For over 40 years of working in the herbal field, I\nhave been vocal when it comes to disseminating scientific information on herbs\nand in herb research. Also, I have been\nadvocating identity and quality of herbal products during most of my\nprofessional career. My often frank and nonpolitical style might have offended\nsome colleagues and friends. I have\nalready offered my apologies in my memoir. \nBut here again, my apologies<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rationale behind my arriving at \u201cA DISRUPTIVE CONCEPT IN DRUG THERAPY\u201d \u2013<\/strong>\n1st<\/sup> post <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After ephedrine and morphine were first isolated from the\nopium poppy and ephedra, circa 1887 and 1805 respectively, the focus on herbs\nhave since been shifted to some of their contained chemicals. That period is what I see as the transition\npoint of age-old herbs to new chemical drugs. \nOr in scientific jargon, from pharmacognosy (materia medica) to\nphytochemistry and related fields, with the eventual goal of obtaining from\nthem only chemicals (drugs), not traditional herbal therapeutics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nfirmly believe the chemicals to be the herbs\u2019 active principles and talking\nabout them as if we are certain they represent the herbs\u2019 traditional\nproperties and functions. With this new\nscientific rationale, who needs the archaic, nonscientific herbs? However, with some hedging, we also have\nincluded some nonchemical features in the herbs so as to \u2018guarantee\u2019 the modern\nherbal medicines to have some traditional properties as well. But would these herb features transfer to the\nchemical drugs? The answer is no. But\nthen, would they transfer to the finished herbal medicines\/supplements? The answer is maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We were (still are) confused.\u00a0 The almost century-long transition period (1805-1887) firmly established the beginning of the drug era that has finally led to the self-generating money machine (vicious cycle) that I have described throughout my books, my blog (www.ayslcorp.com\/blog) and other e-publications.\u00a0 I believe that vicious cycle was officially sanctioned on April 11, 2017, by our FDA\u2019s approval of the new drug, Valbenazine, for treating a drug-induced disease, Tardive Dyskinesia (or involuntary body movements), caused by the toxic side effects of common antipsychotic, antiepileptic, and gastrointestinal drugs.\u00a0 To me, it means now we have a closed, self-perpetuating system in which you can produce more toxic drugs, whether or not they actually work, for a particular illness\/disease, which cause more new diseases that in turn, require more drugs to treat, in a perpetual toxic cycle that is controlled by people who make and sell the drugs.\u00a0 This is a monopoly of which our government seems to have no control and we, as citizens\/consumers, have to grin and bear it.\u00a0 \u00a0Have I described the scenario correctly?\u00a0 If not, please let me know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nconfusion between the following 2 facts has caused our current problems with\ndrugs and herbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although we identify and\nassess aspirin by chemical analyses, we can\u2019t identify food and herbs simply by\ntheir contained chemicals such as pectin or ascorbic acid in apple and call\neither chemical \u2018apple,\u2019 nor can we analyze ginseng\u2019s ginsenosides among many\nother chemicals also present (e.g., sterols, choline & oleanolic acid) and\ncall any one particular chemical or group of chemicals \u2018ginseng.\u2019 Yet we have been doing just that for the past\nmany decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nseems to have quietly surfaced, but unresolved, over the recent 25 years after\nthe Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, DSHEA, was passed in 1994. We regulate herbal supplements as food but from\nday one we treated (tested) them as drugs, requiring them to meet some chemical\nstandards. This obviously hasn\u2019t worked,\nbecause we can\u2019t simply select any chemical in an herb and call that chemical\nthe herb, such as calling chlorogenic acid in echinacea, \u2018echinacea,\u2019 or pectin\nin apple, \u2018apple.\u2019 But that is exactly\nwhat we have been trying to do, without getting the expected results. We seemed not to have grasped the fact that\ndrugs and herbs are very different and continue to mix up the two. Thus, with drugs, we use an aspirin standard\nfor the identification, quality control, and manufacture of aspirin, but not\nfor another painkiller like morphine. \nYet, for lack of any appropriate herbal standards, we have basically\nbeen using ambiguous and inappropriate herb standards (based on some chemical\nout of possibly hundreds or thousands others also present) and try to apply\ndrug technology on herbs. It is\nanalogous to using an aspirin standard for any painkiller (aspirin, acetaminophen,\nor morphine). This is not going to\nhappen, as scientific technologies for drugs are well established. We know this doesn\u2019t work. Any scientist knows that. But scientists working on herbs often view\nherb standards (we call them reference materials) as a single entity like a\nchemical standard. To them, chlorogenic\nacid in echinacea is as good as echinacea and caffeine in coffee is as good as\ncoffee to them. Hence, none of the\ncurrent herb reference materials can address this inadequacy and major problem. And I\nam only talking about the raw herbs! With the finished herbal products on the\nmarket, there are no legal requirements what they should be. Consequently, adulteration and imitations are\ncommon. For an example, see \u201cChapter\n9: Adulteration Continues to be a Major\nProblem\u201d of my memoir (My Life &\nRollercoaster Career\u201d<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n My\ngroup working in my laboratory under my direction had developed the RBRM (Representative\nBotanical Reference Materials) over 14 years ago as a key part of our\nPhyto-True system, but only last year did we receive a patent from the European\nPatent Office, 10 years after we submitted our patent application. [see another earlier post on this blog] Since then, this has received increasing\ninterest. I think this may finally be\nthe watershed in the introduction of true herbal supplements\/medicines to\nmodern health care, after enough of our general public is introduced to this\nconcept and like the idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless,\nthis is just the beginning. But we can\nchange the status quo<\/em> and finally\nachieve better natural health with a more holistic approach, more in\nconformance with foods than individual chemicals. I trust our younger generations with bright\nbrains, and without preconditioned prejudice, can apply new and appropriate\nsciences to break the vicious cycle and to treat herbs more like foods to match\nthe imprecision and chaos they encounter, which is our complex body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Posted 4\/25\/19 – 7:29pm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For over 40 years of working in the herbal field, I have been vocal when it comes to disseminating scientific information on herbs and in herb research. Also, I have been advocating identity and quality of herbal products during most of my professional career. My often frank and nonpolitical style might have offended some colleagues … <\/p>\n