A unique Mayo Clinic collaboration has revived the healing wisdom of Pacific Island cultures by testing a therapeutic plant extract described in a 17th century Dutch herbal text for its anti-bacterial properties. Early results show that extracts from the Atun tree effectively control bacteria that can cause diarrhea, as claimed by naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf, circa 1650. He documented his traditional healing methods in the book Ambonese Herbal.
The Mayo Clinic-led team’s report appears in the Dec. 23 edition of The British Medical Journal. In their report, Mayo Clinic researchers demonstrate the feasibility of using sophisticated data mining techniques on historical texts to identify new drugs.
The study provides a creative new model for drug discovery. It integrates nontraditional, ancient medical information with advanced technologies to identify promising natural products to investigate as drugs for new and better therapies.
“Natural products are invaluable sources of healing agents — consider, for example, that aspirin derived originally from willow bark, and the molecular basis of the anti-cancer chemotherapeutic agent TaxolTM was derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree. So it’s not so far-fetched to think that the contributions of an ancient text and insights from traditional medicine really may impact modern public health,” explains Brent Bauer, M.D., director of the Mayo Clinic Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program.
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According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006; 296:87-93, the popular over the counter painkiller paracetamol can cause liver malfunction even if taken for just a few days.
This was discovered when 145 volunteers took a 4 gram dose every day for 14 days. A third of these volunteers had abnormal liver enzyme activity after just a few days. These abnormal readings persisted for up to 11 days after the treatment was discontinued.
Researchers cannot figure out why this have never been noted before in such a popular drug? They figure that maybe it was because the group tested were Hispanic Americans and perhaps they are more prone to liver problems than other groups?
Warren Matthews of Xtend-Life comments:
Hmm…I wonder why this hasn’t been published before? I wonder if the ‘authorities’ will issue a ‘warning’ on the label? Somehow I doubt it! Somewhat of a double standard isn’t it?
Remember recently I talked about Black cohosh, the traditional herbal remedy for which the authorities are now insisting labels carry a warning against possible liver damage in ‘rare’ cases. This is in spite of the fact that there is no direct link to Black cohosh ever contributing to liver damage, and that the users of this herb in whom some liver damage was detected were all users of prescription drugs!!!
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