciality that benefits the most from the placebo effect is pain treatment.
It seems that believing you are getting pain relief when you aren't really can make a big difference to how it feels - researchers have found that a specific region in the brain responds to a placebo by releasing natural morphine-like painkillers.
Besides pain, depression has also long been known to respond well to placebos.
Using brain scans neuroscientists have found that both placebos and antidepressants increased activity in the frontal cortex - the thinking and planning part of the brain - and reduced activity in areas linked with emotions, and therefore reducing depression.
According to Dr George Lewith, head of the Complementary Medicine Research Group at the University of Southampton, the placebo effect counts for about 70per cent of the benefit of therapies for pain and depression.
It's not just pills and needles that provide a placebo effect. In a study of a group of Parkinson's patients, half had stem cells implanted in their brain to boost their low levels of the brain chemical dopamine, the other half had 'sham' surgery, undergoing an operation but having nothing implanted.
A year later those who wrongly believed they had received the stem cells showed as much improvement as those who had received them. Some forms of placebo work better than others.
Leading the way in this research is Professor Ted Kaptchuk, of Harvard Medical School.
In a study last year, he gave several hundred patients with repetitive strain injury one of two different treatments - a pill or acupuncture - to control their pain.
In fact both treatments were placebos - the pill contained no active ingredient and the acupuncture was sham; the needles didn't go deep enough to have any effect.
The study found the more elaborate treatment, the sham acupuncture, was about ten per cent more effective than the sham pills.
It's even possible to boost the effectiveness of placebo painkillers by using a drug - proglumide - which stimulates the brain's 'expectation pathways' in the front part of the brain.
The idea is that a patient would take this drug at the same time to enhance the effect of the placebo.
But there is also a downside to placebos. Fake treatments can produce very real side-effects - the same ones you'd expect from the real thing.
About 25 per cent of those in the Harvard study reported soreness from needles that never penetrated the skin or a dry mouth from an inert pill.
And some people respond better than others to placebos.
These are those people who are optimistic, especially when it comes to winning money.
Dr Jon-Kar Zubieta, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, found that people who expected to win in a gambling game also responded better to a placebo painkiller.
Brain scans revealed in a separate pain study that the area of their brain associated with expecting a reward produced more of a feel-good chemical called dopamine just before they got the fake treatment and that led to a better result.
Another group who do well on placebos are those who are conscientious and regular in their habits. If you are in a clinical trial and you take your pills regularly as instructed, you'll do better than those who don't, even if you are getting a placebo.
The usual explanation is that people like this are probably more careful about their health in general, but as the author of one of the studies commented: "If a placebo works as well, why go for the added risk of a drug?"
Placebos may have a wide range of remarkable effects but they don't work for bacterial infections, cancer or osteoporosis.
But their effectiveness for conditions such as depression raises important questions about our current use of expensive drugs.
The placebo effect is a "huge therapeutic resource", says Dr Lewith. "Now we know placebos have a direct effect on the brain, we should be learning how best to apply them for the benefit of patients. But it is going to take a big change in the medical mindset for this to happen."
Of course, there is still plenty to understand if placebos are going to be used in the most effective way.
But teasing out which conditions respond best to placebos and finding out how best to use this powerful effect seems much more useful than using it to discredit complementary practitioners.
By JEROME BURNE DAILY MAIL
| | Acupuncture 'may cut IVF chances' Wed 17th October 2007 | Acupuncture is said to release the body's vital energy
Acupuncture appears to cut the chances of successful IVF, research suggests.
It had been thought that acupuncture may impact on the nervous system to help make the lining of the uterus more receptive to receiving an embryo.
Previous research appeared to support this idea, with the pregnancy rate doubled when IVF was combined with the ancient therapy.
But the latest University of Oklahoma study found the twin approach led to a drop in pregnancy rates.
The results of our study suggest women having fertility treatment should not be advised to have acupuncture
Dr LaTasha Craig
University of Oklahoma
The researchers found women given acupuncture were 37% less likely to get pregnant than those who were not treated.
A total of 97 patients took part in the study. One group was given acupuncture for 25 minutes before and after the embyro was transferred from the test tube to the womb.
The pregnancy rate in the group who did not receive acupuncture was 69.9%, compared with just 43.8% among those who were given the therapy.
Researcher Dr LaTasha Craig, said: "The results of our study suggest women having fertility treatment should not be advised to have acupuncture."
But she added: "This contradicts the findings of previous studies. I think more research needs to be done."
Dr Craig said it was possible that the benefits of acupuncture might be counteracted by the stress of undergoing therapy directly before IVF.
Mark Bovey, from the British Acupuncture Council, said: "This seems to fly in the face of all the published research.
"Up to now all the published research has indicated an increase in pregnancy rates and take-home baby rates.
"Some practitioners treat hundreds of women having IVF each year and largely have good results with it."
