Freethought & Rationalism Archive

repoman · 03-29-2003, 02:08 PM

I have been reading about the anti inflammatory propertties of herbal meds like rosemary extract, barberry, ginger, etc...

It does look mildly promising at least. and on some ofthe sites touting the effectiveness of these herbs while talking about the liver and other damage the mass market drugs like vioxx can do.

Well, if both are COX-2 inhibitors doesn't it seem likely that the herbal meds can also take a toll on the liver?

I have been taking ketoprofen for inflammation and bought a herbal medicine called zyflamend http://new-chapter.com/product/super...dID=22&-search

My doctor said that I should lay off the zyflamend until I was done with the ketoprofen unless I was trying to see how much my liver could handle. I think he said something about it is hard for the liver to breakdown the phenols and that the berberine and the rosemary were the hardest. He is a naturopath by the way, and he also prescribes herbs and bromelain.

Does anyone know if what he is saying is true? Where can I find fairly unbiased info on how much damage pharmaceuticals have on the liver compared to herbals that are meant to treat the same condition in similar ways? The sites on google are so commercial it sucks! Oh, and what the hell is a liver tonic? if the liver is indeed a waste processing plant why would adding more the mix help it?

scigirl · 03-29-2003, 03:22 PM

Hey repoman, sorry to hear that you even need anti-inflams! Inflammatory conditions are no fun at all.

So I looked up Zyflamend on drugstore.com, and this is the list of ingredients: Note that NONE of their claims has been evaluated by the FDA (the wonderful thing about being an alternative medicine company - you can even outright lie as long as you put this asterisk somewhere on your bottle. :grrr: Anyway, back to the question)

Quote:

New Chapter has extensively researched the herbal pharmacopoeia and international medical databases and discovered that the following time-tested herbs, properly extracted and blended in the correct proportions, contain at least 8 phytonutrients that may safely and significantly inhibit COX-2.*

Holy Basil (Ocimum sanctum) Contains the powerful COX-2 inhibitor ursolic acid, which significantly enhances detoxification and reduces inflammation.*

Turmeric Unique curcumin phytonutrient complex, naturally inhibits inflammatory COX-2, synergistic with green tea, significantly multiplying anti-inflammatory effect of green tea polyphenols.*

Ginger Supercritical extract inhibits both inflammatory COX and 5-LO and offers numerous anti-aging constituents.*

Green Tea Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences report green tea polyphenols markedly reduce COX-2.* Major university database notes green tea contains 51 anti-inflammatory phytonutrients.*

Rosemary Dual extracts offer highly concentrated, full spectrum, COX-2 inhibition and support detoxification.*

Hu Zhang (Polygonum cuspidatum) Richest known resveratrol source, shown scientifically to inhibit inflammatory COX-2.*

Chinese Goldthread and Barberry Unique berberine phytonutrient complex, naturally inhibits inflammatory COX-2.*

Oregano Source of large number of anti-inflammatory compounds (31) according to USDA database.*

Scutellaria Unique baicalin phytonutrient complex, naturally inhibits inflammatory COX-2.*

*This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

It's hard to do a study of this particular remedy since it has so many ingredients - and who knows what is doing what!! Your best bet is to go to pubmed and search for each individual ingredient along with "anti inflammatory" or "liver damage." Good luck!

scigirl

MadKally · 03-29-2003, 07:20 PM

The National Council Against Health Fraud

Quote:

NCAHF Position Paper on
Over-the Counter Herbal Remedies (1995)

The over-the-counter (OTC) herbal remedies business is reported to be well over $1.5 billion in current sales with an estimated annual growth rate of 15%. In 1994, $813.8 million of the health food store's $4.815 billion in sales (17%) was from herbal remedies. Herbal product vendors benefit from society's romanticized view that equates "natural" with "safe."

Unfortunately, the assumption that natural products are safe is false. It is precisely because herbs are a source of potent drugs that responsible people are concerned about the manner in which herbal remedies are being marketed. Consumers are being denied the most fundamental information and assurances of quality. By law, drug labels must provide essential information, but herbal remedies are being marketed as "dietary supplements" with little of the type of information needed to enable people to use these products properly.

