| People
frequently want to use "natural" or "herbal" medicines. Many believe that any
"natural" or "herbal" medicine must be better or safer than other medicines. This
belief needs closer examination.
First
of all, I think that most people would agree that the most important and pertinent
questions to ask are:
1) Has this "natural", "herbal", or whatever form
of medicine, been tested adequately in clinical trials?
2) What are
the proven benefits related to my medical conditions?
3) What are the
known potential side effects? And how likely is it that such side effects might
occur? (Bear in mind that one can say that a medicine has no known side effects
just because no adequate studies have been done or the medicine has not been closely
scrutinized.)
4) Considering the benefits and risks (and the chances
that such benefits or risks could occur), do I, the patient, want to take this
medicine?
Secondly,
we need to remember that nature is neutral, neither good nor bad, neither benevolent
nor malevolent towards us humans. Just think of some of the "natural" things that
we'd rather not be exposed to: leprosy, poison ivy, arsenic, jimson weed … The
most toxic substances come from nature. All infectious diseases, and in fact,
all diseases are "natural." Indeed, it is "unnatural" to have no diseases or illnesses
at all. Nature does not exist to serve us - it just exists. (Actually, we are
destroying nature every day, and, come to think of it, if "Mother Nature" has
a conscious mind, she has many reasons to be quite malevolent towards us humans,
considering what we are doing to her.) We need to treat nature with a lot more
respect. We need to "use" nature wisely.
Any medicine, "natural", "herbal",
or otherwise, needs to be studied adequately before we can tell if it is actually
effective or safe, or what side effects it might have. Again, remember that one
can claim that a medicine has no known side effects just because one has not done
studies to evaluate the medicine closely and systematically.
Thirdly,
just what is "natural" anyway? Take ginkgo biloba for example. Is it natural when
it is harvested from the wild? Is it "natural" when it is cultivated?
Is it "natural" after it has been extracted through solvents, filtered, dried,
preserved, mixed with binders, or encapsulated?
Does ginkgo biloba have
known adverse effects in some people? The answer is yes. Have people died from
taking gingko biloba? The answer is also yes. Does that mean that no one should
take ginkgo biloba or eat gingko nuts? The answer is no. Hey, ginkgo nut and rice
soup is delicious. Don't take that away from me.
Take another example
- ginseng. Ginseng from the snow mountains of Korea, ginseng from China, ginseng
from Japan, and ginseng from the milder climate of the Appalachians. Which one
is the "real" ginseng? Which one is the "natural" ginseng? If one could benefit
from eating Korean ginseng (and let us assume that the benefit has been proven
beyond the shadow of a doubt), would one benefit from taking ginseng pills after
the ginseng has been extracted, filtered, dried, preserved, mixed with binders,
and encapsulated? And would one benefit if the pills were made from Appalachian
ginseng?
Have people suffered adverse effects after eating ginseng or
taking ginseng pills? Sure, you bet. Should ginseng be banned? Heck, no. I love
ginseng and chicken soup. Don't take that away from me. However, for soup, the
ginseng should be a special type since ginseng taste varies greatly (Did you know
that?). The chicken should be young, small, and preferably "free-range" with a
more "natural" mild and gamy taste, and not one of the thousands-in-a-coop-raised-to-optimum-size
chickens. Hmmm, let me see, which one is the "natural" chicken? Maybe I should
go into the woods to hunt some wild chicken.
The
bottom line is to know and weigh the benefits and risks (frequently the benefits
and risks are simply not known) and not to assume that just because something
is labeled "natural," it is effective, safe, or beneficial.
Don't be
blindsided by the prevalent mass media advertisements produced by the major pharmaceutical
companies hawking their patent drugs. By the same token, in fact, by more tokens
(how I love to twist the English language, just like advertisements do), don't
be blindsided by those equally glitzy "herbal" and "natural" drug advertisements
and those testimonials, articles, books, and journals which are simply advertisements-in-disguise.
These ads that constantly bombard our eyes and ears from every known media source
are produced by the multi-billion dollar "herbal" and "natural" medicine industry.
At least the major pharmaceutical companies are much more tightly regulated
by the FDA. The "herbal" and "natural" medicine industry is the wild, wild, west.
© Chun-Kwok Wong, M.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine
University
of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio
Faculty, Section of Endocrinology,
Regional Academic Health Center
November
2002
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