Herbal Remedies, Street Drugs, and Pharmacology (Plus the "Ancient Wisdom" fallacy)

[HuckleB]

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=11595#more-11595

"...

Herbal medicine has always fascinated me. How did early humans determine which plants worked? They had no record-keeping, no scientific methods, only trial and error and word of mouth. How many intrepid investigators poisoned themselves and died in the quest? Imagine yourself in the jungle: which plants would you be willing to try? How would you decide whether to use the leaf or the root? How would you decide whether to chew the raw leaf or brew an infusion? It is truly remarkable that our forbears were able to identify useful natural medicines and pass the knowledge down to us.

It is equally remarkable that modern humans with all the advantages of science are willing to put useless and potentially dangerous plant products into their bodies based on nothing better than prescientific hearsay.

...

Plants undeniably produce lots of good stuff. Today researchers are finding useful medicines in plants that have no tradition of use. Taxol, the cancer-fighting product of Pacific yew trees, was discovered by the National Cancer Institute only by screening compounds from thousands of plants.

There is a reason pharmacology abandoned whole plant extracts in favor of isolated active ingredients. The amount of active ingredient in a plant can vary with factors like the variety, the geographic location, the weather, the season, the time of harvest, soil conditions, storage conditions, and the method of preparation. Foxglove contains a mixture of digitalis-type active ingredients but it is difficult to control the dosage. The therapeutic dose of digitalis is very close to the toxic dose. Pharmacologists succeeded in preparing a synthetic version: now the dosage can be controlled, the blood levels can be measured, and an antibody is even available to reverse the drug’s effects if needed.

..."


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An interesting piece on this matter. It's fairly concise, and it's worth reading the whole piece before responding, for those who might be inclined to respond.

:hi:

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[villager]

2. so "prescientific hearsay" is the two-word summary of all human history

...prior to, I guess, Descartes?

:shrug:

[HuckleB]

4. Yeah, that's what the author is saying.

:eyes:

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[laconicsax]

18. !

:spray:

Swing and a miss!

[SheilaT]

3. Early humans and modern non-literate humans

are exceptionally good at noticing if someone has a response -- good or bad -- after ingesting something. Heck, even us literate types have no trouble recalling that time we ate something and had a bad reaction. Trial and error isn't such a bad thing. The reason for complicated drug trials these days is that they're often trying to tease out a relatively mild difference of some kind.

And every single one of the drawbacks of herbal remedies can be applied to the scientific ones. Sometimes the manufacturing plant makes a bad batch of a drug. Pharmacists have been known to dilute drugs -- there was a big story several years ago about a Kansas City area pharmacist who did just that over a period of years with cancer drugs. My point here is that while almost all the time the "scientific" drugs aren't 100% reliable either. Although most of the time they are a very good bet.

[HuckleB]

5. Your response doesn't seem to be a response to the actual content of the article.

A few anecdotes about mistakes that were actually caught because of the systems in place are not a justification for the ongoing issues with herbal treatments.

Further, your first paragraph is a generalization that doesn't wash very well.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=729

[villager]

11. Maybe if more than person gleans that from the article, it's actually there?

And here's a smilie!:

:shrug:

[HuckleB]

12. Or maybe those who push pseudo-science consistently use the same logical fallacies...

... and distractions.

[villager]

13. Finding a similar result more than once is the scientific basis for trending toward proof...

No?

[HuckleB]

14. Not when such tactics have already been noted repeatedly over time.

Your logical fallacies are definitely worthy of a good :rofl: , however.

Bye.

[villager]

16. "Not when I suddenly say so!"

Hey, you found another smilie to deploy! :thumbsup:

[HuckleB]

17. There is nothing sudden about it, well except for your failed response.

:rofl: :rofl: :spray: :spray:

Enjoy those. You've "earned" them.

[villager]

19. See the invite for discussion for above. Enjoy the toast.

It's evening now -- maybe I'll have one myself...!

[HuckleB]

20. Fake invites are not my thing.

I'm not Charlie Brown, ye olde professor of pseudo-science, aka Lucy.

[villager]

21. Nor, I guess, is discussing on a discussion board?

But as noted above, the invite stands..

cheers,
Villager

[HuckleB]

22. I responded to your fake invite with an actual invite.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=102731&mesg_id=102767

And yet you failed to respond with anything but more snark.

Interesting.

Not.

:rofl:

[villager]

23. You mean that post with the snarky smilies? That's an invite?

Hmmm....

[HuckleB]

24. It's as good as anything you've offered.

I'm done wasting my time on you.

Bye.

[villager]

25. Bye!

Happy trails n' all....

[immoderate]

9. Trial and error is absolutely decisive, even for the survivors.

But everyone gets to participate. :bounce:

--imm

[trotsky]

6. K&R

So far you're getting the responses I guessed you'd get. Great article though. :thumbsup:

[HuckleB]

15. Yup.

Some fantasies just won't die, at least in the minds of those who love them dearly.

[Maraya1969]

7. I've been curious as to when Horny Goat Weed got its' name.

It is in a lot of sexual arousal type supplements. It must have been named a long time ago.

[immoderate]

8. There are sex pills for goats?

Explains a lot though. :shrug:

--imm

[Maraya1969]

29. Maybe they noticed that goats humped each other more when fed the stuff.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

26. Isn't it obvious that they learned what to do from the animals?? n/t

[HuckleB]

27. Were the ancients fools?

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2008/03/were_the_ancients_fools.php

[bemildred]

28. A few random comments in various relation to the subject of the OP:

1.) The basic premise is correct, magical thinking about your body won't serve you well.

2.) Once once accepts the "miracle" that we exist at all - please observe the quotes around miracle there - the notion that we have good direct, untheoretical knowledge of our environments and the ingestibles on offer is not a stretch. If animals can do it well enough to proliferate, then so can we, being animals too.

3.) It's a moving target, we all remain in the grip of the Darwinian process, hence one cannot rely on the same substance always being good for everybody in every circumstance, or over the long run, or its even remaining the same substance. This remains true even today in scientific medicine, even with the best theoretical and clinical understanding, in many situations there is a substantial risk of "adverse outcomes" contrary to what is expected, or unexpectedly good outcomes too for that matter.

4.) Thus, scientific medicine's emphasis on purity, measurement, and statistical testing of efficacy is well founded. Dosage is everything even with that sort of precision, the same drug in different dosages has different effects, differing among the people who receive them, and most drugs have many effects in the body, you really cannot do just one thing with drugs, in general.

5.) Nevertheless, if one finds that this or that concoction makes one feel well or is pleasant, at a reasonable price, one is not wrong to indulge oneself moderately without any precise theoretical understanding of why it is or is not "good for you".