The herbal industry blames current regulatory policies for some of these problems. They say that FDA regulations prevent them from supplying drug information because their products are regulated as dietary supplements, and that herbal remedies cannot be profitably marketed if they have to meet the full requirements of drug approval. Reformers argue for herbal remedies to be given special regulatory consideration. The FDA is bound by the law to regulate products that make medical claims as drugs. NCAHF finds the present situation untenable, but believes that there is room for regulatory adaptation without sacrificing consumer protection principles. Recommendations are directed at legislators and regulators, manufacturers and marketers, physicians, and consumers.

It's only worse since 1995. Take a couple aspirin. It's made from Willow tree bark. You can buy it at a health food store and have NO idea what the dosage is, OR buy some cheap generic aspirin at the grocery store. That way you will know what the exact dosge is without having to chew on tree bark like the ancient days. Take it with Milk or food if you have a sensitive stomach. It is an NSAID (non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug)

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. Ask your doctor. A real MD hopefully. I'm just being a wise ass because I really don't like herbal stuff from health food stores. It can be extremely dangerous as well as as rip off. I can get in trouble with the CA state board of nursing for telling you to take aspirin. So ask a pharmacist or a medical doctor.

Jackalope · 03-30-2003, 04:06 AM

Well, ginger and tumeric really are anti-inflammitories. However, they're not very good ones. Ginger's a much better antinausea remedy than it is for joint pain. And if I recall correctly, tumeric is a platelet inhibitor as well, which means it can cause the same bleeding problems that non-selective anti-inflammitories do.

Ginger's also a vasodilator, which can interact badly with some medications.

jayh · 03-30-2003, 08:41 AM

The potential interactions in herbal medicines are often under invstigated (anything that is 'totally safe' is undoubtedly totally useless, products must have a chemical interaction with the body to be useful)

An example is red yeast, which does have documented anti-cholesterol effects. It can however cause liver damage in some circumstances (which has now been recognized), but this was not discovered until a drug which uses the same chemistry was tested for FDA approval and those effects were discovered.

Under the herbal regemin, these effects would never have been discovered, because people would eventually develop liver trouble with no realization that it was due to yeast extract they had taken in the past. How many other toxic effects have not yet been discovered.

j

MadKally · 03-30-2003, 08:58 AM

The foxglove plant is natural. That's where Lanoxin (digoxin) comes from. It slows and strengthens the heart rate. It can be extremely lethal if not monitored closely. Can you imagine walking into a health food store and trying to figure out your own dose on a natural plant like that. People could die in a hurry. Fortunately, it is covered by the FDA.

scigirl · 03-30-2003, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by repoman
Oh, and what the hell is a liver tonic? if the liver is indeed a waste processing plant why would adding more the mix help it?

According to drugstore.com, the alleged liver tonic is rosemary. It appears to help the liver by increasing antioxidants. From pubmed:

Allied studies on the effect of Rosmarinus officinalis L. on experimental hepatotoxicity and mutagenesis.

Quote:

Pretreatment of mice for 7 days with the rosemary essential oil (1.1 mg/g BW) followed by i.p. injection with cyclophosphamide reduced significantly the induced mitodepression in the bone marrow cells of the animals. The potential hepatoprotective and antimutagenic activities of the rosemary ethanolic extract and essential oil, respectively, are attributed to the presence of a relatively high percentage of phenolic compounds with high antioxidant activity (according to our chemical studies).

But then this study seemed to directly contradict it:

Screening botanical extracts for quinoid metabolites.

Quote:

However, extracts of....Rosmarinus officinalis L. (rosemary), all of which are known to contain compounds that are either carcinogenic or toxic to mammals, produced GSH adducts during this screening assay. Several compounds that formed GSH conjugates including novel metabolites of rosmarinic acid were identified using database searching and additional LC-MS-MS studies....A positive test suggests that additional toxicological studies are warranted before human consumption of a botanical product.

Looks like the jury is still out on this one. It may be that some ingredients of rosemary do one thing, and some ingredients do another, depending on how the extracts are prepared. I'd be wary of taking anything that wasn't FDA approved, and more importantly, is understudied and under-regulated in terms of dosages and ingredients. Or at minimum, try to find a brand that tells you exactly what's in there and how much.

scigirl

repoman · 03-30-2003, 01:08 PM

Thanks everyone,

I think that it is true tha much is not known about the effects of many components of herbal medicine. However, I have been reading about variuous topics relating to the liver and phenolic antioxidants (rosemary has phenols according to the label). This is not an easy topic, or at least it is not easy to find good data.

