traditional herbal knowledge

[look]

sinde 1948, the year the NHs was created, the traditional knowledge about the use of plants for heath is been frogotten. An university is trying to recover the british traditional knowledge and is searching the effectsof the plants. Culpeper.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/200 ... lth.health

[Mike4]

Placebo effect I reckon, most of it.

I have a copy of Culpeper's Complete Herbal. Gave up on it donkey's years ago as it don't seem to work. Mebbe summink to do with my expectations.

[bungeejumper]

I don't think anybody is disputing that plants have a promising role to play in the development of new medicines, or that the Tudors, the ancient Greeks or even the very ancients (opium, anybody?) had useful knowledge to impart to us. And that it would be a pity if that knowledge were to be swamped by a rigid scientific/bureaucratic insistence on only using test-tube remedies. But actually I can't see any evidence of that having happened. Am I missing something?

Of course, the ancients made a lot of erroneous and nonsensical assumptions. If a plant resembled a human body part (lung, heart, phallus), they'd sometimes say it would be good for that part, which is illogical at best. Then again, many old cures (mistletoe? belladonna?) are potentially lethal. It's no bad thing that their effects are being calibrated as well as fact-checked.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/aug/21/medicineandhealth.health

Old history, I'm afraid. That Guardian link was from 2005. I wonder how they're getting on?

BJ

[bruncher]

Most medicines are derived from plants.

A few years back, the EU introduced law which prohibited sale of remedies that hadn't passed through (expensive) clinical trials. Many items were removed from chemists and health food stores, including my favourite cough remedy 'Potters Vegetable Cough Remover' which worked better than anything I have tried in the past decade.

I don't think the knowledge is lost, it's just not in the high Street.

[redsturgeon]

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacognosy.

Most medicines have their origins in the natural world, just think aspirin (willow), penicillin (mould). Science takes these natural products and tries to isolate the chemicals within them that create a desired effect while removing other chemicals that are not needed and could be harmful.

We could still boil up willow bark at home every time we have a headache but a small inexpensive pill is more convenient for most.

Clinical trials that show efficacy and side effect profiles can be run on plant and herb remedies without a problem. The issues come when traditional remedies are used without evidence of their effectiveness.

Studies run of homeopathy for instance have not shown any measurable effects. Though the placebo effect is generally well known and can be useful.

John

[bungeejumper]

Clinical trials that show efficacy and side effect profiles can be run on plant and herb remedies without a problem. The issues come when traditional remedies are used without evidence of their effectiveness.

Studies run of homeopathy for instance have not shown any measurable effects. Though the placebo effect is generally well known and can be useful.

I'm as close to a career sceptic as you could ever hope to find , but the beneficial effect of my wife's daily rose hip supplement ("Gopo") on her damaged knees has been damn near miraculous. Within a couple of weeks of beginning this unscientific quack cure, the distance she could comfortably walk was quadrupled, and her sleep improved.

As you'd expect, the manufacturers are not allowed to make any claims of such a kind. But it's notable that rose hip supplements are also used in the horse racing world, where I gather that they have been found to extend the competitive careers of dumb animals who aren't exactly noted for their keenness on reading the labels in search of placebo effects.

In the final analysis, we are all composed of variants upon variants upon variants of the plant-like organisms that developed in the distant primeval soup. Perhaps it shouldn't be such a shock coincidence that plants can still help to reset things when they go wrong?

BJ