No

by Lisa Putnam

Created on: January 02, 2010

Many people who suffer from asthma or have children who suffer from asthma find that the average medical doctor’s belief that it cannot be cured is simply not acceptable; and why should they want to accept it?  Living with the limitations asthma often creates and the various medications that are usually prescribed is hard.  

No one wants to hear that asthma cannot be cured or that they must depend on inhalers or steroids or other medications to live a normal life.  When people do not like what the medical world has to say about the condition they turn to alternative advice from herbalists, nutritionists, Yoga Gurus, or other people who claim that they can help or even cure them.

Some natural remedies are harmless or even helpful.  Overweight asthmatics, for example, will most likely improve their lives if they lose weight by eating a well balanced diet regardless of whether losing weight actually decreases their asthmatic symptoms.  Taking Yoga classes can improve stress management which may improve a person’s well being even though it will most likely not affect the frequency or duration of asthma attacks.  

The problem arises when alternative medicine is taken in lieu of doctor prescribed asthma medications or without a medical doctor’s knowledge.  Although alternative therapies may seem harmless the truth is that they are not.  Herbal products are not regulated by the FDA.  Without regulation there is no standard of purity so seemingly harmless herbs may be contaminated with chemicals, metals, pesticides, fumigants, and micro-organisms.  

Without FDA regulation, there is no assurance that herbal products are safe.  Herbal medicines often have bad side effects or interact badly with other prescription medication or even other herbal medicines.  One herbal extract called Butterbur is believed, but never clinically proven, to decrease asthma attacks but side effects often include diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, indigestion, headache, fatigue, and nausea.  The raw herb contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids which is toxic to the liver and kidneys and may cause cancer so even with this “safe” herb there is a limit of one microgram a day.  Ephedra, now a banned substance in the United States, has been used for years to help treat asthma symptoms.  People believed that because it was herbal and that it could be purchased at any health food or vitamin store that it was safe.  Unfortunately ephedra has been linked to stroke, seizures, psychosis, and even death.  Vicks Vapor Rub is a common over the counter medication that many parents put on their children to improve breathing and alleviate coughing but a study by Dr. David Nelson, the chair for the Department of Pediatrics at Georgetown University Hospital, says that research shows that it actually stimulates mucus production and causes airway inflammation; the exact opposite of what an asthmatic needs.

Without FDA regulation there is no clinical proof that herbal remedies work.  A paper published in the October 2007 Postgraduate Medical Journal looked at 1330 published trials on herbal medicine and found that only 3 have actually undergone clinical trials.  Out of the 3 trials, only 1 may have any effect at all on a particular condition, but even this treatment was not as effective as traditional medical treatment and this herbal medicine was for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, not an asthma related condition.

So why do people swear that herbal remedies work even though there isn’t any proof?  The reason has many names: the chicken soup effect, the contextual effect, the non-specific effect, the placebo effect; they all mean the same thing – herbal medicines work because the person taking them wants them to.  

References:
Herbalists’ Cocktails May Do More Harm Than Good, Say Researchers
http://www.guardian. co.uk/uk/2007/oct/04 /health.healthandwel lbeing
High Street Herbalists Can Offer No Evidence That Their Remedies Work
http://www.timesonli ne.co.uk/tol/news/uk /health/article25846 43.ece
Placebo Effect Behind Many Natural Cures
http://www.msnbc.msn .com/id/33833275/ns/ health-alternative_m edicine/

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