I did find that tylenol which can cause liver damage is itself a phenolic antioxidant (as well as having other functionality) but the it itself does not damage the liver, it is one of its metabolites that does it. However, while reading about it I found that the effects of the metabolite is that the level of glutathione and glutathione peroxidase plummet in the liver meaning that the liver is not as good at detoxifying radicals. One way to increase the level of both is to increase selenium intake, which then will help eliminate the metabolite more quickly. Anyway, it may be that one of the metabolites of rosemary is the trouble found in one of scigirl's cites.

I am looking for a VERY detailed source of how antioxidants both standard (A,C,E, CoQ10) and ones from rosmeary, ginger and greentea. Such as how exactly do the reactions occur (diagrams with arrows adn electrons), which antoxidants are used only once and which are more like enzymes and how to increase of decrease levels in our body, and if I can fnid it I want to find how long they stay active in our body. Oh, and I want to see how it is that the supplement makers can make the claim like that CoQ10 is 50 times stronger an antioxidant than vitamin E.

Does anyone have any suggestions for web sites or books?

MadKally · 03-30-2003, 01:08 PM

The Herbal Minefield

Little Public Protection

Quote:

In the United States, herbs intended for preventive or therapeutic use would be regulated as drugs under federal laws. To evade the law, these products are marketed as "foods" or "dietary supplements" without health claims on their labels. Since herbs are not regulated as drugs, no legal standards exist for their processing, harvesting, or packaging. In many cases, particularly for products with expensive raw ingredients, contents and potency are not accurately disclosed on the label. Many products marked as herbs contain no useful ingredients, and some even lack the principal ingredient for which people buy them. Surveys have found have found that the ingredients and doses of several products varied considerably from brand to brand.

A Good Housekeeping Institute analysis of six widely available St. John's wort supplement capsules and four liquid extracts revealed a lack of consistency of the suspected active ingredients, hypericin and pseudohypericin. The study found:
A 17-fold difference between the capsules containing the smallest amount of hypericin and those containing the largest amount, based on manufacturer's maximum recommended dosage.
A 13-fold difference in pseudohypericin in the capsules.
A 7-to-8-fold differential from the highest to the lowest levels of liquid extracts [1].

A similar investigation by the Los Angeles Times found that 7 of 10 Dr. John's wort products contained between 75% and 135% of the labeled hypericin level, and three contained no more than about half the labeled potency [2].

Researchers at the University of Arkansas who tested 20 supplement products containing ephedra (ma huang) found many differences in alkaloid content from product to product and between two lots of the same product. Half the products exhibited discrepancies of 20% or more between the label claim and the actual content, and one product contained no ephedra alkaloids [3]. Ephedra products are marketed as "energy boosters" and/or "thermogenic" diet aids, even though no published clinical trials substantiate that they are safe or effective for these purposes. The researchers also noted that hundreds of such products are marketed and that their number exceeds that of conventional prescription and nonprescription ephedra products, which are FDA-approved as decongestants

The April 2000 issue of D Magazine reported that -- at its request -- a leading laboratory had tested five brands of DHEA, ginger, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, melatonin, saw palmetto, St. John's wort, and milk thistle purchased at five stores in the Dallas area. The ginger and melatonin products contained the stated amounts, but 10 of the other 30 products did not, and a few products had capsules that easily fell apart [4]
Some manufacturers are trying to develop industrywide quality-assurance standards, but possible solutions are a long way off.

Your best bet is to stay away from health food stores or any place else that sells these types of quackery products. (until they are approved by the FDA, if ever.)

Kally

repoman · 03-30-2003, 01:22 PM

Mad Kally, I agree that it is likely that many of the herbs in the stores may not be as effective and claimed, given that many of the ingredients are volatile.

However in the case of zyflamend the rosemary at least must be there to large degree. I bit into a capsule that tasted so strongly of rosemary I thought I was going to puke. But if it is indeed taxing on the liver then that is a bad thing. Hopefully soon enough I will find some answers or at least have a better basis to find them and report the answers to everyone here.

