Lost part of Uechi-ryu?

[Bill Glasheen]

I have made several suggestions that I stand by.

1) Before taking any medicine (and herbs should be considered medicine), know the credentials of the person giving them to you. And check out the accreditation of the place which trained them. Do they have academic training? Are they licensed? Do they have malpractice insurance? Are they board certified? If not...

2) Until proper research is done, you don't know what you are getting when you put something in your mouth or on your body. It may or it may not be effective. It may or it may not be safe. It may or it may not interact with other medicines you are taking or treatments you are receiving.

This doesn't mean you can't find good things in unusual places. It doesn't mean that there aren't practices out there yet to receive propery scrutiny and validation.

It just means buyer beware. It's your body.

Now... What some may view as a glass half empty very well may be a glass half full. Are there treatments used by other cultures that seem to work? If so, then we'd all like to see the studies which show how and why. That's a publication waiting for the CV in my field.

- Bill

[wes tasker]

I'm happy for you and your clients.

Despite your words at the beginning of your post, patronizing me, me clients, and my practice really doesn't get us anywhere.

Inquiring minds want to know. Let's hear it.

If I give you a bottle of sugar pills, put my hand on your shoulder, and say "this is going to make your illness better", well you will likely get better because:


A principle called regression to the mean. What goes up usually comes down. I run regressions on disease data all the time, and can show you the numbers. If you get sick, most of the time you get better regardless of what is done.


The placebo effect. The mind-body connection is very real. That's why you want a health care practitioner with a good bedside manner and a positive attitude about yourself and life.

My idea of proof is evidence of a large number of cases that goes beyond my clients (to my teacher, his teacher etc.) forming quite a large sample of people who saw results of "getting better" when they were told they wouldn't and/or in faster than usual time with little or no carry over.

I think that part of the problem here is that in order for you to accept Chinese Medicine as valid you would want to see the results of tests, studies, codification etc. Until then you are more agnostic about it (although in some of your posts you come across as damning the whole thing - but the tone of your last post was definitely more agnostic - which is why it's hard to get an idea of where you stand on this subject). I, on the other hand, don't need to see the results of studies etc. as it has proven to work for me and a long line of people before me. And by work, I mean beyond the examples of "regression to the mean" and the "placebo effect" that you mentioned.

We are in agreement with the obvious advice of know as much as possible about the person treating you...

-wes

[Dana Sheets]

Anything you stick in your mouth can be dangerous.
Ignorance is the fuel of folly.

There are boards that folks take before they can prescribe herbs. There are, of course, other herbs and supplements that are available over the counter just like many other supplements. Caveat emptor.

Modern pharmacology is held to some high standards - that's true. But the chinese pharmacology was held to a similar high standard - which is being tested over time.

3000 years gives you lots of time for field trials. And I bet there are more than a few formulas that lost out over centuries because they weren't effective. Those that remain, and in particular those that are studied today in Bejin's finest universities, aren't the same thing as the "patent medicines" and snake oil sold in the US at the turn of the 19th century.

The Chinese had over 3000 years to put together information about what worked and what didn't. Most of it wasn't lore or myth. The language in so-called "Oriental Medicine" that is used to describe illness is quite distinct from the terminology used in today's MD's offices - which, given its 3000 year history isn't that suprising.

Most compounded chinese forumlas have not yet/ been tested in clinical trials - that's absolutely true. In part because the pharma industry won't receive any benefit from bearing the costs to test a forumla they dont' own the copyright on. But a clinical trial is one, particular measure - held as the gold standard in pharmacology. In my mind that doesn't mean that is is the only gold standard.

As you said Bill, we used aspirin for generations as an herb before it made it into a bill and we used it for decades as a pill before we learned how it worked.

So I'm more than happy to spend a little money on similar substances that have generations of history behind them - especially when they get me through two years of winters without a single cold.

The stuff in Tom Bisio's book is good. Tom has taken and passed all the requisite boards for practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine and he's got more than 25 years experience. All of it isn't just herbs and such - much of it is also about ways to heal yourself if you've strained an elbow or a shoulder. Tom is a great guy and a very giving teacher.

