Herbs as medicines

Herbs and related products are commonly used by patients who also seek conventional health care. All physicians, regardless of specialty or interest, care for patients who use products that are neither prescribed nor recommended. Some herbs have been extensively studied, but little is known about others. When a patient asks for advice regarding the use of a particular herb, how should a physician respond? Similarly, how does a physician determine if a patient's symptoms are caused by a "remedy"? This review attempts to answer these questions by investigating pertinent definitions, the history of herbs in medicine, epidemiology and prevalence of herbal use, and relevant psychosocial issues.     

Preoperative considerations with herbal medicines

More patients are using herbal remedies. Even though herbs are natural products, they often act like medications and may interact with or potentiate other medications. During a preoperative evaluation, nurses should ask patients about their use of herbal remedies. Certain herbs are dangerous and should never be taken, and others must be avoided before elective surgery. Today's perioperative health care professionals must become familiar with basic information about herbs to carry out thorough assessments. At times, caregivers may need to educate and counsel consumers about benefits and harmful aspects of herbal preparations.     

Advertising medicines to the public

Primary intracranial malignant lymphoma is rate in clinic. But the incidence tends to be increasing recently. In its relatively short course, children and the slightly more woman headache vomiting IICP (increased intracranial pressure) and corresponding neurofunctional disorders due to various location of the tumors are the main clinical manifestation. Even high density which obviously increased after contrast and peripheral edema may be seen in CT scanning. MRI examination shows lowereal signals in T1 phase. But enhanced signals in T2 phase. Histologically the tumor mass is grayish in color often with a blussed borders (those located in brain surface often have rough borders) to the naked eye. Undermicroscope tumor cell may be seen around blood vessels with decreased cytosol, pathologic rayokinesis and somtimes focal hemorrhage necrosis. All patients in the 40 cases of our study group were connfirmed by surgical excision and patholog examination. Three patients died within half a year after resection. The others showed a survival period ranging from 4 to 20 months after postoperative irradiation solely or combined chemotherapy. Nine patients failed in total resection. Patients undergone postoperative irradiation but without following chemotherapy, only survived 4 to 9.7 months. Thus it can be seen that prolongation of the survival period of primary intracranial malignant lymphoma depends upon possibly early excision combined irradiation and effective chemotherapy.     

Observations on ethnoveterinary medicines in Trinidad and Tobago

In 1995 research was conducted in Trinidad and Tobago with the aim of collecting knowledge on ethnoveterinary medicines in order to lay a foundation for further scientific study and validation. This paper describes only the ethnoveterinary practices used in the poultry sub-sector. A four stage process was used to conduct the research and document these ethnoveterinary practices. 28 ethnoveterinary respondents were identified using a modified Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) technique, the student essay method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with these respondents as well as with 30 veterinarians, 27 extension officers and 19 animal health assistants/agricultural officers, and the 7 key respondents that they identified. 5 participatory workshops were then held with 55 of the respondents interviewed to discuss the data generated from the interviews and to determine dosages for some of the plants mentioned. 12 plant species were used to treat 4 categories of health problems common to poultry production. Aloe vera, Bryophyllum pinnatum, Citrus sp. and Momordica charantia were the main medicinal plants being used.     

Promoting sugar-free medicines: parents' views

BACKGROUND: A long-standing concern among dental health professionals has been about the harmful effects of sugered medicines on teeth, especially in children who regularly take such medications. AIM: To investigate parental attitudes, perceptions, and motivations to sugar-free medicines so that an effective promotional campaign could be mounted. METHOD: A qualitative, focus group approach was used to gather data. RESULTS: These show the dominant influence of the doctor over the patient/parent, and the bearing this has on the prescribing of sugar-free medicines. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the scope for sugar-free medicine promotion for prescribed and over-the-counter products, and the polarizing of attitudes to the use of sugar-free medicines based on social class.     

Compatibility of toxic Chinese medicines]

This article expounds the suitable compatibility and incompatibility in using toxic Chinese medicines in respects of reducing toxicity, raising curative effect, enhancing toxicity and reducing curative effect. Meanwhile it discusses the compatibility mechanism of toxic Chinese medicines in combination with the studies of clinical and modern experiments.     

Anti-Helicobacter pylori activity of herbal medicines

The extracts of Coptidis japonica (rhizoma), Eugenia caryophyllata (flower), Rheum palmatum (rhizoma), Magnolia officinalis (cortex) and Rhusjavanica (galla rhois) potently inhibited the growth of Helicobacter pylori (HP). However, these herbal extracts showed no inhibitory effect on HP urease except Galla rhois. Among the components separated from active herbal extracts by silica gel column chromatography, the inhibitory effects of decursinol angelate and decursin on the growth of HP were the most potent, followed by magnolol, berberine, cinnamic acid, decursinol and gallic acid. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of decursin and decursinol angelate were 6-20 microg/ml.     

Will combinatorial chemistry deliver real medicines?

Over the next decade, the impact of library synthesis will play a major role in shortening the lead optimization phase of drug discovery. The prognosis for combinatorial chemistry to discover fundamentally different new classes of therapeutically active small molecules against some of the more difficult biological targets is less certain. Expectations are high because the technology potentially allows us to sample available drug space by synthesizing all possible small molecule ligands (variously estimated to be between 10(30)-10(50) compounds). Some caution is advised, however, since, despite recent increases in high-throughput screening of substantially greater numbers of synthetic compounds and natural products, we are not routinely finding a plethora of new structures. The outcome may be that combinational chemistry offers us the ability to work faster on finding ligands for well-established tractable targets, such as G-protein-coupled receptors, ion channels or proteases, rather than, say, the more complex protein-protein interactions which from the majority of targets in signal transduction pathways.     

HIV in children

Because children acquire HIV infection differently than adults, this article begins with a discussion of the epidemiology of AIDS in children. This is followed by a discussion of factors related to progression of the disease and survival in pediatric AIDS. A discussion of the pulmonary manifestations in children is followed by a suggested approach to the HIV-infected child with respiratory symptoms.     

Usage and adverse effects of Chinese herbal medicines

Oestrogen receptor (ER) expression in breast cancer is regarded as a phenotype that may change during the natural history of the disease or during endocrine therapy. It has been suggested that in up to 70% of tumours that show acquired resistance the mechanism may be changed in ER status from positive to negative. This paper proposes an alternative hypothesis that ER expression in a stable phenotype in breast cancer. The paper reviews the literature on ER expression during the natural history of breast cancer in patients and also presents data on the effect of endocrine therapy on ER expression. If the alternative hypothesis is true it has important implications for treatment from chemoprevention to acquired endocrine resistance in advanced disease. Equally, if the hypothesis is true, attempts to develop laboratory models of endocrine resistance where ER-positive tumours become ER negative need to be re-evaluated.