Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic medicines are under serious
attack in Europe – and yet three studies have this week proven they can help in
the treatment of cancer, in easing a lung condition, and they may well hold the
answer to the antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
The studies have been published just three weeks after the
EU’s Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive came into force, and all
Chinese and Ayurvedic products were removed from the shelves.
All practitioners will have to be registered with a
recognised professional trade body by April next year, or they will be forced
to cease practice, and the remedies will be completely unavailable to the
public – other than from a conventional doctor.
The first study has discovered that the Indian spice,
curcumin, can help in the treatment of head and neck cancers. The spice stops the cells’ resistance to the
chemotherapy. In one study, oncologists
were able to reduce the dose of the chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, by a factor
of four, and still get a positive outcome, after the patients had been given
the spice.
In the second study, a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
herbal paste – Xiao Chuan – can help ease the worst symptoms of the lung
condition COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) during the winter. The paste has been used to ease breathing
difficulties in China for more than a thousand years.
In the third study, several herbal remedies from the
Ayurvedic tradition have been found to act as an effective antibiotic against
infections following chemotherapy after the immune system has been
impaired. Herbs that were tested
included wild asparagus, desert date, false daisy, curry tree, caster oil plant
and fenugreek.
(Sources: curcumin study – Archives of Otolaryngology, 2011;
137: 499; Xiao Chuan study – ATS 2011 International Conference, Denver; antibiotic study – Annals of Clinical
Microbiology and Antimicrobials, 2011; 10:21).