And, just for fun, here's one of my favorites formulas that even though I don't really like licorice, it is one of the main ingredients in my favorite chinese herbal remedy for the common cold - Yin Chiao. Which now comes in a nice pill form instead of an icky tea. This is what has kept colds away from me during the past 2 winters.

Yin Chiao
INGREDIENTS
Honeysuckle, also known as Jin Yin Hua or Lonicera flos
Forsythia, known as Lian Qiao or Forsythia Suspensa Fructus
Balloon Flower, known as Jie Geng or Platycodi Grandiflori Radix
Peppermint, known as Bo He or Menthe Herba
Edible Burdock, known as Niu Bang Zi or Arctium Lappa
Fermented Soy Bean, known as Dan Dou Qi or Sojae Praeparatum Semen
Crested Grass, known as Dan Zhu Ye or Lophatheri Gracilis
Schizonepeta, known as Jing Jie or Schizonepeta Tenuifolia
Chinese Licorice root also known as Gan Cao or Glycyrrhiza Uranelsis Radix

Be careful though. Do get it from someone who is licensed to prescribe it. There are many makers of the herb and one label had added acetaminophen to the formula.

Buyer beware - no matter what you're putting on or in your body.

[cxt]

Wow!

I have to tell you I'm getting the creeps reading the spacious justifications of treatment methods used by a dude that not just disagree's with basic scientific methodology but seems to activily resent its strictures.

Its a fact that people quite successfully treated a wide range of injury/illness well before the birth of modern methods of scientific testing.

Its also fact that once such scientific methodologies were embraced effective treatments exploded in terms of cures, better treatment methods, more efficent/effective healing, longer lifespans (anacdotes aside) etc.

Its also not unimportant to point out that exactly those methodologies were first used by the Chinese back in the day.
Methodologies that were largely lost over the 1000's of years Chinese history.

My point is not to cast stones at traditonal healing methods--far from it.

What I'm suggesting is that to throw away the last few centuries of hard won medical gains by willfully ignoring proper scientific methodlogy seems--to me--foolish in the extreme.

If people are currrently being helped/healed now, just think of how many MORE people could be helped if proper methodologies were used instead of tiny sample sizes and personal stories instead of proper case studies.

It may seem reasonable justificatin to argue that my teachers teachers and his teacher going back to "X" date has successfully used "Y" treatment.
But the bottom line is that we don't KNOW that. We don't know whom the pateints were, their history, why it worked on this guy but not that girl, what else they may have been taking, what their actual problems might have been etc

I'm just saying that in the end, refusing to objectively quantify effective treatments for various illnesses is likely to be hurting people by depriving them of said treatments.

If I were a healer and I honestly believed that I had an effective treatment for a life threating illness--then I would be doing my damnedest to do whatever I had to do to get it into peoples hands--esp those suffering from it.

At one point in time "everybody knew" that illness was caused by the bodies "humors" being out of wack.
Everybody "knew" that there was no such things as "little animals" -now called germs--that could make you sick, so Doctors never washed their hands--and people died and died and died and died.

To read a healer expressing the same "I already know" without a hint of doubt is chilling to me.

Don't care if the healer in question is the most modern high tech medical doctor or the most traditional of "traditonal" healers.

The assumption that ones already knows everything they need to know---or that they know everything there IS to know---that what they know can't be improved.

That is the day that their patients are really in danger.

And as a potential pateint---that seriously concerns me.

[wes tasker]

cxt-

I have to tell you I'm getting the creeps reading the spacious justifications of treatment methods used by a dude that not just disagree's with basic scientific methodology but seems to activily resent its strictures.

Dude...... Calm down. You are attributing way more to me than what I posted. I do not resent the strictures of the basic scientific methodology.

Its a fact that people quite successfully treated a wide range of injury/illness well before the birth of modern methods of scientific testing.

Exactly one of my points.

Its also fact that once such scientific methodologies were embraced effective treatments exploded in terms of cures, better treatment methods, more efficent/effective healing, longer lifespans (anacdotes aside) etc.

No argument here.

What I'm suggesting is that to throw away the last few centuries of hard won medical gains by willfully ignoring proper scientific methodlogy seems--to me--foolish in the extreme.

