Medical herbal therapy preparations

Medical herbal therapy preparations are legal medical products developed through standardized extraction of modern pharmaceutical techniques, clear medicinal active ingredients and safe dosage ranges, and relying on the experience of traditional herbal medicine. They are neither a "miracle drug" that can cure all diseases, nor an IQ tax. Its effectiveness and safety need to be comprehensively determined based on ingredients, indications, and clinical data. Currently, it has clear clinical application value in the three fields of skin barrier repair, auxiliary conditioning of chronic diseases, and postoperative rehabilitation.

During the follow-up visits to the dermatology department of a tertiary hospital in the past two years, I met many young patients with atopic dermatitis. When parents heard that their children should use hormone ointments, they shook their heads like a rattle, fearing that they would become dependent. Later, we prescribed medical cream containing purslane extract to some children with moderate to mild symptoms, combined with a step-down dose of weak hormones. The recurrence rate within 3 months of follow-up was 47% lower than that of the control group who only used hormones. Many parents later came back to ask if they could prescribe a few more tubes.

But if you mention this case at a pharmaceutical conference, you will probably get choked by someone on the spot. After all, in the current evidence-based system of Western medicine, the evidence level of this type of compound herbal preparations is generally not high, and many of the mechanisms of action have not yet been understood. They are far less "hard" than single-molecule extracts such as artemisinin. In the past, a certain traditional Chinese medicine injection containing motherwort was restricted from use due to a high rate of adverse reactions. Many scholars with a Western medicine background felt that the ingredients of herbal preparations were too complex and uncertain, and were not as safe and controllable as chemical drugs.

Teachers who specialize in traditional Chinese medicine preparations don’t think so. They always say, “When you break herbs into single molecules, it’s like breaking a machine into parts. How can you drive a car with just one gear?” Previously, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine conducted a controlled trial of Compound Danshen Dropping Pills. The same dose of tanshinone alone was only 32% effective in improving myocardial ischemia, while the compound preparation of Panax notoginseng and borneol could reach 68%. The synergistic effect of multiple components is clearly there, but it is difficult to explain clearly using the current molecular biology mechanism. The two groups have been arguing about this for almost ten years without reaching a unified conclusion.

To be honest, the most common pitfall for ordinary consumers now is to equate "herbal" with "no side effects", and to confuse those "pure Chinese medicine creams" and "ancestral herbal ointments" with regular medical herbal preparations. I treated a girl last month. She bought a micro-business product online called "Pure Herbal Acne Treatment". After using it for a week, her acne disappeared quickly. However, after stopping for two days, her whole face broke out and turned red. When she came to take a test, she found out that it contained three times the allowed amount of clobetasol. So it was not a herbal preparation. It was simply a hormone wrapped in a herbal shell. Regular medical herbal preparations either carry a National Drug Approval license or a Category III device license that meets the medical device classification standards. The potency stability of each batch of active ingredients is controlled within 5%, and all adverse reactions must be included in the national adverse drug reaction reporting system. They are completely different from those "ancestral secret recipes" that do not even have production qualifications.

I am prone to redness and allergies when the seasons change. I always keep a box of medical cold compresses containing madecassoside in my bag. When I feel redness, I apply one. It is much more effective than ordinary hydrating masks. But if I develop a cyst that feels hard to the touch, For acne, I would just apply adapalene directly and never expect herbal preparations to fix it for me - to put it bluntly, this thing has its scope of application. Touting it as a miracle drug that can cure all diseases is a trap. There is no need to beat it to death with a stick and say it is all an IQ tax. I met an old man with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease before. He used conventional Western medicine inhalants according to the course of treatment, and combined with herbal capsules to nourish the lungs and activate blood circulation. He had to be hospitalized two or three times in winter last year. Last year, he only came for a review once, and his condition was more than a little better.

Interestingly, the views of the two groups are now slowly coming together. Many R&D teams are now extracting single molecules and studying the targets of the compound. Last year, we saw a team separating the components of Xiao Qinglong Decoction and found several groups of core ingredients that are antitussive and anti-inflammatory. They not only retained the synergistic effect of the compound, but also clearly understood the dosage and adverse reactions. In fact, in the final analysis, whether it is herbal medicine or chemical medicine, it is a good thing if it can make patients suffer less. There are not so many black and white truths.