BBC
| | Tailored herbal medicine 'futile' Thu 4th October 2007 | 'No convincing evidence' that mixing these up makes you feel better
There is no evidence to suggest herbal medicines "tailored" to the individual work, and they may even do serious damage, according to a study.
Scientists writing in the Postgraduate Medical Journal examined what they said were the only three clinical trials to have been conducted on the treatments.
They expressed doubts as to the skills of those in the UK who offer treatments specially formulated for individuals.
But UK herbal practitioners said such treatments can make a real difference.
The UK is currently reviewing the law in relation to the regulation of this field, so at present it is unclear how many such practitioners there are in the country.
Drawing on Chinese and European traditions among others, the practitioners offer a wide variety of treatments for conditions ranging from minor skin ailments to cancer, using a multitude of herbs.
Expertise
The team from the Peninsula Medical School, a partnership between Exeter and Plymouth universities and the NHS in Devon and Cornwall, stressed that there were many herbs with health benefits, but that studies on these tended to involve standard preparations or single herb extracts.
They said they searched widely for randomised clinical trials of tailored treatments across the world in any language and contacted 15 professional bodies in the process, but were only able to find three trials.
One compared a tailored Chinese herbal preparation with a standard herbal preparation and a placebo for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
People often come to us having gone down the orthodox road with no luck, and find something that works for them
Alison Denham
NIMH
The other two compared tailored treatments with placebos for chemotherapy-related toxicity in cancer patients and osteoarthritis respectively.
There were no statistical differences between tailored and placebo in either the osteoarthritis or cancer study.
Tailored treatment did seem to work better than the placebo in IBS, but it was not as effective as the standard treatment.
And while these trials did not suggest that patients had suffered ill health as a result, Dr Peter Carter said there were serious risks attached to tailored treatment.
These included herbs interacting negatively with each other - a much greater risk with tailored treatment than retail herbal remedies given the number of herbs used in preparations - as well as with prescription drugs.
Funding required
Herbs could be contaminated or even toxic, and their strength misunderstood by the practitioner.
"There are lots of issues around expertise," said Dr Carter.
"Can the practitioner make a proper judgement, do they know when a client is displaying symptoms that really should be seen by a doctor?"
A spokesperson for the National Institute of Medical Herbalists said it was impossible to draw conclusions from three small studies with "questionable methodology", and that herbalists often found themselves unable to obtain the funding necessary to carry out rigorous trials.
"These treatments really can make a difference to people's health - that's why they have been used for such a long time," said Alison Denham.
"People often come to us having gone down the orthodox road with no luck, and find something that works for them.
"But there are certainly issues around the expertise of practitioners which need to be addressed, and we look forward to government regulation which imposes a high standard of training on anyone who wants to register."
Source: BBC
| | Needles 'are best for back pain' Wed 26th September 2007 |
Acupuncture is said to release the body's vital energy
Acupuncture - real or sham - is more effective at treating back pain than conventional therapies, research suggests.
A German team found almost half the patients treated with acupuncture felt pain relief.
But the Archives of Internal Medicine study also suggests fake acupuncture works nearly as well as the real thing.
In contrast, only about a quarter who received drugs and other Western therapies felt better.
Acupuncture represents a highly promising and effective treatment option for chronic back pain
Dr Heinz Endres
Ruhr University Bochum
The researchers, from the Ruhr University Bochum, say their findings suggest that the body may react positively to any thin needle prick - or that acupuncture may simply trigger a placebo effect.
One theory is that pain messages to the brain can be blocked by competing stimuli.
Researcher Dr Heinz Endres said: "Acupuncture represents a highly promising and effective treatment option for chronic back pain.
"Patients experienced not only reduced pain intensity, but also reported improvements in the disability that often results from back pain and therefore in their quality of life."
Needles not manipulated
More than 1,100 patients took part in the study. They were given either conventional therapy, acupuncture or a sham version.
Although needles were used in the sham therapy, they were not inserted as deeply as in standard acupuncture. Neither were they inserted at points thought key to producing a therapeutic effect, or manipulated and rotated once in position.
After six months 47% of patients in the acupuncture group reported a significant improvement in pain symptoms, compared to 44% in the sham group, and just 27% in the group who received conventional therapy.
Dr James Young, of Chicago's Rush University, said: "We don't understand the mechanisms of these so-called alternative treatments, but that doesn't mean they don't work."
Acupuncture is based on the ancient Chinese theory that needles can be used to release the body's vital energy, or qi.
Conventional therapies tested in the study included painkillers, injections, heat therapy and massage.
It is estimated that as many as 85% of the population experiences back pain at some point, and the problem costs the NHS around £500m a year.
The study echoes the findings of two studies published last year in the British Medical Journal, which found a short course of acupuncture could benefit patients with low back pain.
