RE: Local herbalism + constitient profiles

[Guest guest]

Gerry,

 

 

 

I totally agree, we all should grow as many Chinese herbs as possible. I

personally love growing he shou wu, among others. It is fun. Prescribing

them to patients becomes a whole other issue. I would love to hear about

others experiences that are doing this.

 

 

 

On herb quality. There are many bad Chinese products, that is for sure.

There are many low grade 'bunk' Chinese herbs with pesticides etc. Herbs

also often gets substituted in end products. However, there are many serious

farmers I have met that do it right. This is one reason I prefer bulk herbs,

you know exactly what you are dealing with. One never knows the quality of

herbs that go into already processed products. I have seen articles (and do

not have them) that show for example, a specific Chinese herb grown in

Australia that mimics the constituent profile from ones grown in the China

(using some chromatography) . Of course there are variations, but some of

these people take this really serious and growing herbs outside of China is

possible. It just takes some serious $$$.

 

 

 

However to look at the flip side and why constituent profiles (for comparing

things such as granular to bulk) fall short is because of the profiles

themselves. When granular companies, or growers to some extent, make

decisions in regard to processing, they are looking for certain amount of

target end products, called markers. Markers are usually stable components

of the herb that can be easily identified, analyzed, and measured. The

graphs we all see used with thin-layer chromatography (TLC) or

high-performance chromatography (HPLC) are called fingerprints. These are

what are used to determine the identity of herb material and the integrity

of the extraction process. This is also used to measure the amount of the

constituents.

 

 

 

However, for example, chuan bei mu has over 20 varieties that they sell in

the market and they are still trying to figure out which one is the correct

one, although the Chinese Pharmacopeia only lists 5. From those 5, the major

therapeutic components where " identified " based on what they believe

accounts for its antitussive effect. These are then the 'chemical markers'

for the quality assessment of chuan bei mu. See the issues?

 

 

 

 

 

Most will agree that chromatography (and its various iterations) are useful

and necessary, however there are some known problems.

 

1) " the issue of indentifying the exact active constituents within a

herb is still the subject of much debate. " Although there are mounds of

books talking about constituent profiles and the " important " active

constituents, there is no official standards that I know of. Watching the

research is interesting in this regard because new discoveries about herbs

are coming out all the time. They will find constituents that they thought

were not important etc. The last 5 years have brought about a wealth of

knowledge. I believe we are on the tip of the iceberg. Quote, " However, for

most herbal medicines, the therapeutic components have not been fully

elucidated or easily monitored. "

 

2) What about the secondary and non-active ingredients that are not

tested for? Many herbs have 100+ number of compounds. We have found that

many " non-active " ingredients actually have some role in the herbs efficacy.

When our end product is geared towards only a handful of constituents to

prove that it is authentic, we run the risk of losing other important ones.

This is well documented phenomenon.

 

3) As pointed out in All from Chromatographic Fingerprint Analysis for

Herbal Medicines : A Quality Control Tool - chromatography is best for

global identification Here is a quote in regard to fingerprints etc. " But

the quality control and quality assurance still remains a challenge because

of the high variability of chemical components involved. "

 

4) " Chromatographic instruments and experimental conditions are

difficult to reproduce during real analysis. " Meaning that from chromograph

to chromograph baseline and retention times shift further complicating

matters when comparing to databased fingerprints. Hence why such procedures

are said by many to be better for global identification, weeding out

adulterants, and quality control, and not as accurate when comparing say an

extracted end product to a bulk product.

 

 

 

I am sure these are all known to the industry, and are just summarized from

articles etc for people to contemplate. This is a very deep and complicatged

subject which I have little time for at the moment. I just thought I would

throw out some food for thought to start the ball rolling. I have to see

some patients J (sorry for any typos etc - I typed this very fast)

 

 

 

-Jason

 

 

 

Here is a source on the net that discusses a bit on factors that will

influence extraction ratios of medicinals (e.g. temp, light, and solvents).

