Do you have a self-limiting condition? If so the BBC would like you to pretend herbs can cure it.
Posted by gimpy on July 7, 2009
You may remember the BBC ran a series earlier this year called “Grow Your Own Drugs” in which the presenter, James Wong, encouraged people to ingest plants containing substances of variable dosage and uncertain efficacy to treat self-limiting conditions that would improve over time without intervention. Now the BBC are making a second series and the production company are looking for volunteers.
Adverts have appeared on mumsnet, Psoriasis-help, newspapers and online advertising boards such as this from gumtree.
Do you suffer from conditions such as dandruff, indigestion or blocked ears?
Or perhaps you suffer from hayfever or tired eyes?
Are your periods making you miserable?
Does shaving bring you out in a rash?
If you would like to try a plant based remedy to help soothe your ailments please get in contact now.Please e-mail us providing as much information about your ailment as you can at:
therese.byrne@silverriver.tv
Or call us on:
0207 907 3469
So if you would like to wash your paracetamol down with a tea brewed from lemon, honey and ginger rather than take a Lemsip when suffering from a cold, use eucalyptus oil as a decongestant, or indulge in the ayruvedic goodness of Vicks Vaporub then get in touch. I’m sure the production team will take great care in pointing out the audience that they have selected self-limiting conditions that get better without intervention and the suggested treatments are not substitutes for seeing a medical practitioner if you suspect something more serious. I’m also sure they will make clear that although some compounds found in plants have no unsafe dose others, such as St John’s Wort, may react with medicines prescribed by a doctor and more, such as willow bark, may have unpleasant and dangerous side effects in high doses. I imagine the take home message from the programme will be that just because a compound is natural does not mean that it works, or is safe and will emphasise the need, when taking pharmacologically active compounds, for a controlled dose, which would be unobtainable by ingesting plants.
Lets hope I’m right.
Unity said
I have to say that I saw a couple of the first series and its not quite as bad as the shill for punters makes it sound.
For one thing, the presenter was pretty assiduous in making ‘if it doesn’t help in a couple of days go see a proper medic’ disclaimers and I don’t recall him straying from the realms of minor ailments and nuisances either.
One other good point, as I recall, was that one of the regular features, which I’m guessing is what they’re advertising for, was that of getting a couple of punters to give his herbal goop a go and during those segments they gave a pretty unvarnished view of things, so you’d quite often get one of the punters giving a ‘nah, didn’t work for me’ feedback.
Put it this way, I’ve seen worse – usually on Channel 4.
gimpy said
Unity, it would be nice if they explored the proper issues with herbal supplements though, instead of promoting a natural=safe/best/alternative philosophy. A history of herbal medicine and why it is now obsolete would be fascinating, there are many pharmaceutical compounds that originate in plants but have been improved thanks to science.
ez said
Herbal medicine – obsolete? In this age of borderless media such as internet you put yourself at risk of being ridiculed by half of the world who happily use the herbs for a wide variety of problems with quite satisfactory results, which pharmaceutical companies often try to mimic – take tamiflu, which is made from a substance from star anise – Chinese have been using star anise to cook poultry since age immemorial, now someone is finally trying to catch up with this “tradition”. Have you ever asked yourself a question where “traditions” come from? I am very much against everything rigidly “traditional” just because it is “traditional”, it’s just another word for “supersitious”, of course, but often it’s good to ask oneself where have these traditions come from in the first place?
gimpy said
Ez, the synthesis of tamiflu is described in this (surprisingly detailed) wikipedia article. Could you point out where the star anise comes in?
notspock said
sorry gimpy… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_anise
“Shikimic acid, a primary feedstock used to create the anti-flu drug Tamiflu, is produced by most autotrophic organisms, but star anise is the industrial source”
Of course a “primary feedstock” often has nothing in common with what its turned into. Shikimic acid probably doesnt do anything at all to viruses. The link between chinese cuisine and tamiflu is one of the most tenuous links I’ve ever heard.
I mean – many primary feedstocks are petroleum based. No doubt theres made up stories of native americans rubbing crude oil on themselves to treat something or other. so they had the cure for [insert any disease you like]
Interestingly “Shikimic acid” was “first found in Japanese star anise … Cases of illness, including “serious neurological effects, such as seizures”, reported after using star anise tea may be a result of using this species”.
Natural and safe!
ez said
One point that you certainly have – and to which I subscribe wholly – is that “natural” certainly does not mean “safe”. But there’s one disconcerting – for you – moment regarding “safety” in this, is that “controlled” dose is not “safe” either as all people have different sensitivities, and while 5000 people might have “average” sensitivity, the 5001st might display deadly poisoning by even harmless substance, natural or not. And if you consider that Hahnemann’s experiments with diluting etc. of substances were actually a search of a really “safe” “controlled” dose, you might wish to recosider your attacks at homeopathy as a system, while I have to agree with you that the way the area is regulated or rather not regulated is a major setback for its effective use – and application.
ez said
Notspock – tenuous, well, yes, in a way, because noone has ever researched it… It does not mean that it is a priori wrong – or true, on the other hand. It’s my personal idea, but I also notice that they almost never use star anise in any other combination. I used to have a nutritionist friend who has researched the subject of food combinations found in traditional cuisines all over the world, and she has repeatedly told me that she was amazed how rigourous research has always shown that these combinations provide the most efficient combination of nutrients, from the digestive point of view. Really, there are “traditions” and “traditions” – “always good” or “always bad” are both such extreme points of view, that one is forced to recall the “golden mean” – or do you reject this idea as another tradition too?
notspock said
Ez – no, just plain tenuous. Theres simple facts about chemistry here that you have missed completely. Get one slightly complicated compound, and modify it chemically- and its a completely different compound.
