References, all the References and Nothing but the References

Botanical Medicines: The Desk Reference for Major Herbal Supplements. Second edition

by DJ McKenna, K Jones, K Hughes, Sheila Humphries

This book, more of “door-stop” than “desktop” proportions, has over 1100 pages packed solid with research information on the most popular herbs of commerce. It covers thirty-four botanicals, including the ever predictable top twenty, along with useful additions such as reishi and uva ursi, as well as a couple of hybrid botanical-supplements such as red yeast rice and grape seed OPC’s. CoQ10 has been dropped from the first edition, and is replaced by a thorough monograph on Ephedra. A common template is used through the book, which makes for a systematic organization of the material, and facilitates navigation through the dense thickets of the text.

This Haworth edition is in fact a reincarnation of the 1998 title Natural Dietary Supplements; A Desktop Reference, a collaboration between eminent ethnopharmacologist and natural product scientist Dennis McKenna, ethnobotanist Kerry Hughes, and medical author and researcher Kenneth Jones. That original edition appeared under the imprint of INPR, (Institute of Natural Products Research), an educational organization founded by McKenna and sponsored by a grant from Pharmanex, a supplement manufacturer. It was also accompanied by a better-known little sibling “Pocket Reference” version.

Anyone who has undertaken even rudimentary research on the literature pertaining to any botanical medicine will appreciate the monumental effort in this book. Reference material on the most mainstream of botanicals is dispersed throughout a mind boggling transdiciplinary diversity of sources, from agricultural science to toxicology, from cell biology to ethnopharmacology, from botanical systematics to nutripharmacogenomics, often with the critical material in non-English languages, published in journals alien to the MEDLARS system. The essential tools of the modern pharmacognosist include a broadband connection and multiple database subscriptions, developed sleuthing skills and a bounty hunter’s doggedness in pursuing a recalcitrant reference to its lair, not to mention fluency in German, Russian, and Chinese. Most of the studies in Desk Reference have been reviewed in full text and are summarized with minimal but essential detail. Given the thousands of citations in this volume, the authors should be nominated for an award of some kind, if only for sheer persistence and dedication to their mission. Given the exponentially expanding rate of natural product research the authors have of course a secure job for life. Compilations of this kind are inevitably dated before the ink is dry on the last page. But what is the real value of this vast array of data?

A comment from the preface to the 2003 edition of Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West, by herbal elder and Southwestern ethnobotanist Michael Moore is apropos. Moore, contemplating the plethora of new information on medicinal plants that now fills multigigabytes of hard drive space on his several computers, contrasts it to the scenario in 1979 when the first edition was published. At that time he did not even have a computer.  He asks the question what, as an herbalist, has he learnt that is new from the overwhelming amount of information that has accumulated between then and now? His answer - precious little.

For herbalists, this is the dilemma. A convergence of the culture of “herbalinformatics” with the tribunal of “evidence based medicine” now sends herbalists scurrying to the literature to seek “support” for medicinal uses of their herbs, where even just twenty years ago the authority of clinical experience was more than sufficient. But the “supporting literature” does not enlighten us at all about an herb in clinical practice. For example, nowhere in the Desk Reference monograph on capsicum do we find a discussion of the fact that the remedy is “hot”. The monograph on goldenseal does not even mention the word “bitter”. The most elementary facts about herbs in a medicinal context such as energetics, taste, temperature, organ affinities, prescribing combinations and so on are completely absent. The actual impact of the great majority of the data in the Desk Reference on framing clinical usage of herbs within the practice of herbal medicine is negligible.

 Of course, this criticism applies to innumerable herbal infobase compilations. As it happens, a compelling virtue of the Desk Reference apart from its laudable comprehensiveness is that it does not attempt to present the available research as anything other than the available research. The income of the authors derives principally from compiling, evaluating and trafficking research data on natural products, not treating patients. (with perhaps the exception of  co-author Sheila Humphrey, IBLCC who contributes to the pregnancy and lactation sections of the monographs. Humphrey is an experienced lactation consultant, and shares (husband) Mckenna’s critical eye for the literature, making these sections uniquely informative in this understudied area of herbal toxicology and safety).  Nonetheless, it is worth laboring this point, because there is currently a major industry of publishing “information” about herbal medicines that claims that to be information about herbal medicine. Useful clinical information derives from the art, science, and practice of herbal medicine, not from scientific data about herbs used in herbal medicine. To argue that useful knowledge of acupuncture can be derived from studying the structure and function of needles would be risible, but for some reason there is no shortage of published attempts at such a project with herbs and herbal medicine. Of course the back cover plaudits of the Desk Reference claim it will be useful to physicians and healthcare professionals. Publishers have to sell books, but the reality of those claims is entirely debatable.

© 2005 Jonathan Treasure

The Herbal Bookworm • Herbal Hypotheses • Cancer & Herbal Medicine
What is Herbal Medicine • Herb/Drug Interactions
Plants of the Pacific NW • Consulting • Downloads • Herblog