Nine Proven “Natural” Remedies They Did Not Test

[McCamy Taylor]

Natural remedies don’t work. They know this, because some scientists selected a handful of herbs and tested them. If a few plants do not have an appreciable effect, then no plants have an appreciable effect. That is how the story goes.

But there is some back story. The researchers deliberately excluded remedies which have been proven effective---some of them in this country---such as the ones described below. Because, hey, you can not make a blanket pharmaceutical industry pleasing statement like “natural remedies do not work” if you test effective treatments.

Exhibit One: Red Yeast Rice Lowers Your Cholesterol

Ever wonder where Big Pharm gets the drugs that they sell to us for several dollars a pill? Sometimes they stick a patent on an herbal remedy. Case in point, the ancient Chinese medicine called Red Yeast Rice or Monascus purpureus .The active ingredient in this natural medicine is a chemical identical to Merck’s cholesterol lowering drug Mevacor, the prototype of all the “statins”. Since drug companies make knock offs of their competitors best selling meds by altering the parent compound slightly (that is how we got the Frankenstein monster of the drug class, Baycol), all statins are really just Red Yeast Rice in a pill with a hefty price tag attached.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/red-yeast-rice/NS_patient-redyeast

In the ultimate ironic twist, Merck filed a lawsuit to ban the importation and sale of Red Yeast Rice in the U.S., on the grounds that it owned the patent to the natural chemical found in the Chinese remedy.

Fortunately, there may be a simple solution to this dilemma: give red yeast rice a chance. Red yeast rice is a condiment that has been used in China with apparent safety for more than 1,000 years. It is made by fermenting white rice with a strain of red yeast. Red yeast rice naturally contains modest amounts of lovastatin, the same compound that Merck & Co. patented as Mevacor, one of the first statin drugs to reach the market. Red yeast rice also contains 8 other compounds that inhibit hydroxymethylglutaryl CoA reductase (HMG CoA reductase), an action identical to that of lovastatin and the other statin drugs. In a double-blind trial, supplementation with 2.4 g/day of red yeast rice for 8 weeks lowered the mean LDL cholesterol concentration by 22.3% in patients with hypercholesterolemia. Because its mechanism of action appears to be similar to that of statins, it is likely that red yeast rice would have similar clinical benefits, as well.
For a brief period of time several years ago, a company called Pharmanex was marketing red yeast rice as a cholesterol-lowering agent. Merck & Co. filed a lawsuit, however, claiming that Pharmanex was violating Merck's patent on lovastatin. Although a judge ruled initially in favor of Pharmanex (indicating a belief that God owns the patent on natural substances), the ruling was later overturned, and the importation of red yeast rice from China was banned. By squelching red yeast rice, Merck & Co. forfeited any right to pretend that it cares about anything other than its own bottom line.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_247-248/ai_113807036/

I guess the lawsuit must be the reason that the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicines did not include Red Yeast Rice in its recent study of herbal remedies.

Exhibit Number Two: Foxglove Strengthens Your Heart

This site describes how an 18th century physician discovered that an old herbal remedy containing foxglove was useful for “dropsy”, which we now call congestive heart failure. Foxglove contains digoxin and other active compounds which aid the heart. Eventually the active ingredients were purified. Unlike Red Yeast Rice, no drug company attached their patent to these gifts of nature.

http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Digitalis/index.html

Exhibit Three: Willow Bark for Headache and Fever

Better known as aspirin in its modern, purified form, an extract from the bark of willows has been used for millennia to fight fever, pain and inflammation. You can read about the scientists who extracted the active ingredient from the plant and how they converted it into its modern form over one hundred years ago. Aspirin is still a powerful, important medication, because of its ability to prevent heart attacks (although the drug companies are trying like mad to convince folks that their newer, more expensive anti-clotting pills are superior).