Now there are a lot of slight modifications that change pharmaceuticals slightly. However, looking at Shikimic acid and Tamiflu thats a very radical change to the molecule. So its an absolutely different compound, unlikely to have anything in common at all.
I don’t quite see how you can go off on this “nutrition” tangent. Tamiflu is all about interfering with the virus, nothing to do with what goes with chicken.
ez said
Notspock,
Well, as I’ve said no research was ever done re star anise and what it does to the chicken while they are cooked together, and although I have acouple of ideas on what might be done in terms of research, I mean real lab research, I’m not in a position to do this, so I think arguing about something that’s not been tested but is based on plain intuition is useless.
I mentioned nutrition examples as an illustration of the statement that not all that is traditional should be readily discarded on the pretext of it being supreficially “inexplicable”, “implausible” etc. But another thing that I hoped you would guess is that while food combinations allow nutrients to be digested better in some cases but not others, this is not the only thing that may be going on, and potentially hazardous things might get antidoted due to clever food combinations as well, so as you might (or might not) know birds in general are very susceptible to flu-like illnesses, cooking poultry with star anise might be actually helping to deal with this inherent susceptibility and also render the final product strengthening for the persons who eat it – against the flu – who has ever researched what happens to ingredients when they are cooked in certain combinations? What can enhance or inhibit “digestibility” of nutrients – and ability of people to better digest the available nutrients – how can this be affected? THere’s so much to work on before even thinking about introducing drugs into this fine-tuned system, and yet I do not see any real research in this direction… ANd you seem to be saying that “science already knows enough”, if I understand you correctly… I’ll have to politely disagree but refrain from further argument.
notspock said
Very very Tenous, and no you don’t understand me.
With logic like that you’d be better off testing things almost at random – and indeed the pharmaceutical companies do. They will most certainly have tried out all sorts of compounds to see if they have similar effects to tamiflu, and it would seem a fair guess that they’ve tried out Shikimic acid.
“nutrition tangent”. Not only does that look like a longshot but you don’t really seem to have any testable hypothesis.
dvnutrix said
Thing is, it’s been an eye-opener how many people promote the idea of ‘natural hormones’ because a form of progesterone can be synthesised from wild yam and soya – as if the ‘naturalness’ of it all is proof against the notion it could be harmful so the fact that there aren’t trials to establish safety is neither here nor there.
notspock said
I don’t actually know much about this “plant hormones” lark, but can’t help wondering what eating “female hormones” is supposed to do to men.
Actually having heard a snippet of info about it potentially making breast cancer worse I did find this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogens#Phytoestrogen_in_females
(In brief: “it might be bad”)
Carmenego said
I saw Mr. Wong on BBC Breakfast promoting his show and he pretty much said “if I have a headache, I’ll take an aspirin”. I don’t remember him advocating herbs (which might help, if only as a placebo) above proper meds.
It was a blandly inoffensive programme to be honest, not exactly intellectually stimulating. I think a documentary on the efficacy of herbal supplements may have been a bit too much for the general public at 6pm on a weekday.
Unity said
Blandly inoffensive is a pretty good way of putting it, in fact if Wong’s programme is likely to piss anyone off its going to be the herbal meds industry who won’t tale too kindly to the sight him knocking up goop in his kitchen for 50p when they’re reaming punter for the same crap at a fiver a pop in ‘health food’ stores.
Budicius said
I Love Herbal Medicine. I really do. Herbs are Gods gift to us as medicinal agents. Whenever I walk through a meadow full of wild herbs I can’t help but wonder about their medicinal or poisonous effects. There have been hundreds of clinical trials on herbs, some establishing their efficacy. In a post apocalyptic war zone where pharmaceutical companies are unable to manufacture their clinically proven drugs, doctors apart from their surgical skills would be nearly useless. I would be confident in consulting a Herbalist for whatever ails me. Nature is a beautiful place with much to offer mankind. The affinity Herbs have with our physiology is not by chance, some may believe it to be because of our close association with plants throughout our evolutionary history. I think they are God given. Herbs heal.
JJM said
@Budicius said July 8, 2009 at 12:39 “… There have been hundreds of clinical trials on herbs, some establishing their efficacy.”
There are thousands of herbs with countless claims for them which are unsupported. Most clinical trials of herbs are amateurish and insufficient to establish efficacy. For the most part, high-quality trials don’t support the claims.
