Small Dosing vs. Large Dosing

[Guest guest]

 

your argument is fine, except for one thing: some people are sensitive, and

thus need lower doses. In my experience, if they are reactive to common

doses of drugs, they will also be reactive to ³normal² doses of herbs. one

must prescribe accordingly.

 

Cara

 

 

I think anyone who says this (about energy) has no basis for their

statements. When the chinese talked about the qi of an herb, they were

clearly referring to its potency, not some invisible energy that had no

relationship to matter. If so, why did they always use high doses themselves

and never write about the supposed ethereal energies of herbs? In addition,

purposely underdosing patients for any reason is a breach of ethics. If the

patients cannot afford the medicine, they should not be prescribed anything

at all.

 

Having said this, 10 g of powders is a standard dose in Taiwan and Japan, so

this is not the kind of underdosing I refer to. While this is far lower than

the doses used in China both historically and now, my concern is for those

who use low-dose pill products as their primary treatment modality. 10 g of

a powder is the equivalent of 50 g of raw herbs (assuming we are talking

about formulas and not mixtures of single herbs, for which the actual dosage

is a mystery). OTOH, 8 pills 3X/day of even a 5:1 Mayway extract are equal

to about 25 g of raw herbs, probably less since 1/3 of each pill is filler

(so maybe 18 g). You need to at least double, if not quadruple, the dose for

these pills to actually do anything more than placebo.