referral: stroke in White Plains, NY

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

 

My uncle has had a severe stroke, and family members are interested in treating

him iwth acupuncture. He is in White plains, New York. Referrals to any

practitioner experienced in treating this condition would be appreciated.

 

Thank you,

 

 

smilinglotus <smilinglotus wrote:

 

In the continuing investigation of ginseng and coffee:

 

So far I have not heard back from Eastland about the statement that

ginseng should not be used with coffee or other stimulants.

However, I have scoured virtually every major English text that

warns about drug interactions with ginseng, and I have found the

following:

 

Ginseng and coffee or other stimulants are not listed as a risk of

interaction in most of the texts, including the PDR of Herbal

Medicines, German Commission E monographs, Chen & Chen's Chinese

Medical Herbology and Pharmacology, the new pharmacology book by You

Ping Zhu, The Professional's Guide to Complementary and Alternative

Medicines, and Medical Herbalism. These all re-hash the same

cautions about ginseng and MAOIs and warfarin, which can be found

in the original articles on Pubmed as well.

 

Pubmed and the electronic databases on herb-drug interactions in the

UCSF medical school collection and herbalgram have a variety of

resources warning against the use of ginseng with various drugs, but

nowhere is there anything whatsoever on ginseng being implicated

with any problems with caffeine or other stimulants (though there

are several studies that suggest harm reduction with the use of

ginseng in conjunction with amphetamines, methamphetamine, and

cocaine).

 

However, I have succeeded in finding a two texts that say the same

statement that we find in Bensky- that ginseng should not be used

with coffee (or caffeine) and other stimulants (some specifically

mention amphetamines). The two books that contain this statement

are by Mills and Bone, " principles and practice of phytotherapy "

and " the essential guide to herbal safety. " The former has no

reference, and the latter refers to the reference listed below.

This reference is the only source I can find anywhere, in print, in

med databases, in general web searches- in Chinese and in English-

that makes this claim. All books and websites that have referenced

this claim refer to the same source book. Most of the websites that

have this claim are pretty shoddy, but I generally like the books by

Bone and Mills.

 

To the best of my knowledge, the only book that is the source of

these cautions is: Bradley, P.R. (ed.). 1992. British Herbal

Compendium, Vol. 1. Bournemouth: British Herbal Medicine Association.

 

This book is hard to come by (at least in the US). I haven't found

it in any school libraries, the publisher offers no PDFs, Redwing

doesn't carry it, and the book is expensive- too expensive to buy to

satisfy my curiosity on this one point of contention. One website

gives the abstract below as the source of the study upon which this

statement is based.

 

If this study is indeed the source of this caution, it appears to be

based on a lot of extrapolation and very flimsy primary evidence.

The complete absence of any published studies on pubmed or in any

UCSF resources for this caution makes me suspect that it is based on

assumption and repeated misinformation of secondary materials,

rather than actual evidence. However, because I cannot get my hands

on the British Compendium book to double-check the citation, I

cannot be sure if there is more to the picture than I am finding.

If anyone has access to this book, PLEASE send me or post

information to clarify the origin of this statement.

 

Contraindicating ginseng with all stimulants is a bold statement to

make, given that very few other texts and no other studies seem to

support the claims, and several published studies suggest that

ginseng actually reduces the side-effects of several major stimulant

drugs (AMPH,MA, Cocaine). The abstract listed as the rationale of

this statement makes no mention of any such drugs,and it is based on

saponins and isolated ginsenosides, not whole ginseng root.

 

Likewise, if anyone can explain how the study below would

contraindicate ginseng with all stimulants, that would be

appreciated.

 

If there is nothing more concrete than what I have found to support

the statement that ginseng use should be avoided with coffee and

other stimulants, I think that the caution is unnecessarily

reactionary and assumptive, and I think it is strange that this drug

interaction should be flatly stated while far more established risks

are ignored. It is one thing to say that it " may " be a risk, but if

one says that it " should not be used " then it should be backed by

evidence. Again, we are talking about the most famous and common

herbal drugs in use worldwide.

 

Author: Hiai S, Yokoyama H, Oura H, Yano S

12/1979

Journal: Endocrinol Jpn

Effects of preparations of saponin mixture and isolated

ginsenosides, extracted from the root of Panax ginseng, on plasma

corticotropin (ACTH) and corticosterone concentrations in rats were

determined by the radioimmunoassay and competitive protein binding

method. When ginseng saponin mixture was administered to rats

intraperitoneally, plasma ACTH and corticosterone increased

significantly 30, 60 and 90 min after the treatment. The kinetic

pattern of the increase in plasma ACTH was almost parallel to that

in plasma corticosterone. Isolated ginsenoside, protopanaxadiol or

protopanaxatriol glycoside, also increased plasma corticosterone.

The ginseng-induced increase in plasma corticosterone was suppressed

by pretreatment with dexamethasone. Thus the ginseng saponin was

found to act on the hypothalamus and/or hypophysis primarily, and

stimulated ACTH secretion which resulted in increased synthesis of

corticosterone in the adrenal cortex.

 

Eric

 

 

 

 

 

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