What’s Your Headache Telling You?
(Health Secrets) Promising results from various trials of Chinese medicine show that a natural cure for asthma may already exist. Researchers at New York City’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine have studied the results of four trials and concluded that herbal remedies could indeed improve the health of asthma sufferers.
Why do we need a natural cure for asthma?
Asthma is a growing concern, especially in western society where the number of people suffering from it has increased by 50 percent in recent years. There are around 300 million asthma sufferers worldwide, including almost 16 million adults and 7 million children in the US.
Although medication is available to treat the symptoms of asthma, it does not actually cure the disease. The lack of a cure, as well as the side effects of standard medication, especially on children, has led to a rise in interest in complementary or alternative treatments for asthma.
What is Traditional Chinese Medicine?
Traditional Chinese Medicine, also known as TCM, is a type of natural herbal therapy used in Asia for many hundreds, if not thousands of years. It is only in recent years, however, that TCM has started to be accepted into western culture.
TCM combines various Chinese herbs which have been found to have certain healing properties. The effects of these herbs have been discovered over many years using trial and error, rather than the ‘scientific’ methods that western society relies on.
Recent findings show promising results
The four trials studied by Mount Sinai looked at the impact on asthma sufferers of using TCM. Some trials used TCM as a treatment on its own, while others looked at using it to complement existing medical treatments. Single herbs, such as S flavescens Ait extract, were used in one of the studies, while the others looked at using a combination of different Chinese herbs.
Whatever the method used, the results of the trials were all similar. In the asthma sufferers that were treated with TCM, improved lung function and more stable airways could be observed, indicating an overall reduction in asthma symptoms. There were no obvious side effects associated with the use of TCM.
The report detailing the findings of these four studies was published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
In the US, Chinese herbal remedies are generally classed as dietary supplements, and this makes it difficult to get funding for clinical trials. However, following this research more trials are underway, with the herbs involved being classified as botanical drugs rather than dietary supplements.
How does herbal therapy cure asthma?
Although research is still ongoing into the ways in which TCM works to reduce correct asthma, the researchers at New York City’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine, have three theories. They believe that herbal therapy could alleviate asthma by:
*Reducing inflammation of the airways that can provide an attack
*Inhibiting airway smoother muscle contraction that leads to an asthma attack
*Immunomodulation, or stimulating of the body’s immune system
Other uses of Traditional Chinese Medicine
The report also spotlights other possible uses for TCM. The most exciting may be to protect people from potentially fatal food allergies, such as peanut allergies.
Following successful trails on mice with peanut allergies, the FDA has now given the herbal remedy FAHF-2 investigational new drug approval. It is currently in phase 2 testing on humans. As well as peanuts, other foodstuffs that commonly cause allergic reactions such as shellfish are being tested.
Food allergies are on the increase, and it is estimated that 3 million children in the US now suffer from a food allergy. While some allergies just result in vomiting or hives, others lead to difficulty breathing or anaphylaxis, where blood leaks from the blood vessels into muscle tissue leading to low blood pressure, narrow airways, shock, and possibly unconsciousness or even death.
Try herbal therapy to ease asthma symptoms
Although clinical trails are still underway, many asthma sufferers are already turning to complementary or alternative medicines to relieve symptoms without the side effects of medication, and to find a cure for the disease. Licensed practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine can provide herbal therapy that should help to reduce the impact of asthma and other allergic reactions.
Published with permission from AlignLife. Original article link is here.