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blaspirin.htm

Exhibit Four: Valerian Instead of Valium

Before the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine dismissed Valerian as not having been adequately studied

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/valerian/

It was an approved drug in the U.S. for over 100 years.

It’s widely used and approved in Europe as a mild hypnotic to induce sleep and relieve anxiety. More than 5 million units of valerian are sold in Germany and about 10 million in France every year. In the United Kingdom, valerian is also a popular and government-approved sleep aid. It is also approved in Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy as an over-the-counter medication for insomnia.
The herb valerian tranquilizes safely and gently without a risk of addiction, and is widely used and approved in other countries as an alternative. There’s evidence that is works to calm you down, tame the brain,. Reduce anxiety, induce sleep, relieve stress, and even relax muscles without a morning hangover or permanent harm.

http://www.mindpub.com/altern08.htm

Exhibit Five: Poppies for Pain

Do I even have to discuss this one? We still have not improved upon nature when it comes to pain relief.

The six opium alkaloids which occur naturally in the largest amounts are morphine, narcotine, codeine, thebaine, papaverine and narceine. Of these, three are phenanthrene alkaloids and are under international control: these are morphine, codeine, and thebaine. They are all three used in the drug industry, thebaine usually for conversion into some derivative which is more useful medically. Of the other three, not under international control, narcotine and narceine have scarcely any medical or other uses. Consequently, the four economically significant alkaloids of opium are morphine, codeine, thebaine and papaverine.
About twenty other alkaloids exist in opium but they have little or no significance medically or economically up to the present time. A number of other "opium alkaloids" are commercial products and are used medically, but•they are not obtained directly from opium, but by conversion of morphine, codeine and thebaine.
The alkaloids of the poppy plant are the same as those of opium. The relative proportions of the different alkaloids vary greatly, however, in different kinds of opium and certainly also in different varieties of the poppy. All varieties, however, belong to one species of poppy, Papaver somniferum.

http://www.poppies.org/news/99502043380992.shtml

Exhibit Six: Cannabis for Your Tummy

Everyone knows how effective cannabis aka marijuana is for easing nausea and improving appetite. Therefore, I get a chuckle out of articles like this one which boast that certain cannabis derivatives provide the same therapeutic effect without the “high”. We have to pay a drug company a bunch of money to get a gimped version of a very old remedy?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/feb/18/health.healthandwellbeing

Here is a link about the use of cannabis by medical practitioners starting in ancient times.
Note that the American medical establishment was quite taken with the natural remedy during the 19th century.

http://www.maps.org/mmj/grinspoon_history_cannabis_medicine.pdf

Everyone knows that medical marijuana works. And most folks want it available in case they need it.

Medical marijuana is one of the most widely supported issues in drug policy reform. Numerous published studies suggest that marijuana has medical value in treating patients with serious illnesses such as AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and chronic pain. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, in the most comprehensive study of medical marijuana's efficacy to date, concluded, "Nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety . . . all can be mitigated by marijuana." Allowing patients legal access to medical marijuana has been discussed by numerous organizations, including the AIDS Action Council, American Bar Association, American Public Health Association, California Medical Association, National Association of Attorneys General, and several state nurses associations.
Public opinion is also in favor of ending the prohibition of medical marijuana. According to a 1999 Gallup poll, 73% of Americans are in favor of "making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering." In a 2004 poll commissioned by AARP, 72% of Americans ages 45 and older thought marijuana should be legal for medicinal purposes if recommended by a doctor. Also, since 1996, voters in eight states plus the District of Columbia have passed favorable medical marijuana ballot initiatives.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/medical/

If a drug company could find a way to stick a patent on it and sell it for five dollars a capsule, it would probably be the new Xanax.

Exhibit Seven : Ma Huang For Your Lungs

Here is another natural remedy that we would be seeing on television if a drug company could patent it. The source of ephedrine, long used by asthmatics to control wheezing, this herb also decreases the appetite and has a stimulant effect. Yes, it is dangerous if you misuse it. So is your albuterol asthma inhaler. No medicine, herbal or patent should be taken lightly.