Mike O'Farrell, of the British Acupuncture Council, said: "Through these controlled research findings demonstrating the effectiveness of acupuncture, we believe that both the medical health profession and members of the public will see the benefits of acupuncture as part of an integrated healthcare service."
| | Herbs and Helpers- Summer Break Mon 20th August 2007 | Herbs and Helpers will be closed from 23rd August re-opening again on the 3rd September 2007. We regret that during this time no orders can be processed. All enquiries etc. will be dealt with as normal from Monday 3rd September. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Lorraine Hodgkinson. | | FDA's "Alternative" Reality Wed 2nd May 2007 | By James Gormley, CFH Board Member
May 1, 2007 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a Guidance for Industry on “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.”
Due to substantial public outcry over this “guidance,” the FDA extended the deadline for public (and industry) comments to May 29th (Docket No. 2006D-0480, e-mail: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov or fax: 301-827-6870).
According to the FDA in a preamble to the guidance, as the practice of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has grown in the U.S., the agency “has seen increased confusion as to whether certain products used in CAM […] are subject to regulation under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act […] or the Public Health Service Act.” The FDA claims that it is providing guidance as to when a CAM product is a supplement, a drug or a medical therapy/device.
After reviewing the document, there are many FDA statements of regulatory opinion that, depending on how they are used on Capitol Hill, could open the door to Congressional re-examination of how the agency regulates dietary supplements (including botanicals) and other health products.
The guidance, for instance, offers “raw vegetable juice” as an example. If it is sold as a food, it is a food. However if it is “intended for use” as anything else, such as a treatment regimen, then it would also be subject to regulation as a drug.
How can an agency regulate intent?
Further, the guidance also states that one CAM therapeutic domain is “biologically-based practices.” What is of concern is that the FDA says that this domain “includes, but is not limited to, botanicals, animal-derived extracts, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, proteins, prebiotics and probiotics, whole diets and ‘functional foods.’ ” Interestingly, this covers the entire supplement category.
Other examples of statements that could be of concern, depending on how they are applied:
• “a botanical product intended for use in treating a disease would generally be regulated as a drug”;
• “probiotics may be regulated as […] drugs […] depending on the product’s intended use”;
• “’functional foods’ may be subject to regulation as […] drugs”; and
• “the bacteria used in a probiotic product could make the product a biologic product subject to the PHS [Public Health Service] Act.”
Although, since 1990 the agency has already well outlined the differences between structure-function claims and treatment claims, the whole focus on intended use and the inappropriate linking of CAM treatment, medical devices and DSHEA-regulated products is both confusing and disturbing.
Consumer health groups, along with some industry observers, are very concerned about the following:
1) The FDA has created a state of regulatory confusion by lumping together different laws, statutes and areas of control regarding foods, dietary supplements, cosmetics, medical devices and CAM therapies;
2) The agency’s opinion as to the scope of its authority is not the same as its actual authority.
3) The FDA should have never issued a guidance encompassing such complex issues without first—not after the fact—soliciting comments from consumers, industry and CAM practitioners.
4) Since the agency did this process backwards and proposed a flawed document, the FDA should withdraw the guidance until it holds proper hearings on all the issues involved.
FDA attorney, Mitchell Weitzman, acting as an FDA spokesperson (who was detailed to the FDA Press Office), called me to discuss the guidance document. He said: “This is a draft guidance—this is not going to change anything. This is not a prelude. This is an explanation of policies that are here today. It doesn’t contain or propose any regulations or requirements. It’s a guidance document, not a law.”
Fine. However, it would be foolish for us to believe that because this is only a guidance that it could not “change anything.” Although this document cannot undo law (i.e., DSHEA), a government agency’s interpretations of policy and law could (1) pave the way for Congress to reconsider DSHEA and (2) allow the FDA to use side doors from the PHS Act and other statutory instruments to decrease free-and-open access to (and information about) efficacious dietary supplements.
| | Indian herbal remedy cancer hope Wed 18th April 2007 |
Pancreatic cancer is currently very difficult to treat
An Indian herbal remedy could one day be used to help fight pancreatic cancer, scientists hope.
A team at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute found extracts of triphala slowed the growth of human pancreatic tumours grafted onto mice.
The findings, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, offer hope that one day a treatment might be developed.
But experts have warned the research is still at a very early stage.
Triphala triggered the cancerous cells to die off and significantly reduced the size of the tumours
Professor Sanjay K Srivastava
Triphala is a herbal preparation used in the traditional Indian medicine system Ayurveda.
It contains the dried and powdered fruits of three plants, and it is said to ease intestinal-related disorders, promoting good digestion.
Anti-cancer properties
Previous studies have shown triphala to have an anti-cancer activity in cell cultures, and the new research found this effect also worked in mice fed the herb preparation, without damaging normal pancreatic cells.
The team fed mice grafted with human pancreatic tumours a triphala solution five days per week.
After four weeks they compared the tumour size and proteins contents of the tumours with those of a control group of mice that had not received the triphala.
They found that the tumours in triphala-treated mice were half the size of those in the untreated mice.