Chinese herbalists offered more than 100 treatments for malaria, only one was found to be effective (sometimes) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16722826?ordinalpos=21&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum That is not a record of success.
Then you must consider the herbs that have been used for centuries; but are found to be deadly after scientific scrutiny, for example: Pokeroot, Comfrey, Coltsfoot, Kava, Aristolochia, Hawthorne, Chaparral and Sassafras.
In short, your herbalist has a large inventory of ineffective and dangerous products.
rosa said
THIS IS CONNECTED and it is politics.
Gimpy’s crowd will ridicule anything that might take the place of commercial medications.
Eventhough some of them are the very origin and source of the drugs themselves, synthesized and chemyfied, later in labs to take the active part of the plant on a certain phenomena of disease.
The intake of the whole plant is in teh hands of an experienced herbalist is so much safer than taking an advil/aspirin for pain or fever.
Sandy5 said
In what way are Herbalists not commercial entities? They make a living by selling treatments the same as, for example, Astra Zeneca do.
“The intake of the whole plant is in teh hands of an experienced herbalist is so much safer than taking an advil/aspirin for pain or fever.”
This statement is obviously nonsense. How can an ill defined herbal preparation of unknown dosage be safer than an accurately dosed pill of a known substance with known effects?
notspock said
A while ago I started a list of all the good things in medicine that aren’t commercial medications. Included things like mosquito nets and salty water, and even went as far as maggots in wounds.
Anything, as long as its researched (properly!), becomes acceptable. Yes, that includes stuff from plants.
I don’t know quite what you mean by “chemified”. Perhaps one of these:
a) Useful compound discovered, tested, tested more. Used unmodified, but extracted and quantified properly (ie chilli for shingles), so people get the right dose.
b) Similar to (a) A plant contains a complex mixture of active substances, some of them harmful, some of them less so. Eliminating some compounds.
c) Other more detailed transformation into a new compound, research into its action, etc.
d) “sullied in your mind by quantification”.
Note (a) and (b) – How does the herbalist know the right dose? Different strains, different seasons, different ripeness all change what would be in a herbal mixture. That is difficult to appreciate for most things- but I can certainly say that chillis do vary a hell of a lot!
yesalem said
How ridiculous can you get when you advertise Simone Singh on your main page.
Simon has attacked anything that has to do with alternative to drugs. He must be a godsend to the producers of little pills, chemotherapy and the rest of the plot products against humans.
the policy being:
“PAY FOR THE DRUGS AND WE WILL SELL YOU MORE DRUGS TO TREAT THE SIDE EFECTS OF THE PREVIOUS DRUGS YOU HAVE TAKEN AND SO FORTH.
UNTIL YOU CRUMBLE IN TORMENT UNDER THE CHEMICAL LOAD YOUR BODY CANNOT SUPPORT ANY LONGER.
TAKE THE DRUGS, BUY THE CHEMO, TAKE THE TESTS SO THAT WE CAN SELL YOU SOME MORE “MEDICINE” AFTER A CAREFUL APPRAISAL OF YOUR MISERLY PROGNOSIS, needing some heavy radiation of expensive chemotherapy or MOEPHINE.
The bigger the lie the more it becomes a common accepted truth-:) No choice, Gimpy and co. along with the huge industrial medicine factory will show you how to live, be mierable and fully pay for it. they’ll kill you, skillfully take your money’s and inherit your assets after you paid all you have to die slowly in modern style.
Sandy5 said
“PAY FOR THE DRUGS AND WE WILL SELL YOU MORE DRUGS TO TREAT THE SIDE EFECTS OF THE PREVIOUS DRUGS YOU HAVE TAKEN AND SO FORTH.
UNTIL YOU CRUMBLE IN TORMENT UNDER THE CHEMICAL LOAD YOUR BODY CANNOT SUPPORT ANY LONGER.”
Sounds like the classic Stella – Paracetamol – Stella – Paracetamol cycle to me. It is indeed debilitating and costly. Evil Bargain Booze.
Nash said
One of my relatives is a homeopath. She boasts that the same people come back to her month after month. Good for her bank balance. But I don’t see much difference between this and the hoe accusation of “PAY FOR THE DRUGS AND WE WILL SELL YOU MORE DRUGS TO TREAT THE SIDE EFECTS OF THE PREVIOUS DRUGS YOU HAVE TAKEN AND SO FORTH.”
Look forward to rosa’s next rant.
gimpy said
Heh, that was my point to ez, notspock, it is a feedstock and undergoes considerable chemical modification to act nothing like the original substance…
notspock said
ARRGGH. Sorry, you were too subtle for me, so no doubt to subtle for a herbalist.
However, that kind of tenuous nonensense does come up quite often. I even heard Stephen Fry come up with something of the kind about arab tribesmen inventing antibiotics.
I know you’ve said stuff close to this before but its worth repeating:
A plant product that is thoroughly investigated becomes a drug or a pharmaceutical product. Those that arent investigated, or don’t work remain herbal medicine.