03-29-2003, 02:08 PM	#1
repoman Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Seattle Posts: 2,280	question about herbal medicine and the liver I have been reading about the anti inflammatory propertties of herbal meds like rosemary extract, barberry, ginger, etc... It does look mildly promising at least. and on some ofthe sites touting the effectiveness of these herbs while talking about the liver and other damage the mass market drugs like vioxx can do. Well, if both are COX-2 inhibitors doesn't it seem likely that the herbal meds can also take a toll on the liver? I have been taking ketoprofen for inflammation and bought a herbal medicine called zyflamend http://new-chapter.com/product/super...dID=22&-search My doctor said that I should lay off the zyflamend until I was done with the ketoprofen unless I was trying to see how much my liver could handle. I think he said something about it is hard for the liver to breakdown the phenols and that the berberine and the rosemary were the hardest. He is a naturopath by the way, and he also prescribes herbs and bromelain. Does anyone know if what he is saying is true? Where can I find fairly unbiased info on how much damage pharmaceuticals have on the liver compared to herbals that are meant to treat the same condition in similar ways? The sites on google are so commercial it sucks! Oh, and what the hell is a liver tonic? if the liver is indeed a waste processing plant why would adding more the mix help it?

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03-30-2003, 04:06 AM	#4
Jackalope Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Hayward, CA, USA Posts: 1,675	Well, ginger and tumeric really are anti-inflammitories. However, they're not very good ones. Ginger's a much better antinausea remedy than it is for joint pain. And if I recall correctly, tumeric is a platelet inhibitor as well, which means it can cause the same bleeding problems that non-selective anti-inflammitories do. Ginger's also a vasodilator, which can interact badly with some medications.

03-30-2003, 08:41 AM	#5
jayh Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 4,606	The potential interactions in herbal medicines are often under invstigated (anything that is 'totally safe' is undoubtedly totally useless, products must have a chemical interaction with the body to be useful) An example is red yeast, which does have documented anti-cholesterol effects. It can however cause liver damage in some circumstances (which has now been recognized), but this was not discovered until a drug which uses the same chemistry was tested for FDA approval and those effects were discovered. Under the herbal regemin, these effects would never have been discovered, because people would eventually develop liver trouble with no realization that it was due to yeast extract they had taken in the past. How many other toxic effects have not yet been discovered. j

03-30-2003, 08:58 AM	#6
MadKally Banned Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: LALA Land in California Posts: 433	The foxglove plant is natural. That's where Lanoxin (digoxin) comes from. It slows and strengthens the heart rate. It can be extremely lethal if not monitored closely. Can you imagine walking into a health food store and trying to figure out your own dose on a natural plant like that. People could die in a hurry. Fortunately, it is covered by the FDA.

03-30-2003, 01:08 PM	#8
repoman Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Seattle Posts: 2,280	Thanks everyone, I think that it is true tha much is not known about the effects of many components of herbal medicine. However, I have been reading about variuous topics relating to the liver and phenolic antioxidants (rosemary has phenols according to the label). This is not an easy topic, or at least it is not easy to find good data. I did find that tylenol which can cause liver damage is itself a phenolic antioxidant (as well as having other functionality) but the it itself does not damage the liver, it is one of its metabolites that does it. However, while reading about it I found that the effects of the metabolite is that the level of glutathione and glutathione peroxidase plummet in the liver meaning that the liver is not as good at detoxifying radicals. One way to increase the level of both is to increase selenium intake, which then will help eliminate the metabolite more quickly. Anyway, it may be that one of the metabolites of rosemary is the trouble found in one of scigirl's cites. I am looking for a VERY detailed source of how antioxidants both standard (A,C,E, CoQ10) and ones from rosmeary, ginger and greentea. Such as how exactly do the reactions occur (diagrams with arrows adn electrons), which antoxidants are used only once and which are more like enzymes and how to increase of decrease levels in our body, and if I can fnid it I want to find how long they stay active in our body. Oh, and I want to see how it is that the supplement makers can make the claim like that CoQ10 is 50 times stronger an antioxidant than vitamin E. Does anyone have any suggestions for web sites or books?

03-30-2003, 01:22 PM	#10
repoman Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Seattle Posts: 2,280	Mad Kally, I agree that it is likely that many of the herbs in the stores may not be as effective and claimed, given that many of the ingredients are volatile. However in the case of zyflamend the rosemary at least must be there to large degree. I bit into a capsule that tasted so strongly of rosemary I thought I was going to puke. But if it is indeed taxing on the liver then that is a bad thing. Hopefully soon enough I will find some answers or at least have a better basis to find them and report the answers to everyone here.

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