Guest guest Posted January 17, 2003 Report Share Posted January 17, 2003 All, The recent thread about assaying medicinals raises some questions in my mind that I'd appreciate hearing others' opinions about. When assaying medicinals, what is the overall objective? Are we looking for " active ingredients " ? Are we looking for batch standards? Are we looking for toxic elements? Are we attempting to define efficacy through assay? Are we working towards developing packaging language that can be supported with documentation that the FDA will approve of? Is there a relationship between such assays and the Chinese medical theories that pertain to the writing and administration of formulas? Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 18, 2003 Report Share Posted January 18, 2003 , " dragon90405 <yulong@m...> " <yulong@m...> wrote: > Is there a relationship between such > assays and the Chinese medical theories > that pertain to the writing and administration > of formulas? > While quality control is certainly a separate issue, and worthy of everyone's attention, I've also wondered how much weight different people give to " active ingredients " or pharmocology in selecting a given herb for a formula. On the other hand, what of ideas about herbs that approach sympathetic magic, i.e. " it's hollow, so it opens the lung. " Brandt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 18, 2003 Report Share Posted January 18, 2003 , " dragon90405 < yulong@m...> " <yulong@m...> wrote: > Are we looking for " active ingredients " ? my main interest is to be able to compare different forms of preparations for levels of constituents so I can dose accordingly. I do not care about the " active " issue even if I have used that term. I care about true concentration ratios based upon levels of marker constituents, not the mass of raw herbs used. Markers can be determined to be an accurate measure of concentration without saying anything about pharmacodymanics. thus, we know from experiments that the concentration of hypercin in st. john's wort is ..3% and that the entire product has been concentrated proportionally around this marker. so we only have to measure the hypericin to get a standard product, but no reasonable researcher is suggesting that hypericin is the sole " active " ingredient. In fact, hypericin is much less effective than whole herb. On the other hand, low hypericin products do not work, so it goes both ways. certain constituents are essential for herb action, but they are not the sum total of herb action. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 18, 2003 Report Share Posted January 18, 2003 , " kbstickley <kbstickley> " <kbstickley> wrote: > , " dragon90405 > <yulong@m...> " <yulong@m...> wrote: > > > Is there a relationship between such > > assays and the Chinese medical theories > > that pertain to the writing and administration > > of formulas? > > > While quality control is certainly a separate issue, and worthy of > everyone's attention, I've also wondered how much weight different > people give to " active ingredients " or pharmocology in selecting a > given herb for a formula. I may choose an herb if if has both the desired pharmacology AND the appropriate TCM category. I will NEVER use an herb to address my TCM diagnosis based only on its pharmacology. However, I may use a supplement like probiotics this way, but only after careful considerationof how it may impact my patient's TCM defined organ balance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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