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Growing a home apothecary

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Re: Growing a home apothecary

#21

Post by vorpalhex »

mtrpcic wrote: post #17
jalk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it naïve to think that clinical trials have show that modern medicine is more effective? And the active molecules in those plants have been identified and can probably in many cases be synthesized more easily than extracted from the plants.

While I think the assessment that modern medicine is more effective, and often stands on the shoulders of these types of historically used plants, not everyone has safe access to modern medicine (either because "modern" medical treatments aren't available where they're located, lack of finances to pay for it in egregiously overpriced areas, or general mistreatment by the medical community). Using alternatives, while…

Except those alternatives will kill you dead if mishandled.

This isn't a choice between "cough medicine" and "slightly less effective cough medicine", it's a choice between a controlled and inspected product and random plants that may or may not be the right genus, dose and concentration.

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#22

Post by luminouslow »

bschwarz wrote: post #6
luminouslow wrote: post #2

In medieval Europa monasteries were required since Pope Gregor to grow a number of medicinal plants to ensure that the population has access to medicine. While i am not an opponent of modern medicine, it is kind of sad how little modern humans use the remedies nature provides. Search for monastery medicine for more info.

There is also the capitulare de villis[0] from around AD 800. The German Wikipedia entry has a well formatted list of all the plants and trees. Very interesting! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitulare_de_villis

Wow I did not know that list was on wikipedia - thanks for sharing

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#23

Post by luminouslow »

zasdffaa wrote: post #7
luminouslow wrote: post #2

In medieval Europa monasteries were required since Pope Gregor to grow a number of medicinal plants to ensure that the population has access to medicine. While i am not an opponent of modern medicine, it is kind of sad how little modern humans use the remedies nature provides. Search for monastery medicine for more info.

We probably haven't lost as much as you think - we either still use it or it was bunkum (for a given application). eg. Chamomile - still used for bad stomachs (is a costive), whether it works on herpes simplex seems really dubious.

Agreed! In a lot of areas that knowledge is still alive and well, not least in cooking. I think food can still have a lot of healing properties.

Often modern medicine is based on these plants. And of course there are modern treatments that go way beyond what we were able to achieve with just plant-based medicine.

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#24

Post by JPLeRouzic »

hosh wrote: post #19
JPLeRouzic wrote: post #13

It would be nice to mine Pubmed to search for tuples (plant, disease, administration mode, contraindications, side effects)

Being able to do stuff like this was the point of the semantic web. That was supposed to be Web 3.0. To be fair, according to a write up by a guy deep in the semantic web, there were several choices made that lead to the collapse of the first attempt.

>> semantic web

In principle this is a great topic. I got some interest in the semantic web technologies in early 2000'.

My conclusions were that:

- The approach was extremely rigid, basically all info (data and metadata) had to be classified mostly in a hierarchical way (first order logic) with only a few exceptions when most real life cases were unable to fit in this scheme.

- Companies in Semantic Web just sold search. Classification was often done by hand or by "connectors" that had to be chosen or even tailored by hand.

A few years later search technologies were much more powerful and AI enabled impressive results in classification.

That said some projects like Cyc were impressive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#25

Post by boomskats »

Something worth remembering when criticising traditional herbal medicine for its lack of double blind clinical trials, is that clinical trials cost serious money.

It's unfortunate, but with the way things work in the western world currently, it isn't in anyone's commercial interest to invest in proving the efficacy of any of these herbal remedies. They aren't patentable (because they're plants and because there's prior art), so even if you were to sponsor a trial that statistically proves a remedy as effective, there is nothing to stop your competition - established pharmaceutical manufacturers - from jumping on the bandwagon and eating your lunch. It just doesn't make commercial sense for anyone to invest time in them.

I'm not here trying to insist that big pharma out to suppress natural medicines or whatever, or that it's some big conspiracy (or that it's not). I'm just pointing out that there's a logical, commercial reason that the we don't categorically know how effective these plants are. There are many examples of this with non-organic compounds also, that have shown therapeutic potential but are no longer studied for their benefits because too old to be protected by a patent.

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#26

Post by hosh »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #24
hosh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to do stuff like this was the point of the semantic web. That was supposed to be Web 3.0. To be fair, according to a write up by a guy deep in the semantic web, there were several choices made that lead to the collapse of the first attempt.

>> semantic web In principle this is a great topic. I got some interest in the semantic web technologies in early 2000'. My conclusions were that: - The approach was extremely rigid, basically all info (data and metadata) had to be classified mostly in a hierarchical way (first order logic) with only a few exceptions when most real life cases were unable to fit in this scheme. - Companies in Semantic Web just sold se…

I think the query language was capable of remapping data into a different schema, but it suffered from its own design.

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#27

Post by LinuxBender »

boomskats wrote: post #25

Something worth remembering when criticising traditional herbal medicine for its lack of double blind clinical trials, is that clinical trials cost serious money. It's unfortunate, but with the way things work in the western world currently, it isn't in anyone's commercial interest to invest in proving the efficacy of any of these herbal remedies. They aren't patentable (because they're plants and because there's pri…

established pharmaceutical manufacturers - from jumping on the bandwagon and eating your lunch

Some pharma labs already do this. Most of the 50 supplements I take are made by the same labs that make prescription drugs. On the plus side, they are very good at consistent measurements. On the minus side, some of the supplements I take were actually drugs that failed approval. They still work for what I use them for, but not for what they were intended. I've come to understand they make just as much money from supplements as they do from prescription drugs given they do not have to pass the same scrutiny as prescription drugs. I use a red leaf extract that was meant to be a blood pressure drug but I can see why it failed as it is the most powerful diuretic I have ever used, meaning one can not sleep when using it.

One of my favorite examples that I do not use is Viagra. It was also meant to be a blood pressure drug but failed. It had a unique side effect which led to a marketing team coming up with the term "Erectile Dysfunction" which is now considered a medical term.

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#28

Post by LinuxBender »

Tao3300 wrote: post #15
CursedUrn wrote: post #4

Do those plants really cure those things listed in the article?

It'd be nice to have some linked studies, wouldn't it?

It would be nice but factoring in costs and profits I doubt that will happen unless some curious and incredibly wealthy philanthropist contributed to some research. About 15 years of experimenting on myself has bypassed my own personal need for studies and I am entirely off all prescription medications. It was not easy and I made a few mistakes along the way, but have very few regrets.

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#29

Post by tsol »

jalk wrote: post #12
luminouslow wrote: post #2

In medieval Europa monasteries were required since Pope Gregor to grow a number of medicinal plants to ensure that the population has access to medicine. While i am not an opponent of modern medicine, it is kind of sad how little modern humans use the remedies nature provides. Search for monastery medicine for more info.

Is it naïve to think that clinical trials have show that modern medicine is more effective? And the active molecules in those plants have been identified and can probably in many cases be synthesized more easily than extracted from the plants.

Yes and no. If I'm nauseous I can take a little ginger, but there isn't really an comparable over the counter anti-nausea med. There's dimenhydrinate for motion sickness, but that's different. Ondansetron is a prescription only anti-nausea med that's very effective, but obviously much harder to obtain. So modern medicine is more effective, only for the proper indication and when a 'modern' treatment is easily available. Sometimes just grabbing some ginger ale is the smart choice.

Re: Growing a home apothecary

#30

Post by tsol »

CursedUrn wrote: post #4

Do those plants really cure those things listed in the article?

They don't cure the illness, they only help to treat it. Generally herbal medications are milder and need to be taken for a longer time. I find they can be fairly effective. Sometimes, though, what people say should work doesn't work and you need to go find something stronger at the pharmacy.
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