Chinese Herbal Medicines May Contain Modern Drugs

liver411

Tue Nov 5,10:31 AM ET
By Richard Woodman

LONDON (Reuters Health) - Chinese herbal medicines may sometimes work--and may sometimes cause serious harm--because they are adulterated with synthetic drugs, a British research group said on Tuesday.


The Bandolier organization, which specializes in reviewing healthcare
studies, said Chinese herbal medicines were becoming more popular and there was even evidence that some might work.


"One of the problems, though, is that these herbal medicines are not
standardized, and usually contain many ingredients. A review tells us that
some of those ingredients can be synthetic drugs, responsible both for good effects, and for serious harm."


The review, published on Bandolier's Web site
(http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/whatnew.html), found that a wide range of adulterants were used, including steroids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, anticonvulsants, benzodiazepines, hypoglycaemic agents and even Viagra.


While it was not clear what proportion of remedies contained adulterants,
analysis of 2,600 samples in Taiwan showed that 24% contained at least one synthetic medicine. In the US it was 7%.


Case reports showed that two or more adulterants were present in 14 of 15 Chinese herbal medicines.


"There was one death reported in these reports, and at least six potentially life-threatening events," the organization said.


"Suspicion of adulteration was based not only on adverse effects, but
suspiciously good efficacy. Chinese herbal medicines may work because of the adulterants," according to the review.


It warned of the potential for adverse events, especially when other
treatments were being prescribed at the same time.