It is not a ggranular article per se, but a general overview of some if the

pro and cons, and it is in English.

 

http://www.cmjournal.org/content/3/1/7

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Behalf Of Gerry Kuo

Tuesday, February 03, 2009 11:31 PM

 

Re: Local herbalism

 

 

 

Jason:

Always a pleasure to see your scientific point of view, and it makes me

thinking, too. I'm glad to hear there are still people care about growing

Chinese herbs in China. It should be a no-brainer, but after hearing so many

horrible stories about Chinese products, and how poor the farmers are there,

many times I wonder how good is the quality of the herbs I bought here.

Totally agree that preparing the herbs is essential, many herbs are

poisonous and require proper preparation. All TCM students in China are

required to take the class of " Pao Zhi " , preparing herbs. Since fresh herbs

are rare here in the US, it's not a required class. But a home gardener

maybe can start with herbs that only require drying?

Overall, I think it's important to know your herbs, growing it is also

a way to know more about the herb you use. True, the territory is important,

but Californians did not stop growing the grapes and are making wonderful

wine today. For this reason, I encourage anyone who wants to grow Chinese

herbs in the back yard do it just like myself, and study study study.

Obviously I will be the first one trying the herb I grow myself, and it's

the only way I will learn how to use my herb.

 

Gerry

 

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 11:33 AM, <

<%40Chinese Medicine> >

wrote:

 

> Gerry,

>

> I agree that growing an herb in a different environment does not eliminate

> all of its medicinal attributes. BTW, who says this? However I do think it

> is well documented in both Chinese and Western agricultural that growing

> environments (hence location) can seriously impact the ratio of

> constituents, hence produce radical changes in the properties of the

> medicinals. This is one reason that the same herb grown in different

> regions

> in China will have different properties. To assume that one can just grow

> any Chinese herb in the West and have the same medicinal action is

> foolhardy.

>

> Many Western " growers " have no idea about the intricacies that go into

> properly growing Chinese herbs. Many think they can just throw some seeds

> into the ground and presto.

>

> Many of our Chinese herbs come from professional growers. They are not

> messing around. I have spent a bit of time with some of these people in

> China. They not only often have PHD's in their field (specific medicinal

> agriculture) , but they pay attention to so many details, making one's

head

> spin, so as to mimic the natural environment that specific herbs are

> traditionally grown in. Many have million dollar facilities making sure

> that

> proper quality standards are met. For example, in one organic " tie pi shi

> hu " farm I visited they had to grow ling zhi on special logs, let the logs

> decompose for years so as to use this specific organic matter to form a

> base

> (soil) for the shi hu. They not only bought the land directly under the

> original cliffs that the shi hu grows on, but have sophisticated measures

> to

> control the light and humidity to mimic these conditions. I could go on

and

> on with details, which personally I found very interesting. Can one ignore

> all these factors? Of course. But IMHO such products fall very short.

>

> My point is not to try such an endeavor, but one must study thoroughly,

> probably with some experts in China, to really figure out how to grow the

> herbs (and harvest) them correctly. Furthermore, most of herbs go through

> some processing to get them ready for " our " use. This also is an important

> (often overlooked step in the west) that will change the nature and

> properties of the medicinals. Many herbs that we get are already soaked,

> dry

> fried etc.

>

> Furthermore, I would have to see studies on Western herbs that say that

> environment does not change the clinical effectiveness or more precisely

> the

> ratio of (active) constituents. Soil, water, light etc are basic factors

> that we know effect the ratios of constituents. Even within a single field

> of plants, plants on the outside of the field, versus the inside, will

have

> drastically different ratios of their active constituents due to

> differences

> in watering patterns (if this factor is not regulated).

>

> Do we really think that the mere seed itself is all that matters to create

> medicinal effective herbs?

>

> My 2 cents.

>

> -

 

>