The also found the treated mice tumour cells had higher levels of proteins associated with apoptosis - the process by the which the body normally disposes of damaged, old of unneeded cells.
In cancer cells this process is often faulty, allowing the tumours to divide rapidly without any cells dying.
More research will investigate if the findings in mice can be extended
Professor Srivastava said: "Triphala triggered the cancerous cells to die off and significantly reduced the size of the tumours without causing any toxic side effects."
Further testing revealed that triphala had also activated tumour-suppressor genes, but did not negatively affect normal pancreatic cells.
Professor Srivastava said: "Our results demonstrate that triphala has strong anti-cancer properties given its ability to induce apoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells without damaging normal pancreatic cells.
"With follow-up studies, we hope to demonstrate its potential use as a novel agent for the prevention and treatment of pancreatic cancer."
New treatments needed
Pancreatic cancer is the sixth most common cause of cancer death in the UK, causing around 7,000 deaths each year.
It is difficult to treat and survival rates are very low - the latest figures show that the length of time between diagnosis and death is usually less than six months.
Much more work needs to be done to see if triphala will work in humans
Dr Alison Ross
Experts said researching new treatments for pancreatic cancer was important, but warned the current research is still at an early stage.
Dr Alison Ross, science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "Pancreatic cancer is difficult to treat so it is important to try and find new ways to tackle it, but these are early experiments so much more work needs to be done to see if triphala will work in humans."
Sue Ballard, founder of charity Pancreatic Cancer UK said: "We welcome any developments in this field as there is a lot more work that needs to be done to find new treatments for pancreatic cancer."
bbc.co.uk
| | Supplement industry may challenge FDA rules on ad claims Thu 12th April 2007 | The Salt Lake Tribune
12-13-05
Dec. 11--It's the morning after the morning-after pill mess and the reputation of the Food and Drug Administration is in shambles.
The agency is supposed to promote and protect the public's health, and 2005 offered evidence of failure on both fronts -- from the Vioxx fiasco to the Ephedra entanglement to the embroglio over silicone breast implants to allegations that pro-life politics scuttled over-the-counter sales of the "Plan B" contraception before the scientific review was complete.
Of course, the dietary supplement industry didn't need Plan B to highlight the prickly relationship between politics and science at the FDA.
It's been 12 years since Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act, or DSHEA, concluding that consumers should be able to make choices about their health care "based on data from scientific studies of health benefits related to particular dietary supplements."
And for just as long, the FDA has successfully blocked the sellers of vitamins and minerals and herbal remedies from informing consumers about those health benefits by preventing claims that supplements prevent, treat or cure disease.
That's why some in the industry are backing a new bill that would force the FDA to approve such health claims even when there is scant scientific research to support them. The so-called Health Freedom Protection Act also would restrict the Federal Trade Commission's authority to police false and misleading advertising claims.
Even so, the supplement industry is hardly united behind the bill, and supporters acknowledge some aspects of it constitute an overcorrection of sorts, designed to awaken federal regulators. They already have the attention of lawmakers; the bill has 14 co-sponsors, including Utah congressional Republicans Rob Bishop and Chris Cannon.
It is not the first time supplement makers have tattled to Congress, nor is it the first time since 1994 that Congress has tried to neuter the FDA. But in politics and pregnancy, timing is everything, and thanks in large part to the Plan B controversy, the industry's long-time nemesis is weaker and more distracted than ever.
"This is not the first effort, but it is one of the more serious efforts," says Marc Ullman, a New York City attorney who specializes in food, drug and cosmetic law. "There is a political vulnerability there, and FDA has only itself to blame."
That was also was true in the 1980s, when Kellogg launched an advertising campaign that boasted its high-fiber breakfast cereals lowered the risk of colon cancer. Back then such claims were called health "messages" and they were only allowed by drug companies. But there was disagreement among the nation's food cops about whether the FDA had the authority to intervene. So it didn't, says Betty Campbell, a 35-year veteran of the FDA who now advises food and supplement makers about compliance. "It was very controversial."
The FDA's response -- or lack thereof -- also opened the market to a flood of other health claims, prompting Congress to pass the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990. The law allowed disease statements -- such as "fiber reduces the risk of colon cancer" and "calcium prevents osteoporosis" -- on food and supplement labels but only if the FDA approved and only if there was significant scientific agreement that the claim was not misleading.
And then the agency proceeded to deny almost all claims as not backed by science, argues Jonathan Emord, a Washington D.C. attorney and principle architect of the Health Freedom Protection Act.
Emord has sued the FDA on behalf of several supplement companies, including Park City-based Nutraceutical Corp. In that case, Emord persuaded U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell that the federal ban on ephedra, and amphetamine-like herb linked to dozens of deaths, was flawed. Campbell said the FDA could not stop Nutraceutical from selling low-dose ephedra products because it lacked the science to prove that daily doses of 10 milligrams or less posed an unreasonable risk of injury or illness.
