herb quality assessment

[Guest guest]

Mercy Yule wrote the following in the May AT, with the included

footnote.

 

" Herbal practitioners frequently wonder about the ability of current

herb quality assessment techniques to reflect an herb specimen's

functional properties. Chemical analysis pinpoints constituents, but

lacks the broader view of the actual plant that we use medicinally. We

need look no further than the controversial and very useful Western

botanical, St. John's wort, to find reasons to seek a more

comprehensive evaluation tool.*

 

* Consider this interesting statement about the active chemical

constituents of St. John's wort, hypericum. " The NIH trial will be

double-blinded, and patients diagnosed as moderately depressed will be

randomized into three groups that receive Zoloft, a placebo, or IL-160,

the most-studied extract of hypericum. IL-160 is standardized on 0.3

percent content of the active ingredient, hypericin. However, hypericum

may have up to 10 active constituents, and Doraiswamy says there is

limited evidence that at least one of them, hyperforin (related to hop

bitters), could be more active than hypericin. " The Scientist Feb. 1,

1999;13[3]:10. "

' reply: I do not believe the footnote has any relevance to the

main point. The fact that St. John's wort contains components other

than hypericin is only meaningful if you accept the completely

incorrect characterization of herb standardization promulgated by

certain groups. This erroneous position characterizes standardization

as something akin to isolation or concentration of the a single active

ingredient and then knocks down that straw man. But that is actually

not the case. Isolating a single ingredient for extraction is a form

of drug production. Every company I know of that produces standardized

herbs extracts the whole plant and concentrates the whole plant. Some

manufacturers use solvents like alcohol which only do partial

extraction, but arguably this is no different than making an alcohol

tincture versus a pill or decoction. Some european producers do use

hexane to get specific hexane soluble fractions, but these are still

extracts of numerous biochemicals not a single isolate. Plus this

method is not favored by professional prescribers of such products in

the USA or japanese makes of granules like Honso.

 

All such professional products used in the US are definitely made from

alcohol, water or alcohol/water extraction, i.e. full spectrum.

Standardization only serves to determine marker ingredients, not active

ingredients. If the hypericin is concentrated to .3% in a standard

full spectrum extract, then the hyperforin is concentrated

proportionately. The extraction process doe not change the ratio of

hypericin to hyperforin, no more than making an alcohol tincture would.

It merely guarantees that the dosage necessary to deliver the effects

is the same every time. It is no different than making a tea from

three grams of good quality herb or using twice as much of lower

quality stuff. with all due respect to the opposing position, I firmly

believe there is no other source of an herbs smell, taste and potency

then its constituents. I also think its ironic that you chose St.

John's wort as your example, as this herb can have very dangerous

interactions if dosage is not controlled precisely. And those

interactions occur from both standardized and nonstandardized products.

But with standardized products, one can determine and control dosage

according to consistently reproducible scientific means.

 

It is also irrelevant that the chinese had to rely on organoleptic

(sensory) herb evaluation as their sole assessment technique. They had

no other choice. I completely reject the notion that organoleptic herb

evaluation should be the standard in our field as it is in wine or

olives or cheese (and this is also the position of an herbal industry

white paper I helped write). It is of no consequence whether someone

does not like their cheese. It makes a big difference if one cannot

get reproducible results in medicine because of clinging to quaint

notions of the backyard herbalist. the vast majority of px will never

see the herbs they use and no grant approval process will allow the

reliance on sensory evaluation of medicines. I can't see how anyone

would rather trust some person they have never met to be more accurate

at determining medicinal herb effectiveness than some objective

measurement. If the comparison is to wine, cheese and olives, I can

honestly say that what many experts consider to be good, I consider to

be garbage. This is no basis for evaluating medicine. The only way to

determine the functional nature of a plant is to do clinical research.

and the only way to do reliable clinical research is by using

standardized herb products.

 

Organoleptic evaluation is useful in selecting herbs for further more

precise lab testing and for evaluating the inventory of one's own

pharmacy. But it absolutely should not be the basis for creating safe,

effective products and doing clinical research. While the latter

position is not explicitly stated in this article, it is unclear what

the intent was. The future mission of the CHA is develop research

protocols and firmly establish CM in american healthcare. I will

vigorously rebut any widely distributed article that I feel thwarts

that agenda. In the current climate of herbal hysteria, to suggest we

move in any direction but scientific proof and evaluation of herbs is a

sure recipe for doom, IMO

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

FAX:

 

 

[Guest guest]

I completely reject the notion that organoleptic herb

evaluation should be the standard in our field as it is in wine or

olives or cheese (and this is also the position of an herbal industry

white paper I helped write). It is of no consequence whether someone

does not like their cheese.

>>>That is not the standard in sheng chang. They use finger printing, and active

ing levels

Alon