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Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Unlike modern medicine, which employs the scientific method to test plausible therapies by way of responsible and ethical clinical trials, producing repeatable evidence of either effect or of no effect, alternative therapies reside outside of medical science and do not originate from using the scientific method, but instead rely on testimonials, anecdotes, religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural "energies", pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources. Frequently used terms for relevant practices are New Age medicine, pseudo-medicine, unorthodox medicine, holistic medicine, fringe medicine, and unconventional medicine, with little distinction from quackery.
A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order to increase the quantity of their consumption. The class of nutrient compounds includes vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids, and amino acids. Dietary supplements can also contain substances that have not been confirmed as being essential to life, but are marketed as having a beneficial biological effect, such as plant pigments or polyphenols. Animals can also be a source of supplement ingredients, such as collagen from chickens or fish for example. These are also sold individually and in combination, and may be combined with nutrient ingredients. The European Commission has also established harmonized rules to help insure that food supplements are safe and appropriately labeled.
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Chinese herbology is the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A Nature editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that the most obvious reason why it has not delivered many cures is that the majority of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action.
Herbal medicine is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies, such as the anti-malarial group of drugs called artemisinin isolated from Artemisia annua, a herb that was known in Chinese medicine to treat fever. There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of many plants used in 21st century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage. The scope of herbal medicine sometimes include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.
A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or magical powers, and the legends associated with them. A herbal may also classify the plants it describes, may give recipes for herbal extracts, tinctures, or potions, and sometimes include mineral and animal medicaments in addition to those obtained from plants. Herbals were often illustrated to assist plant identification.
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Natural skin care uses topical creams and lotions made of ingredients available in nature. Much of the recent literature reviews plant-derived ingredients, which may include herbs, roots, flowers and essential oils, but natural substances in skin care products include animal-derived products such as beeswax, and minerals. These substances may be combined with various carrier agents, preservatives, surfactants, humectants and emulsifiers.
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Iberogast, also known as STW5, is a liquid formulation of nine herbs used for functional dyspepsia and irritable bowel syndrome. A proprietary blend, it was developed in Germany in 1961 and is available in other countries. Named after the genus (Iberis) of one of its ingredients, it is also claimed to possess anti-inflammatory, antioxidative and free radical-inhibiting properties as well as the ability to reduce gastric acid secretion.
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Because of the uncertain nature of various alternative therapies and the wide variety of claims different practitioners make, alternative medicine has been a source of vigorous debate, even over the definition of "alternative medicine". Dietary supplements, their ingredients, safety, and claims, are a continual source of controversy. In some cases, political issues, mainstream medicine and alternative medicine all collide, such as in cases where synthetic drugs are legal but the herbal sources of the same active chemical are banned.
Pulok Kumar Mukherjee is an Indian scientist working as the Director of Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, an autonomous Institute under Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, Imphal, Manipur, India; as well as an Associate Editor of the Phytomedicine Plus; Consulting Editor of the Pharmacological Research published by Elsevier. He is the Professor of Pharmaceutical technology at the Jadavpur University and former Director of the School of Natural Product Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
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References
- ↑ buecher.heilpflanzen-welt.de
- ↑ The Complete German Commission E Monographs, Therapeutic Guide to Herbal Medicines, 1st ed. 1998, Integrative Medicine Communications, pub; Bk&CD-Rom edition, 1999.
- 1 2 3 "Book review: The Complete German Commission E Monographs: Therapeutic Guide to Herbal Medicines". Journal of the American Medical Association. 281 (19): 1852–1853. 19 May 1999. doi:10.1001/jama.281.19.1852-JBK0519-2-1.
- ↑ Treasure, Jonathan. "Author's biography". Herbal Educational Services. Archived from the original on 2007-06-25. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
- ↑ henriettesherbal.com
- ↑ Treasure, Jonathan (1999). "Making Sense of Commission E". Archived from the original on 2012-04-19.