The FDA, which has appealed Campbell's ruling, insists the ban remains in effect and the FDA is free to enforce it nationwide -- except as to low-dose products sold by Nutraceutical. The Utah ruling, and the FDA's reaction to it, helped trigger the current legislation, Emord said.
But the real catalyst was another Emord lawsuit, Pearson v. Shalala, decided in January 1999 in the District of Columbia Circuit Court. The case involved four health claims denied by the FDA because the evidence was inconclusive: antioxidant vitamins may reduce the risk of certain cancers; fiber may reduce the risk of colorectal cancer; Omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease; and .8 milligrams of folic acid in a dietary supplement is more effective in lowering the risk of neural tube defects (like spina bifida) than a lower amount in common foods.
The court ruled the FDA's disease-claim standard too broad, instructing the FDA to say what "significant scientific agreement" means or, at a minimum, what it does not mean. The court also said the FDA cannot ban a health claim because the evidence is inconclusive. Rather, the agency must permit disclaimers that describe the degree of scientific support.
"The FDA read that and went, 'Gulp,' " says Campbell, a former top official in the FDA's food safety division.
Since then there have been task forces and more lawsuits, and still the industry waits. Says Emord: "These unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats are still at their posts without so much as even a reprimand from Congress."
For its part, the FDA does not comment on legislation or litigation. But in defense of the agency, says Campbell, it has a comparatively small budget and huge responsibilities.
The FDA has taken a stab at some disclaimers, such as this recently released statement for green tea. "Two studies do not show that drinking green tea reduces the risk of breast cancer in women, but one weaker, more limited study suggests that drinking green tea may reduce this risk. Based on these studies, FDA concludes that it is highly unlikely that green tea reduces the risk of breast cancer."
But the FDA announced recently it was retooling the method for developing disclaimers. It seems the FDA's research showed that the harsher the statement, the more likely consumers are to believe the health claim. The rationale: Any company willing to acknowledge discrepancies in the science only enhances its credibility.
"It confounded the FDA," says Loren Israelsen, executive director of the Utah Natural Product Alliance, a trade group representing several Utah supplement makers.
That's why the Health Freedom Protection Act would require all health claims with some scientific support to be approved.
Israelsen, for one, worries that approach will "pop the flood gates open" and erode the industry's credibility. He for one doesn't believe the bill will pass in its current form -- regardless of the FDA's current turmoil.
"They're vulnerable," he says. "But it's important for consumers to have confidence in the products they buy and there needs to be discipline and consistency in the approval of these health products. It's not nail polish we're talking about. This is very serious stuff."
The Health Freedom Protection Act would force the FDA to:
--Allow disease treatment claims for foods and dietary supplements, claims currently reserved for FDA-approved drugs.
--Permit such claims unless FDA proves no scientific evidence supports the claims.
--Limit FDA disclaimers on health claims to no more than three concise sentences.
--Stop waiving conflicts of interest in its food advisory panels considering health claims.
--Approve or disapprove health-claim petitions within 100 days or the claims will be allowed.
--Allow food and supplement companies to send consumers government reports and publications on nutrient-disease associations.
--Allow structure-function claims that include terms that refer to signs or symptoms of disease so long as the disease itself is not mentioned.
--Reverse its denial or restriction of the following nutrient-disease association claims: (a) saw palmetto treating benign prostatic hyperplasia; (b) omega-3 fatty acids and coronary heart disease; (c) omega-3 fatty acids and sudden death heart attacks; (d) glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate treating osteoarthritis; and (e) calcium reducing the risk of bone fractures.
A proposed bill would force the FDA to approve the health claims of dietary supplements.
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To see more of The Salt Lake Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sltrib.com.
Copyright (c) 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
| | HERBS AND HELPERS AT THE NIMH CONFERENCE 30th-1st April 2007 Fri 23rd March 2007 | Herbs and Helpers will be demonstrating Batch Master software and other products unique to the company on Friday 30th April at Cirencester Agricultural College. We hope you will take time to come and look us up.
Lorraine Hodgkinson | | Christmas break closure-Herbs and Helpers Tue 12th December 2006 | Please note that from 22nd December 2006 until 3rd January 2007 Herbs and Helpers will be closed for the holiday break. Any orders/enquiries etc. Will be dealt with when we reopen on 4th January 2007. Best wishes and Happy New Year!
Lorraine Hodgkinson | | Illegal Chinese medicine targeted Fri 17th November 2006 | Posters will be put up across London
Chinese medicine shops in London selling products made from endangered animals are to be targeted by a new police campaign.
The crackdown comes as the demand for products made from tiger bone, rhino horn and bear bile - devastating these animal populations - continues to grow.
As part of Operation Charm, posters will urge people not to fuel the trade by buying these illegal medicines.
Businesses will also be encouraged to display a sticker backing the campaign.
Coinciding with the start of the scheme on Friday, Operation Charm will announce the launch of its website.
Tiger skins
Operation Charm is the Metropolitan Police's ongoing campaign against the illegal trade in endangered species in London.
