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TCM

Dietary Supplement Recalled for Containing Prescription Anxiety Drug – (03-15-01)

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Dietary Supplement Recalled for Containing Prescription Anxiety Drug

It does appear that many of the “contaminated” dietary supplements center around many chinese botanicals. This is unfortunate because it will cast a bad light over traditional chinese medicine. Hopefully, the message that arises from these episodes is that TCM is not a “do it yourself” method of healing and, much like functional medicine concepts, should only be done under the guidance of a COMPETENT physician.

(article) A dietary supplement promoted to treat a wide range of conditions, including high blood pressure and high cholesterol, is the subject of a nationwide recall after an investigation revealed that the product contains the prescription anxiety drug chlordiazepoxide. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the California Department of Health Services are warning consumers not to take Anso Comfort Capsules, which were sold by Arcadia, California-based NuMeridian via phone and mail order. Chlordiazepoxide, which is prescribed under the brand name Librium, is classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a controlled substance. The drug can have dangerous interactions with other medications, can intensify the effects of alcohol and other central nervous system depressants, and may be habit forming. The presence of chlordiazepoxide was not revealed on Anso Comfort Capsules’ label.

Acupuncture blocks stress on the heart – (11-26-01)

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Acupuncture Blocks Sympathetic Nerve Activity to Heart

It is becoming more and more difficult to say that acupuncture has no effects on the human body… It is just so hard to accept the concept of a series of meridian, energy fields, etc… that can and do affect human health. I would go on to say that acupuncture is just one tool to be used in human disease management, but anyone who has studied traditional Chinese medicine already knows that they know this! TCM also includes herbal remedies and manipulation as well as acupuncture.

American Heart Association’s 2001 Scientific Sessions Dr. Holly R. Middlekauff of the Medical School of the University of California at Los Angeles pointed out that sympathetic nerve activity is two to three times higher in patients with heart failure. The higher the activity, the worse the prognosis. On the basis of animal studies that have shown acupuncture to be sympathoinhibitory, Dr. Middlekauff and colleagues selected 14 patients with advanced heart failure and randomized them to one of three treatment arms: traditional acupuncture with needles; acupuncture with needles but delivered to non-acupoints; and needleless acupuncture, in which patients were touched on the backs of their necks and believed they were receiving acupuncture. Investigators subjected the patients to 4 minutes of mental stress, having them perform math problems, “chastising them when they got the answers wrong,” and performing a color/word mismatch test, where they had to identify the correct color, while a written cue gave them the wrong answer (e.g., presenting the word “blue” in red letters). Stress testing was conducted prior to acupuncture and then again after a 20-minute session. During mental stress testing, sympathetic activity increased 25%, with increases in heart rate and blood pressure. However, a single 20-minute acupuncture session completely blocked these increases in the active treatment group. Patients in the non-acupoint and needleless acupuncture groups showed increased sympathetic activity as usual. “We would like to see what a full course of acupuncture would do,” Dr. Middlekauff commented. “Acupuncture could be adjunctive or complementary to beta-blocker therapy for heart failure patients.” She added that it could also be advantageous in patients intolerant of beta-blockade.

Traditional herbal medicine enhances bilirubin – (01-14-04)

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Traditional herbal medicine enhances bilirubin clearance by activating the nuclear receptor CAR

I don’t follow TCM much, but the authors’ conclusion on this one caught me by surprise. An herb combo used in TCM for neonatal jaundice appears to be effective at helping the liver. So what does the author conclude? That these herbs could be used for developing pharmaceutical drugs for neonatal jaundice. They just don’t get it. There’s a natural compound successfully used for eons and we don’t want to use THAT compound that Mother Nature gave us–we want to concentrate the whatever we THINK the active component is, concentrate it and use it as a drug. Just the thought that we can improve on Mother Nature is arrogance aplenty.

JCI — Abstracts: Huang et al. 113 (1): 137 –

Read entire article here