Why Herbs?  An Introduction of Herbs

By Dr. PharmTao, March 2005

Historical evidence Having been used for centuries by people around the world, herbal remedy may be the oldest �evidence-based medicineï¿?  Herbs have been recorded to cure diseases for billions of people as a critical therapeutic method in many cultures, including Native American, European, Egyptian, Hebrew, Indian, and Chinese.  Current drugs usually need to go through clinical trials with a certain number of selected subjects for several years.  The side effects of many of these drugs are undetected until they have been used by a large population for a long period of time.  However, herbs have been tested by generations and generations of people for thousands of years, and their effects from various aspects have been documented.  So clinically speaking, we actually have more knowledge about herbs. 

Balanced ingredients Unlike most currently used drugs that have pure ingredients, one herb has complex ingredients.  Those different ingredients in one herb may balance each other, buffer each other, and act synergistically to make the systemic effect more powerful.  In some herbal practices, such as in Chinese Herbal Medicine, several herbs are usually used together in a formula to treat one illness, by taking advantage of the interactions among different ingredients from different herbs for more balanced, less toxic, and more powerful effects. 

Fewer side effects Herbs are safe if used correctly.  Because of the above reasons, herbs usually have fewer side effects than synthetic drugs since they act in a more systemic manner.  Herbs act on multiple targets, unlike some synthetic drugs that target on only one molecule while their effects on other molecules or systems are unknown.  In Chinese Herbal Medicine, herbs are processed in various ways before they can be used.  These processes detoxify or remove certain ingredients so that herbs can have more effective targeting components.  However, like current drugs, herbs should not be used indiscriminately.  They should be used carefully with the correct diagnosis.  Like it said, �One man�s tonics can be another man�s toxin.ï¿?#060;span style="mso-spacerun: yes">  The same herb can act very differently on people with different physical conditions.  In addition, herbs can interact with foods and other drugs and generate unexpected results.  Herbs do have fewer side effects only with the correct usages, i.e., they are used on the right illness, with the right diagnosis, on the right physical conditions, and processed and administered with right methods.                 

Natural healing power The natural healing power of herbs not only lies in that they are natural products, but also includes that they can be accepted by people in a natural manner.  For example, many people, especially children and the elderly, dislike drugs, injection, or surgery, but would prefer effective dietary therapy if available.  Herbal dietary therapy has been used since the ancient time and has been playing important roles in many countries, such as in Chinese Herbal Medicine. 

Is herb an alternative solution for drug discovery? The use of herbal products among the US elderly has risen over the past 5 years (Bruno and Ellis, 2005).  Currently the drug discovery process seems to have reached a bottleneck.  In spite of the completion of the human genome sequencing and the increasing investments in pharmaceutical research and development, there is a steady decline in the number of novel drugs entering clinical development and reaching the market (Sams-Dodd, 2005).  In the year of 1990 when the federal funding started the human genome project, 23 new chemical entities (NCEs) were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  However in 2002, only 17 NCEs were approved (Buehler, 2005).  The likely reasons include that nearly half of all failed drugs may have unpredictable toxicity (Gershell and Atkins, 2003).  It even has been claimed that the knowledge of the human genome itself has done little to advance drug discovery ( Austin , 2003).  Maybe it is time to re-examine the target-based drug discovery approach that has been dominant in this decade, and the traditional physiology-based approach as well (Sams-Dodd, 2005).  In the mean time, herbal medicine, the oldest therapeutic approach in the human history that have generated the most abundant products, should certainly not be ignored but deserve more attention in scientific drug studies.  Although herbs themselves cannot be patented, effective components in herbs can be extracted and concentrated to make trademark drugs.

The potential of using herbs in drug discovery The potential of investigating herbs in drug discovery can be seen in a few numbers: �There are 119 drugs of known structure that are still extracted from higher plants and used globally in allopathic medicine....These 119 plant-derived drugs are produced commercially from less than 90 species of higher plants. Since there are at least 250,000 species of higher plants on earth, it is logical to presume that many more useful drugs will be found in the plant kingdom if the search for these entities is carried out in a logical and systematic manner.ï¿?#060;/span>  (Farnsworth, 1990)

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References:

Austin CP.  The completed human genome: implications for chemical biology.  Curr Opin Chem Biol. 2003;7(4):511-5.

Bruno JJ, Ellis JJ.  Herbal use among US elderly: 2002 national health interview survey (April).  Ann Pharmacother. 2005 Mar 1.

Buehler L.K.  Is genomics advancing drug discovery?  Pharm Discov. 2005; 5(2):26-9.

Farnsworth NR.  The role of ethnopharmacology in drug development.  Ciba Found Symp. 1990;154:2-11; discussion 11-21.

Gershell LJ, Atkins JH.  A brief history of novel drug discovery technologies.  Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2003;2(4):321-7.

Sams-Dodd F.  Target-based drug discovery: is something wrong?  Drug Discov. Today. 2005;10(2):139-47.