Officers said although most of the trade in traditional Chinese medicines is legal, some products are still made from endangered species.
Andy Fisher, head of the Metropolitan Police's wildlife crime unit said: "It is quite unacceptable that illegal acts in London are contributing to the decline of creatures like the tiger."
Backing the scheme, president of the Federation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (FTCM), Professor Bo-Ying Ma, said the organisation is "not utilising or selling such materials in any form".
Since Operation Charm was launched 10 years ago it has seized more than 30,000 items made from endangered species being sold illegally in London.
Earlier this month fur coats thought to be made from tiger, leopard and snow leopard skins were found during a raid at a fur dealer's in Camden, north London.
www.bbc.co.uk
| | Herbs and Helpers at the AHG Symposium October 2006 Mon 2nd October 2006 | From 25th October to the 5th November 2006 Herbs and Helpers will be closed in order to attend and display at the American Herbalists Guild symposium held in Boulder, Colorado. We hope to demonstrate our unique Batch Master total traceability and complete stock management software for herbalists which will be available to test and try with the new regional update that allows it to work in any currency/date etc. and listen to your feedback. A special 20% discount will be given to all those purchasing a full license at the symposium and also a very useful free gift! (First come first served, while stocks last!)
Best wishes and if you are attending this year come and look us up. We will be very glad to see you.
Lorraine Hodgkinson MNIMH MRCHM. | | CUMBRIAN HERB PUDDING-ETHNOMEDICA PROJECT Sun 9th July 2006 | The National Institute of Medical Herbalists (NIMH) in conjuction with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, The Herb Society (UK), Neals Yard Remedies, Chelsea Physic Garden, The Natural History Museum are running the Ethnomedica project to create a national archive of remembered herbal remedies before such knowledge is lost forever. For more information on this project visit: www.rbgkew.org.uk/ethnomedica If you live in Cumbria and have a recipe for herb pudding or can remember herbal remedies that were used by your grandparents, when you were a child etc. Then I would appreciate a call on 01900 826392. To ensure this knowledge does not die and documents our herbal heritage for future generations. Information will be stored in the archives at Kew for posterity. | | MPS Wildlife Crime Unit arrests man on suspicion of offering for sale products containing ingredients derived from endangered species Sun 9th July 2006 |
Fri, 07 Jul 06 | Government Press Release
SUMMARY:
The Metropolitan Police Service has reported that on July 5th, 2006, the Met Police's Wildlife Crime Unit and Trading standards officers executed a search warrant at an address in Lewisham. The premises, a traditional Chinese medicine shop, led to the seizure of approx 200 medicinal products claiming to be made from endangered species. A further address was searched and a 59 year old man was arrested on suspicion of offering for sale and keeping for sale products containing ingredients derived from endangered species.
Andy Fisher, Head of the Met's Wildlife Crime Unit said: 'We are committed to working with the communities within London to prevent the sale of these products. Most Chinese Medicines are not made from endangered species and can be sold legally. However, a small number of people continue to trade in these products and Operation Charm will continue to work to end this illegal activity.'
CONTENTS:
On 5.06.06 at 10:30am the Met Police's Wildlife Crime Unit and Trading standards officers executed a search warrant at an address in Lewisham. The premises, a traditional Chinese medicine shop, led to the seizure of approx 200 medicinal products claiming to be made from endangered species including the following: Tiger, Rhinoceros, Bear, Musk Deer, Seahorse, Monkey and a number of endangered plants.
A further address was searched during the afternoon of the 5.06.06 in Eltham, also a traditional Chinese medicine business premises. A 59 yr old man was arrested on suspicion of offering for sale and keeping for sale products containing ingredients derived from endangered species contrary to the Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Enforcement) Regulations 1997. A further 70 products were seized at the Eltham property claiming to include Rhinoceros, bear and musk deer.
The man has now been bailed to return to a south London police station on a date at the end of July 2006.
As part of the Wildlife Crime Unit's Operation Charm, an initiative against the illegal trade in endangered species in London, these seizures add to the over 30,000 products the Met have seized, made from endangered species, on sale in London since 1995.
Andy Fisher, Head of the Met's Wildlife Crime Unit said: "We are committed to working with the communities within London to prevent the sale of these products. Most Chinese Medicines are not made from endangered species and can be sold legally. However, a small number of people continue to trade in these products and Operation Charm will continue to work to end this illegal activity."
The trade in endangered species is strictly controlled by CITES (The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). CITES bans the commercial trade in the world's most endangered species and only allows trade in many others if government permits have been issued. The convention has been signed by more than 160 countries including the UK. These controls apply to both live and dead animals and plants as well as anything that comes from them or is made from them.
The maximum penalty is five years imprisonment, a £5000 fine or both.
Operation Charm's combination of Law enforcement, partnerships and education has made a difference and some products are not now found on sale in London as openly, or as often as they used to be, but new trends and fashions emerge which threaten other species and Operation Charm needs to respond to these as well.
