Healing Power? Part 3: Herbs may help alleviate chronic ills

By Dharshani Dharmawardena
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

For some patients who suffer from bouts of chronic physical and
emotional ailments, traditional Western treatments may not
work.

When all else fails, herbal supplements might provide an answer,
according to Dr. Ma-Li Wong, professor of psychiatry who has done
research on the effects of the plant St. John’s wort on
treating depression.

“When some interventions don’t work, doctors can
refer patients to non-traditional ways of treatment,” she
said.

The usage of herbal supplements follows a national trend toward
alternative methods to Western medical treatment, which includes
massage, megavitamins, folk remedies and homeopathy. More than 42
percent of Americans used some form of these complementary
therapies in 1997, according to the WebMD Health Web site.

“I think this movement has increased recently and
it’s related to the general attitude of American people
taking charge of their health,” Wong said.

Susan Bowerman, a registered dietician, said the definition of
an herb remains ambiguous. From a botanical standpoint, only the
leafy parts of plants are generally considered herbs, but
exceptions include ginger, which is a root.

“With herbal treatments, the assumption is that
they’re safer and more gentle to your system,” said
Bowerman, who is also assistant to Dr. David Heber, the director at
the Center for Human Nutrition.

Often, what most people consider as herbal supplements are used
for enhancing certain effects, such as boosting energy. Wong said
some of the most common herbal supplements are coffee and tea.

Unlike regular pharmaceutical drugs, which consist of a single
compound isolated and purified to treat a specific condition,
herbal supplements contain a variety of components, Bowerman
said.

Despite the recent surge in popularity, the use of herbal
supplements is not without dangers. One of the main problems arises
from the sheer variety of components in the supplements where
experts can not isolate the specific “curing” factors
of the plant.

“You can’t make the assumption that natural is
better,” Bowerman said. “There’s a lot we
don’t know about herbals.”

According to Wong, many of the supplements were originally
consumed in the form of teas, where the potency of the herb
diminished in the water.

“In different structures, they can release much more in
the complex of several compounds,” she said. “And the
quality of the products are variable.”

Similarly, consumers may not know the amount of a specific
healing component contained in an herbal dose, which varies
greatly, as opposed to a pharmaceutical drug that would have an
established strength, Wong added.

But the bountiful components of herbs could offer some benefits
as well. Research conducted by Heber on treating high cholesterol
by substituting a natural product, red yeast rice, for a
traditional treatment called mevacor had positive results.
According to Bowerman, in addition to containing mevacor, the yeast
may possess other cholesterol-fighting compounds that led to the
successful study.

On the other hand, some experiments have given opposite results.
In her research looking at treatments for chronic anti-depression,
Wong compared the effects of St. John’s wort on the reduction
of the hormone cortisol with traditional drugs as Prozac and
Imipramine in rodents.

Cortisol levels often elevate in people with depression.

“What I found was that St. John’s wort was not as
effective as standard medicines,” she said. “From this
study done on the animals, we can speculate on its effects on
humans.”

Conflicting results like this as well as the increased use of
herbals warrant more research, Wong said, and also stricter
regulation.

Currently, the Food and Drug Administration does not regulate
the use of herbal supplements, which it considers as a dietary
supplement.

According to Wong, the United States lags behind other Western
countries that have physicians specially trained to prescribe herbs
as treatment.

Despite the need for further study, Wong believes herbals,
especially ones that have been used for generations, probably have
beneficial effects.

“It is unlikely that a supplement that has been used for
centuries doesn’t have some sort of positive effects,”
she said. “There just needs to be better controlled and
designed experiments to figure out what those effects
are.”

HERBS THAT HEAL Some plant extracts have been
shown to have some medical benefits. SOURCE: WebMD Original graphic
by ADAM BROWN/Daily Bruin Web adaptation by STEPHEN WONG/Daily
Bruin