The Scientific — of Validation Herbal Medicine Toni Beckman, L.N. 4901 N.W. 3rd Ave. Boca Raton, FL 33431-4762 (407) 395-2178 Daniel B. Mowrey, Ph.D. With Foreword by Dr. Jeffrey Bland How to remedy and prevent disease with Herbs, Vitamins, Minerals and other nutrients. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/scientificvalidaO0000mowr The Scientific Validation or Herbal Medicine Z jy > ! ta Daniel B. Mowrey, Ph.D. LE TN OR Se RES DO Dee EE ES EEN CP OED OLE FBT EEN ER aR OLE EI How to remedy and prevent disease with Herbs, Vitamins, Minerals and other nutrients. IMPORTANT! The information contained in this booklet is intended for educational purposes only. It is not provided in order to diagnose, prescribe, or treat any disease, illness, or injured condition of the body, and the author, publisher, printer(s), and distributor(s) accept no responsibility for such use. Those individuals suffering from any disease, iliness, or injury should consult with their physician. NOTE: Many persons, on their first encounter with the information presented in this book, are tempted to throw out their medications and start using nothing but herbs. Please do not do that. Your educatiino tnhi s field is just beginninIgn .m y opinion people should ease into the use of herbs and ease ouoft t he use of traditional medications only where possible, especiailf lthye ir health problems are severe. A sudden switch of health regimen can be hazardous. NOTE: Throughout the book, | use the word ‘treat’ to describe the relationship between an herb and its users. The word is not a synonym for ‘cure’. It implies only that the herb is used by certain people in an ‘attempt to cure’. There is a big difference between treat and cure: While cure involves a successful treatment, treat does not imply success; it only suggests the attempt. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mowrey, Daniel B., 1944- The scientific validation of herbal medicine. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Herbs--Therapeutic use. 2. Vitamin therapy. 3. Minerals in nucritionsn da hieles RM666.H33M68 1986 615" 321 St—27 72 ISBN 0-936361-00-5 (pbk.) © Copyright 1986 by Cormorant Books. ISBN 0-936361-00-5 FOREWORD It was with great pleasure that | had an opportunity to evaluate the manuscript of Dr. Mowrey’s book. The field of herbal products and natural botanical medicines has been fraught with considerable confusion, controversy, and misinformation over the past several years. We have seen consumer interest rise in these natural proucts without knowledge of their positive values, side effects, and hazards from abuse. It was a breath of fresh air to read through Dr. Mowrey’s treatise on The Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine, which is the first comprehensive manuscript that | have seen which deals with the science, history, pharmacology and clinical applications of herbal materials. The book is highly referenced and illustrates a scientific approach to this complex field. He has weaved a very subtle balance between the clinical anecdote, the history of natural botanicals, and the science which underlies their efficacy. | found the reading to be most enlightening and in a style that flowed and inspired me to read on. We have needed this type of book for some time to Clarify issues and separate fact from fiction concerning herbal products. The birthing of the field of green medicine began when pharmacological evaluations of indigenous aztec medicines yielded agents with important implications in the treatment of modern disease. Since then medicinal plants have provided the foundation of the modern pharmaceutical industry. Certainly, natural products may suffer from a lack of defined dose and potency data, but they benefit from the virtue of containing many specific molecular principles in their natural state possessing a variety of influences upon human physiology, as opposed to the purified synthetic drugs which are based on just a single specific molecular substance derived from the natural product. Dr. Mowrey has described these differences very nicely in this book and | believe this volume (and the forthcoming Volume 1!) should be of great benefit to any individual who is concerned about natural healing and its clinical applications. Jeffrey S. Bland, PhD Director in Nutrition Analysis Laboratory Linus Pauling Institute Dedicated To Gail & June Roy & Mable PREEACE The scientific method has been the bedrock of humankind’s explosive progress in the medical sciences for the past dozen decades or so (see the Introduction for more details). The use of this method of human inquiry has had profound impact on all cultures that have discovered its power. The material reviewed in this book, unlike the anecdotal material of most books about herbs, rests upon a foundation built with the use of the scientific method. : Here are some preliminary observations about herbal medicine in America that do not necessarily pertain to the rest of the world: The material in this book is not common knowledge. In spite of a resurgence in natural health, ninety percent of the references in this book are from medical journals outside the American continent. Most Americans have a bias against the use of herbal medicines. Medical doctors hesitate to promote the use of herbs. Pharmaceutical companies do not manufacture herbs nor encourage doctors to prescribe them. There is no educational support in the medical community for folk medicine. Why has America ignored the scientific validation of herbal medicine? To understand the uniquely American situation, one