Ultimately, as long as Londoners continue to buy products made form endangered species, poachers and traffickers will continue to profit from killing and supplying animals from other parts of the world and the future of some of our most endangered species will be at risk.
The Met Police is committed to stopping the illegal trade in endangered species and would advise the public not to purchase products purporting to contain endangered species. Some Chinese Medicine traders display a Met police sticker stating they have agreed not to sell these products.
| | CHINESE MEDICINE GAINING RESPECTABILITY IN WEST Wed 28th June 2006 | More Americans are turning to traditional Chinese medicine after failing to find relief from conventional treatments. Such patients typically have sought out Chinese remedies at the urging of friends or family; now many are doing so on the advice of doctors at prestigious medical institutions, which over the past decade have been cautiously integrating the 5,000-year-old practice. Just as cautiously, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently revised its research protocols to support clinical trials of Chinese and other herbal treatments.
UCSF, Kaiser Permanente and Stanford University Medical Center are among a growing number of medical institutions that offer traditional Chinese approaches such as acupuncture, tai chi chuan and meditation as evidence mounts of their effectiveness. Hundreds of studies show clinically significant results with these treatments, including a 2002 review from Harvard Medical School that concluded that acupuncture can safely ease chronic pain as well as nausea caused by chemotherapy and pregnancy. A 2004 Tufts-New England Medical Center review of 47 studies on tai chi found the Chinese discipline of meditative movements promoted cardiovascular fitness in people with chronic conditions.
Studies like these have persuaded medical directors at hospitals to introduce traditional Chinese medicine treatments to their patient services.
"What we have to look at is safety and effectiveness and then integrate it into the system," said Dr. Harley Goldberg, a physician who directs the complementary and alternative medicine program for Kaiser's Northern California division.
One-fifth of the nation's hospitals offered complementary medical services in 2004, more than double the number in 1998, according to the American Hospital Association. Complementary medicine combines the therapies and philosophies of conventional medicine with those of alternative medicines. Influencing this trend is the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine, which was founded in 1999 to facilitate the integration of alternative medicine into American institutions and now includes 32 member medical centers, such as Harvard and Columbia universities.
This phenomenon may well signal a gradual acceptance of traditional Chinese medicine by American medical institutions -- if the ancient system can clear at least two more hurdles.
The first involves winning the confidence of U.S. physicians in the effectiveness of Chinese herbs, which rarely have been tested in controlled studies. In 2004 the FDA showed its support for the testing of Chinese and other herbs by releasing its first-ever guideline for clinical trials of plant mixtures. The agency is even allowing researchers to experiment with plant materials in clinical drug trials without first identifying their active ingredients.
"There's a need to adjust our approach if we want to encourage study of these complex mixtures," said Shaw Chen, botanical team leader with the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
The second hurdle is both psychological and institutional. Many American-trained doctors are skeptical that traditional Chinese medical methods of diagnosis and treatment can be proved as beneficial as Western treatments, let alone able to meet accepted scientific standards.
And Chinese herbal pharmacies, with their unrefined, natural ingredients, do little to inspire confidence in physicians accustomed to prescription drugs.
Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine are accustomed to doubt and even derision from conventional doctors.
"The cynics say this is all voodoo medicine, and it's placebo," said Dr. Bradly Jacobs, an internist at UCSF's Osher Center. "In my opinion, this is based on empirical experience of what's worked for millennia. There's something to be said for that."
Traditional Chinese medicine first arrived in the United States in the 1860s, carried across the ocean to the West Coast by Chinese immigrants recruited to build the transcontinental railroad. But few outside Chinese American culture paid any attention to the ancient practice, with its exotic remedies and bitter potions. It wasn't until the 1970s, when relations thawed between the United States and China, that mainstream medical practitioners gave it any heed -- and then the focus was primarily on the promise of acupuncture.
But over the past two decades, Americans from across the cultural spectrum have been trying traditional Chinese medical treatments and spreading news of their success stories. No statistics are available for how many Americans have tried these ancient remedies, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. However, in a 2004 report, the center stated that traditional Chinese medicine is among a range of unconventional treatments that more than one quarter of American adults are turning to when conventional treatments fail. Roughly the same number also are seeking these remedies at the advice of their Western doctors, the report noted. One reason more patients and doctors are embracing traditional Chinese medicine is the reported success rate at treating "multisystemic" maladies, like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic pain, which affect the brain as much as the body. A 2004 study from UCLA noted that new research into the neurological aspects of disease "show striking similarities with concepts used by traditional Chinese medicine." The researchers referenced Western medicine's expanding knowledge of the role of stress as well as physical and emotional trauma in triggering "complex interactions between mind, body and brain" -- a phenomenon long acknowledged in Chinese medicine.