I'm not for throwing away anything or willfully ignoring scientific methodology.

If people are currrently being helped/healed now, just think of how many MORE people could be helped if proper methodologies were used instead of tiny sample sizes and personal stories instead of proper case studies.

If those methodologies were to get some of the treatment protocols practiced in Chinese Medicine for musculo-skeletal injury (that's my area of practice so I'll just stick to that aspect of TCM) - then I hope it happens. Even if I don't agree with the use of the word "proper" as if their is only one right and correct way...

I'm just saying that in the end, refusing to objectively quantify effective treatments for various illnesses is likely to be hurting people by depriving them of said treatments.

If I were a healer and I honestly believed that I had an effective treatment for a life threating illness--then I would be doing my damnedest to do whatever I had to do to get it into peoples hands--esp those suffering from it.

First off, I'm not curing anyone's life threatening illness. I deal with athletic / martial arts injuries. But how would you suggest going about "objectively quantifying" these treatments and thus getting them to the people who need them?

To read a healer expressing the same "I already know" without a hint of doubt is chilling to me.

Easy there homeslice. I have confidence in what I do, but I'm the last guy to think "I already know". Ask anyone who knows me. Again, your attributing a lot to me that just isn't there.

The assumption that ones already knows everything they need to know---or that they know everything there IS to know---that what they know can't be improved.

That is the day that their patients are really in danger.

Agreed, and your statement is about as far away from my approach to things as you can get.

-wes

[TSDguy]

Even if something 'makes you better' doesn't mean it's safe to use. You can't you possibly tell what is happening inside your body at a cellular level.

If a substance's chemical effects on humans have not been scientically tested, use at your own risk. No one can logically argue with that, and thus we have progress. Medicine keeps evolving. Not even TCMers would reccomend eating mercury anymore.

If TCMs wants to use willing humans as lab rats, that's is a legitimate way to make progress. That is also a small part of the process western medicine uses. The people who eat poison will die off or become sick and a lesson will be learned. Then you stop eating mercury. Unfortunately, since in TCM the experiment is not controlled, progress will be slow, and ultimately, forever incomplete.

Even in a controlled environment simple observation with the naked eye only takes you so far.

[fivedragons]

This whole argument is totally bullshit.

Thalidomide, anyone?

What is this miraculous process that prevents people in the west from being subjected to poison?

Stupid.

Take a look around you, and see what really happens, without the weak superstition.

[TSDguy]

You missed the point, fivedragons (I think, I'm not sure I completely understand what you're geting at). Medicine from any culture is flawed. Now what scientists do about that is what's important.

[Dana Sheets]

So here's the rub. You can't take capitalism out of medicine today.

If we assume that some of the traditional healing methods will be useful and worthwhile for study then we have to assume that we don't know which ones are useful and which ones aren't. And somebody with the understanding of how to use them has to keep those formulas in active use until that time. Many traditional methods were lost in the Cultural Revolution - but many were kept alive by people who fled and taught others. Many traditions come from other countries. So China can't be the single source of knowledge.

A clinical trial takes years and millions of dollars to conduct. Big pharmas are mostly interested in finding the next big drug out of each batch of little drugs so they can make money. Which is fine. They must make money in order to compete, make shareholders happy, have the cash for the R&D of the next batch of drugs, etc.

Yes - pharmas are reviewing traditional therapies around the globe - but mainly with a keen eye on finding the next lipitor, or the next vioxx. It is hard for them to justify studying a compound of traditional herbs that makes bruising heal a little faster. But you wonder, do they have a reason to study traditional herbs and compounds that might help women become pregnant, herbs that restore balance to the menstrual cycle or herbs that make the body's connective tissues become more resistant trauma?

And with all that being said...

What of my friend who takes Zoloft, Ambien, Claratin, and Ritalin? When was that particular mix of compounds clinically tested for its effectiveness? Oh wait...maybe it is being tested right now...in a nice, good old fashioned, individualized field trial. And where will her results be published? Who will write the profile of the patient who should receive such a mix of compounds. What will this combination be named when it becomes a single, accepted treatment? Perhaps something lyrical like Dispells Brain Fog and Promotes Peaceful Dreams?