needs to examine the development of medical science generally, and the nature of American science specifically. Historical Perspectives A study of the history of herbal research reveals some of the reasons American medicine evolved the way it did, and suggests ways that sound herbology and sound pharmacology can be united in medical practice. Historical differences in the development of herbal medicine between Western and Eastern cultures require that the two patterns be discussed separately. We shall see why today, in the East, there is ongoing scientific research in herbs, and why, in the West, especially in America, whole herb materials are seldom if ever investigated.' The West At one time in the West, herbs were the subject of intensive scientific investigation. One can find numerous published studies on the effects of herbs on animal and human physiology. As late as the mid 20th century, important herbal research was being undertaken in Europe. Concomittant with herbal research in this century in the West was the development of powerful synthetic medicines that had the power to virtually wipe out many terrible diseases.’ 1One can observe a slight reversal of this trend in recent research on garlic in the West; hopefully, the trend will continue. It is hard for those of our generation to understand how it was to live in constant fear of contracting any one of a hundred simple but extremely debilitating, even fatal, diseases. It may have been similar to our fear of nuclear holocast. vi The Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine As cure after cure was found, great excitement spread through the medical research establishment. Young scientists, especially, were vulnerable to the lure of the exotic new lines of study. Unlike the old vanguard, who recognized the value of the new, but attempted to preserve the fundamental value of botanical medicines and continued to pursue research in them, the young students could not resist the excitement of modern drug research. The old vanguard died off (or is dying off). Many of the following generation, who had studied medicinal plants while under the tutelage of their masters, left those pursuits at the earliest opportunity in order to join the rush to the exciting sea of synthetic medicines. In time these students have become the masters. Their students have been completely indoctrinated in modern medicine and have never had the chance to develop an interest in herbal research. Thus, the scientific method spawned a new era in the medicine of the West, especially America. European investigators have used the scientific method as a means to investigate herbal medicines even during the current era of synthetic medicine. And in Asia, the the scientific method did not arrive for decades. The movement away from the natural and toward the synthetic was not a conscious rejection of medical botany. | don’t believe anybody realized how completely the older positions were being abandoned. Nobody in mainstream medical science intended for it to happen that way.° During this period of change, beliefs about the causes of common disease also evolved. As several debilitating diseases were eradicated one by one, western philosophical equivalents of the oriental Yin and Yang were replaced by the notion of specificity, which held that each and probably every disease is caused by one and probably only one pathogen. Western scientists were finding these pathogenic organisms and developing specific cures and prophylactics for them (to wit, smallpox, diptheria, tetanus, typhus, cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis). The abandonment of herbal medicine can be explained partly as the result of not being able to fit a round peg in a square hole. For herbal therapeutics have not changed to fit easily into new conceptions of disease. Herbal medicine continues to view disease as something wrong with the whole body, or at least with whole systems within the body. Terms like alteratives, cholagogues, stimulants, emmenagogues, demulcents, anthelmintics, etc., are still viable in herbal medicine. But this view of disease was abandoned so quickly by the medical researchers that physicians accustomed to the concepts of herbal medicine and unwilling to forsake them soon found they were talking a whole different language than the establishment.’ 3But America did not have a centuries’ old heritage of herbal use to contend with. America has always been dedicated to the adventure of exploration and progress, has always by nature been primed to accept the often fallacious premise that new is better. 4At best the more potent herbs were examined for their specific active principles and for chemicals that would kill specific germs. This activity still goes on and is called pharmacognosy. Preface vil Public attitudes also influenced the course of this 20th century evolution in America. Citizens were no longer content with wholistic ideas. They wanted innoculations, penicillin shots, radical surgery, and other heroic medical methods. Americans, and later, Europeans, entered an era of reckless abandon regarding their health, an era characterized by the adoption of a health creed without parallel in human history: “We shall put our trust in food specialists to insure we receive adequate nutrition; we shall put our trust in medical specialists to prevent most disease and to cure the rest; and, above all, we shall trust in the government to insure that we aren't poisoned, extorted or misled by those in whom we have entrusted health and life itself.” Having adopted this creed, the average Westerner