September 30, 2007

Jackass study of the month

How does such amazingly moronic material gain access to MEDLINE indexed so called peer reviewed journals? I wonder. So Mustafa Capraz et alia gave 75 patients either placebo, a single clove of garlic or 12 little garlic pills. They took a baseline BP before and measured BP again 1 HOUR after garlic administration. Nothing changed. Really! Duh. SO garlic maybe should not be used in cardiac ICU as a hypotensive drug? Or more to the point, one might recommend that local cardiac patients best look for another cardiac facility than the one that Mustafa and his merry men work at……meanwhile you have been warned. Get educated.

Garlic, hypertension and patient education

Capraz M, Dilek M, Akpolat TInt J Cardiol. 2007 Sep 14;121(1):130-1

The aims of this study are to investigate the frequency of garlic usage in hypertensive population and to evaluate acute effect of garlic and garlic tablets on blood pressure in patients with hypertension. 4102 of the 7703 patients (53.3%) reported that they were using garlic. No significant effect on blood pressure was observed in any of the three groups (placebo, garlic or garlic tablets). Use of garlic is common among the hypertensive population, garlic and garlic tablets do not have acute blood pressure lowering effect, and a special education program informing patients and public about garlic is required.

September 25, 2007

Treading On The Tiger’s Tail (Herbal Hypothesis Three)

Treading on the Tigers Tail is a detailed deconstruction of the myth that herbs negatively interact with cancer chemotherapy, with a detailed analysis of the so called interaction between St John’s Wort and CPT 11 or irinotecan. It includes an explanation of the origins of the myth that antioxidants are “bad” to combine with chemotherapy. Technical in parts, but worth a read.

HH3 is available as a pdf download from here.

September 24, 2007

Herb-Drug , Nutrient-Drug Interactions textbook - coming this Winter!

Elsevier are publishing our long awaited (at least by us) textbook on herb-drug and nutrient drug interactions under the Mosby Medical imprint in December this year - 2007 (production deadlines being what they are it may run a little later).

This collaborative text offers a unique perspective on this controversial field, and hopefully will be useful to practitioners of mainstream and non-conventional modalities…

interactionscover.gif

more updates on final publication dates as info becomes available…

Summer Hiatus Ends - Back to blogging!

Well Since Henrietta Kress is blogging on her herb blog about my lack of herblogging since the summer - what can I say except … its time to start again.

Watch this space!