The reality is that off-label use and mixed prescription use dominates today's healthcare and very few off those combinations are pre-tested before they are given to patients.

Neither process is perfect, both are improving, both have things that are effective for some and ineffective for some. Every TCM practitioner I know is more than willing to have their methods tested. And each also clearly states that every treatment is not effective for every person. They are effective for people who match a certain profile. So what I see is a need, in both traditions, for profile-based testing. Greater tailoring of the already tailored Western approach which will embrace the also tailored TCM approach. The two traditions tailor in very different ways - but because they both tailor, common ground can be found.

But who has the incentive to pay for such things?

[gmattson]

Watch the TV ads for Celebrex (sp).

10 seconds of possible benefits and 2.9 minutes of warnings!!! (Including the possibility of death)

Wes: I understand you and your teacher and his teacher didn't have any double blind studies performed on what they are doing, but I'm wondering how many people died or were hospitalized as a result of "side effects"?

[wes tasker]

Wes: I understand you and your teacher and his teacher didn't have any double blind studies performed on what they are doing, but I'm wondering how many people died or were hospitalized as a result of "side effects"?

Speaking for myself - I've never killed anyone. Nor have any of my clients (a small sample to be sure...) been hospitalized. The next time I see my teacher I'll ask him if he's killed anyone or if any of his clients had to go to the hospital as a result of his treatment.

-wes

[Dana Sheets]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/business/30combo.html
Old Drugs In, New Ones Out
By ANDREW POLLACK
Published: June 30, 2007

CombinatoRx, a company dedicated to combining old generic drugs to make new medicines.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Can an antipsychotic drug from the 1950s be paired with a 1980s antibiotic to shrink 21st-century tumors? Might an anticlotting drug help a steroid relieve arthritis? How about a cholesterol treatment and a pain reliever teaming up to tame diabetes?

Alexis Borisy, the pharmaceutical industry’s master matchmaker, is betting they can. And if he is right, he may have found a cheap and quick way to develop a new cornucopia of medicines.

...

Helping propel the trend is the growing supply of drugs that have lost patent protection, providing a lode of material to test for newfound potential.

Information technology also plays a key role for CombinatoRx (which is pronounced com-bin-a-TOR-ics, as in the mathematics field that deals with combinations). The company relies on the latest robotic drug-screening technology and software to test several thousand pairs of medicines a day.

At its laboratory here, researchers and robots systematically pair about 2,000 generic drugs with one another, with 2 million different combinations possible. Each is tested on human cells. If a drug pair inhibits the cells’ production of inflammatory proteins, for example, that might be reason to explore whether the combination might work against arthritis.

Mr. Borisy describes it as a “dumb, brute-force, empirical approach” that assumes current knowledge of disease is too limited to predict in advance what combinations might work. The company does, though, give priority to testing pairs it believes have the best chance of working.

Eight of the company’s randomly arranged marriages, including drugs for cancer, arthritis and diabetes, have moved into clinical trials — an unusually high number for a company that is only seven years old.

[cxt]

Wes Tasker

I'm not upset in the least.

Used to date a girl who worked with ethno-botany in grad school---her end was refineing compounds from plant sources used by various people--mainly tribal--from all over the globe.

Most of the folks were easy to deal with--others on BOTH sides of the fence were "true belivers" that refused to see any merit in the "other" side.

It got pretty intense at times between the two groups.

I just read--what to me--came across as an anti-science stance in your post.

Forgive me if I mis-interpreted your meaning.

[wes tasker]

I'm not upset in the least.

That is good to know - thank you.

I just read--what to me--came across as an anti-science stance in your post.

I'm not anti-science in the least... Except maybe for doing Calc. and Trig. and any equations that have to do with Quantum Mechanics...

Forgive me if I mis-interpreted your meaning.

It's all good........ Thank you for your considerate reply. Take care.

-wes

[Bill Glasheen]

You can't take capitalism out of medicine today.