Traditional Chinese medicine also can be more affordable than prescription drugs. For $17 a month, for example, Friend gets a monthly supply of pills to stave off severe colds. And Cohen pays about $13 a month for her bronchitis pills. But the cost of the raw products for making teas sometimes can be higher than prescription medications.
Chinese medicine practitioners in most medical institutions are either doctors or licensed acupuncturists. In 1979, California became the first state to license acupuncturists, who also serve as de facto licensed herbal practitioners, as they're required to complete at least 450 hours of training in the use of Chinese herbs.
Although the FDA is lending its support to these doctors and practitioners, it is doing so carefully -- acknowledging scientists' concerns about Chinese herbal treatments.
"Because these (herbs) have been used by alternative medicine for so long, we want to be able to understand if they're useful," explained the FDA's Chen.
Previously, botanicals could be used in clinical trials only if their active ingredients were identified. But with Chinese medicines, that's difficult if not impossible, as multiple herbs are employed, said Xiu-Min Li, a researcher at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
Later this year, she is beginning a human trial testing nine Chinese herbs, including dried fruit, roots, ginger and Chinese pepper, to prevent anaphylactic shock in children allergic to peanuts. In mice, she says, the treatment proved successful.
Li and her colleagues tested the effect of each herb, but none worked as well individually as the combination. "That's why we say the whole form is so potent," Li said. She's also testing Chinese herbs for preventing asthma attacks.
In experiments using botanicals, the FDA is also allowing anecdotal evidence of the safety of an herbal remedy in lieu of safety tests on animals. This safety evaluation phase for Chinese herbs will be "significantly cheaper" than safety testing for conventional new drugs, predicted Li, although she couldn't cite a specific estimate for completing a drug study. Clinical trials for standard drugs cost an estimated $800 million, according to the Journal of Health Economics.
Li thinks the FDA guidelines will foster a new wave of promising research using ancient remedies. Acquah of UCSF agrees. He said the federal agency's support for testing of botanical drugs will "give a stamp of credibility" to traditional Chinese medicine.
"It will offer more therapeutic opportunities for people," said Acquah. "And it makes herbal practitioners more legitimate in the eyes not only of the general public but to our colleagues in the medical profession."
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10 commonly used Chinese herbs
Traditional Chinese medicine uses more than 6,000 species of plants, processed in different ways and prescribed in different combinations depending on the patient's condition. Always consult a licensed practitioner and your general doctor before taking any herbal supplements, many of which may have negative side effects when taken in combination with other medications.
Astragalus (Huang Qi) -- A perennial plant with hairy stems and small leaflets. Its long root is dried and used for colds and flu as well as fatigue and digestive disorders, like diarrhea and bloating. Astragalus is also given to boost the immune system, treat skin disorders and replenish qi (or energy) of the spleen and stomach.
Chinese angelica (Dang Gui) -- A fragrant perennial plant with white flowers and purple stems. The root of this plant is reputed to relieve menstrual disorders, anemia, chronic abdominal and bodily pains, and chronic constipation. It is also used to treat insomnia and fight skin infections.
Chinese yam (Shan Yao) -- A root vegetable that is sliced and dried. It is reputed to strengthen the spleen, lungs and kidneys. It is also given to reduce fatigue, treat chronic cough and wheezing, and stabilize the leakage of fluids in urogenital conditions.
Eucommia bark (Du Zhong) -- A tree bark used in cases of aching back and knees by nourishing the liver and kidney as well as the sinews and bones. Eucommia bark is also used to prevent miscarriages in cases of bleeding during pregnancy.
Fleece flower root (He Shou Wu) -- A root that is used to invigorate the liver and blood and strengthen the kidneys. Fleece flower root is also given to treat constipation and to clear toxins. It is commonly used to maintain both hair color and hair growth.
Ginger (Gan Jiang, dried ginger; or Sheng Jiang, fresh ginger) -- A common root used in its dry form to treat digestive problems, warm the body, promote circulation and transform congested fluid in the lungs. Fresh ginger root is reputed to alleviate the common cold, reduce intestinal inflammation, and reduce nausea and vomiting associated with pregnancy, motion sickness and chemotherapy.
Ginseng (Ren Seng) -- This knotty root has been used as a general tonic to strengthen body functions, recover from illnesses or surgery, improve male infertility and impotence, and enhance the immune system. Ginseng is a particularly potent herb that can raise blood pressure and interact with medications such as blood thinners. It should be avoided during pregnancy. Ginseng's strength increases over time; its age can be determined by the wrinkles that encircle the plant.
Licorice (Gan Cao) -- A sweet-tasting root that is reputed to treat sore throats and coughs, muscle spasms and digestive weakness. Licorice has been used in treatments for liver disease, respiratory ailments like allergies and bronchitis, heart conditions such as irregular pulse or palpitations, and stomach problems like heartburn. Licorice is also commonly used in Chinese herbal formulas to modify the harsh attributes of other herbs and as an antidote to a variety of toxic substances.
Poria (Fu Ling) -- A fungus that grows on pine |
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