RE: was ADD

[Guest guest]

The above might be overstated but isn't it the case that

practitioners who

frequently and succesfully treat a condition often seem to develop

away fom the standard pattern diagnoses for that problem? Firstly,

they seem to often simplify pattern diagnosis and secondly, choose

certain key herbs whose application is indicated more by disease

rather than pattern. So the empirical finding comes first and any

theoretical explanations are secondary.

Simon

 

 

Simon, your perspective is almost valid for my personal approach. I do

look at pharmacology quite a bit, when it is available, credible and

relevant. However, I believe pharmacological research on herbs could

demonstrate a much stronger result if the subjects being studied were

screened for the relevance of the underlying TCM pattern to the medicinal(s)

being pharmacologically evaluated. For example, the results of

anti-inflammatory research on fang ji would be better if the inflammatory

condition being evaluated were characteristic of a wind damp condition. If

that is the case, then using both the TCM approach and the pharmacological

approach together might provide better results. One question that always

comes up for me is the comparative value of different herbs for the same or

similar conditions. One might think that pharmacological research would

help clarify this issue but usually these studies are not designed to

compare the effect size of different medicinals. And, even when they do

comparative studies, using anti-inflammatory effects again as an example,

the effect size of each medicinal being tested might vary significantly

depending on the underlying cause of the inflammation. When the

inflammation is induced artificially, as is often the case in these types of

studies, then how useful is that information. Somewhat, but direct

correlations cannot be made, in my opinion.

 

Stephen

 

 

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