Herbal remedy blamed for high cancer rate in Taiwan

[Confuzius]

That's if youre too lazy to find an actual doctor-one that tailor makes your remedies for you. If you just go to carefour or 711 and buy the stuff on the shelf without knowing what is in it, then yeah, you could get anything.

No problem there, now you're taking a combination of herbs from which the one herb can be definitively excluded. But are you gonna say, hey doc, there's no madouling in there is there? Or what's the mechanism of definitive exclusion?

When you go to a TCM doc, they ask for your allergies just like a western doc. Tell them do not put whatever you do not want (madouling in this case) in there....and they won't.

Perrrty simple.

[Tempo Gain]

That's cool.

[Zla'od]

Realizing that both the study and the journalism should be taken cum grano salis, there is this:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/herbal-remedy- ... 39835.html

[Mr He]

Crikey - no TCM for my kids. (I have never touched it anyways).

OK, going off topic.

A former co-worker and US PhD in some sort of bioscience told me that Taiwan has the same number of liver cancer cases in absolute terms as all of Western Europe. (I think she said Western Europe and USA, however my memory is blurry on that one.)

Apart from hepatitis B and C, she mentioned that TCM was to blame for this, would any of you know about that?

The main issue is that you in TCM often concentrate herbs, which are polluted with whatever effluent A-huang's factory lets out, and then ingest this concentrated potion, supposedly for your health.

Anyone else having any info on this?

[milkalex]

The german press is already covering that story http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/medizin/0,1518,826636,00.html, they say that products with that herb are already forbidden in Taiwan since 2003...

[Impaler]

Sounds a bit like Indian "ayurvedic medicine". Some of the crap they feed people in the name of "health" is deadly and is accumulative.

I came here to post about this study, just saw it in the news here. Oh well, I guess you folks are already aware of it.

[headhonchoII]

Now now a bit of balance required, common prescription medicines can also damage kidneys and livers if over used.

[PapaAzucar]

Here is another related article.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/story/2012-04-07/do-herbal-remedies-work/54102616/1

[Mr He]

Now now a bit of balance required, common prescription medicines can also damage kidneys and livers if over used.

Yes, however in western medicine, we test intensively, and when something like this happens, we pull the substance off the shelves very fast. There are procedures for this, and compensation is paid, wonder if this will happen to poor ms. wang, who has been eating the concoctions of some quack for several years, and now goes to dialysis twice a week as a result.

[headhonchoII]

No I mean there are many prescription drugs that are over prescribed and abused, especially in Taiwan. This is also a factor in livers being damaged.

Also, some people have higher genetic susceptibility to approved drugs, again this is not tested for.