was free to eat and drink whatever he chose, whenever he chose, in whatever quantities he chose; furthermore, he could freely choose whichever “experts” he wanted for advise on all other aspects of health. In short, without fear, he freely relinquished all individual responsibility for health. There are many signs that the public has recently recognized “The Great Error’ and is again asserting its “right” of individual responsibility in health care. The one agent-one disease theory is falling on hard times as the number of diseases for which it holds true decreases and the number for which it doesn’t pertain stand out as in bold relief. There is an increasing public sentiment that disease is created and nurtured by a general lack of health. Unreasonable trust in the creed has been violated by the reasonable forces of human failing and economic pressure.® This is not to say that the American and European experiment was a failure. And we should not make the mistake of assuming the new climate in health care in any way resembles that of a century ago. It doesn’t. What it represents is a whole new paradigm in medicine, a new age. The time has come for ushering in an era of balance between the synthetic and the natural. We must never return to the way things were before the era of modern medicine. Though it was probably a serious error to abandon centuries of medical experience with natural medicines, it would be an even more grave mistake to overlook the role that proper use of the scientific method can play in making great new advancements in the area of herbal medicine (e.g., see the chapter on NAUSEA). Immune Deficiency The highway of modern medicine and the scenic route of herbal medicine seem to converge at several points. One of these is immune response deficiency. Without recognizing what it was doing, herbal medicine quite naturally enlisted all systems of the body in the fight against disease. SAlso gaining in popularity is the corollary to the above idea, namely, that careful attention to the general health of the body will help prevent many common diseases. The side effects and dangers of synthesized drugs, as well as the values of herbs, nutritional supplemnts and of whole food substances, are being brought to the public's attention by an increasingly sophisticated press. vill The Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine Though the treatment may have been aimed at a particular disease, it usually depended on energizing, stimulating or otherwise recruiting the aid of many systems within the organism.® The modern medical approach has, until recently, underplayed the importance of the body’s own immune system. In fact, the term itself has entered into popular terminology only in the last few years. The medical establishment now recognizes the immune system as the key to the prevention of cancer and other stubborn diseases. Cardiovascular Disease Another meeting point between the old and new is in the recognition that much cardiovascular disease can be prevented, not simply treated. Many herbal medicines are designed specifically for this purpose (see chapters on HEART and HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE). They bespeak common sense and have been scientifically validated. Modern medicine could easily, and wisely, incorporate the use of herbs such as garlic, hawthorn and echinacea. With the support of more research, other herbal medicines could eventually become a regular part of health, diet and medicine. We can only eliminate cancer and heart disease in this age by paying more attention to the health of the body and less to treating disease; by devoting more effort to preventing, less to curing. We may then witness a return to medical terminology of terms that describe a substance's effect on whole systems, words that reflect a concern with the ability of the body to withstand the onslaught of environmental pathogens—words like adaptogen, cholagoggue, aperient, etc., words that are the substance of herbal medicine. The East In the East (as in Europe) herbal medicine has a centuries’ old heritage. But unlike Europe, and with the possible exception of Japan, countries in the East have generally been slower to adopt the medical advancements of the West.® China incorporates the research methods of the West even as she maintains a strong interest in her native folk methods. And as Americans Thus, if an infection was present, herbal antibiotics were administered in conjunction with agents that stimulated blood and lymph flow, mild laxatives, and agents that stimulated phagocytic activity in the white blood cells or leukocytes. ®Japan, more than any other Asian country, has adopted the mechanistic philosophy of the West. But over the last 10-15 years a resurgence of interest in wholistic medicine has taken place in Japan, characterized by a revival in Kampo, an ancient Chinese system of medicine first introduced to Japan in the sixth century. But in its new incarnation Kampo has been forced to conform to the reductionistic values of orthodox medicine. Pharmacists and some medical doctors have been pressured by public interest, the press, and the market place to prescribe herbal medicines. The result has been devastating. With complete disregard for the philosophical and empirical bases of Kampo, herbs are prescribed as if they were just other synthetic drugs. Ignored are methods of blending, concepts of prevention, wholistic medical practices, etc., basic to the Kampo system. In essence, the Japanese are exerting great effort to pound the square peg in the round hole with a sledge hammer.