You just totally dissed my 4 years of academic medicine. My work on methods to quantify blood flow in heart muscle (developing an injection agent to be imaged with a sonogram), my work on blood flow in heart muscle vs. cardiac function, my work on fibrin glue (for wound repair) and my work to help cardiac surgeons assess the patency of their CABG before getting the patient off of heat-lung bypass were all funded either by the government (NIH) or nonprofit entities (American Heart Association).

Ian and I were in a rather lengthy discussion about a month ago on the use of saw palmetto for BPH. It is a "traditional" herb that has been used for quite some time, with evidence that it may be effective. (1) Pygeum and stinging nettle are also used, as are concoctions which include pumkin seed oil.

The "standard" in medicine today are Flomax (an alpha adrenoceptor antagonist in the prostate) and Proscar or finasteride (blocks conversion of testosterone to DHT). Academic urologists absolutely were interested in whether or not saw palmetto could be used to treat BPH. There's no love lost between academia and big pharma. Trust me on that one.

So yes, there have been many half-a$$ed studies of saw palmetto. Recently a proper one was run because enough European MDs were prescribing the stuff. Why? The standard in Europe is that you can use a drug so long as it's reasonably safe. It doesn't have to be effective. Nice...

Well... Turns out that - for now - a recent prosective double-blinded study shows it may not work after all. (2) The jury is still out. One criticism of the study is that an insufficient amount of the active ingredient may not have been used. (3)

Is that important to know? Of course. No man trying to fix his BPH needs to end up in the ER to get a Foley because he didn't get the treatment he really needed.

Meanwhile, there were many who SWORE the stuff worked. I for one thought it did. It just goes to show that BPH symptoms may have a big psychological component.

And is that true in musculoskeletal as well? Absofreakinlutely. Musculoskeletal has got to have the biggest mind-body connection of any of the body systems. That's why we have arts such as yoga. That's why we have (ahem) Sanchin!

I also happen to know quite a bit about this, as I am presently chief scientist on a project where we're refining a disease classification system used to predict health care risk. Our musculoskeletal part of the classification system is the richest of all the body systems because of our extensive experience with Workman's Comp.

Watch the TV ads for Celebrex (sp).

10 seconds of possible benefits and 2.9 minutes of warnings!!! (Including the possibility of death)

And why is this true, George? Sutton's law.

Cox II inhibitors were a big, big breakthrough. Ask anyone who has benefitted from them. They practically brought Rich back from the rocking chair, and gave him years and years in the gym and time playing rough games with the Marines in Quantico.

They were successful enough that they were used by millions and millions. They generated a LOT of money.

And where there is that much money, there is the office of Dewey, Chetham, and Howe, waiting to create class action lawsuits to siphon some of it off. Ambulance chasers follow healthcare like flies follow feces because it's where the money is.

So the pharmaceutical companies engage in a process of informed consent. To the degree they can, they document every side effect they find in their studies - even if they aren't statistically significant.

Do some companies act dishonestly? Yes, about as often as human beings do in general. But they eventually get caught - and punished.

But here's the scary part, George. You are DAMN LUCKY that evidence-based, informed consent medicine tells you all the possible side effects they know about up front.

How often do you hear the herbalists telling you that their herbs can injure or kill you? If they aren't, then they are either ignorant or they are liars. The literature is riddled with case histories of people injured or killed by traditional herbal therapies - either directly or in combination with other conventional therapies.

Whenever someone tells you there is no risk in a medical treatment, think very, very seriously about turning around and walking right out the door. When you wake up in the morning and walk out the door, you are taking a risk. It's nice to be informed so you can make a choice which caters to your preferences.

Why are the herbalists getting away without informing patients of the risk involved? Partly out of ignorance (the science isn't there yet), and partly Sutton's law. In other words, they fly under the lawyer radar because there isn't any money in it for the lawyers.

When treatments become effective enough, the revenue will follow. And where there is significant revenue...

- Bill

1. Wilt TJ et al (1998). "Saw palmetto extracts for treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia: a systematic review". JAMA 280: 1604–1609.

2. Bent S et al (2006). "Saw Palmetto for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia". NEJM 354: 557–566.

3. Allison Aubrey. Morning Edition: Study Casts Doubt on Saw Palmetto as Prostate Remedy. National Public Radio.