Read about how the herb was banned in the U.S. here.

http://www.healthcentral.com/peoplespharmacy/408/20658.html

Exhibit Eight : Lycopenes From Tomatoes For Your Heart

For years the FDA has been dismissing the effects of Lycopenes, the chemical derived from tomato peels among others sources. All that may change, now that a drug company has chemically altered the active ingredient and stuck a patent on it.

http://www.nutraceuticalsworld.com/news/2009/06/04/Lycopene%20Supplement%20Hyped%20as%20Breakthrough%20in%20Heart%20Health

Exhibit Nine: Vit D. Can Merck Put a Patent on Sunlight?

Vit. D. keeps your heart healthy, your bones strong and may fight cancer too.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/172661

Too bad so many of us live in polluted cities where our kids can not play outdoors. Oh well, the drug companies can sell us a pill to replace what nature would have given us for free.

To sum it all up, no matter how effective a natural remedy is, if some drug company can not patent it and make a fortune off of it, you will hear our FDA dismiss it, condemn it and maybe even ban it. Because their good buddies in the pharmaceutical industry do not like competition.

[imdjh]

1. Marinol is a waste of pot. nt

[Fly by night]

48. Marinol is synthetic THC. No cannabis plant died to manufacture it. (Unfortunately)

That is probably why Marinol has been shown to be less effective for controlling nausea than whole-plant cannabis in a number of studies conducted both in this country and abroad. There are at least 60 other bioactive substances in whole-plant cannabis that can provide beneficial effects, including mediating the dysphoric effects of THC for naive users.

BTW, the references for medical cannabis in this OP are seriously out-of-date. There are now 14 states which allow mmj use, not eight.

Here is an excellent (and more recent) reference that summarizes some of the medical research over the past nine years on the beneficial uses of medical cannabis. We are distributing it to all Tennessee legislators before they recess, in hopes that they will seriously consider re-establishing our state's mmj program when they return.

"Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids: A Review of the Recent Scientific Literaure: 2000-2009" http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7002

[Fly by night]

50. Here's another useful (and more up-to-date) link about the chemotherapeutic properties of cannabis.

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6814

Cannabinoids As Cancer Hope

by Paul Armentano
Senior Policy Analyst
NORML | NORML Foundation

“Cannabinoids possesses anticancer activity possibly represent a new class of anti-cancer drugs that retard cancer growth, inhibit angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels) and the metastatic spreading of cancer cells." So concludes a comprehensive review published in the October 2005 issue of the scientific journal Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry.

Not familiar with the emerging body of research touting cannabis' ability to stave the spread of certain types of cancers? You're not alone.

For over 30 years, US politicians and bureaucrats have systematically turned a blind eye to scientific research indicating that marijuana may play a role in cancer prevention -- a finding that was first documented in 1974. That year, a research team at the Medical College of Virginia (acting at the behest of the federal government) discovered that cannabis inhibited malignant tumor cell growth in culture and in mice. According to the study's results, reported nationally in an Aug. 18, 1974, Washington Post newspaper feature, administration of marijuana's primary cannabinoid THC, "slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."

Despite these favorable preclinical findings, US government officials dismissed the study (which was eventually published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 1975), and refused to fund any follow-up research until conducting a similar –- though secret –- clinical trial in the mid-1990s. That study, conducted by the US National Toxicology Program to the tune of $2 million concluded that mice and rats administered high doses of THC over long periods experienced greater protection against malignant tumors than untreated controls.

Rather than publicize their findings, government researchers once again shelved the results, which only came to light after a draft copy of its findings were leaked in 1997 to a medical journal, which in turn forwarded the story to the national media.

Nevertheless, in the decade since the completion of the National Toxicology trial, the U.S. government has yet to encourage or fund additional, follow up studies examining the cannabinoids' potential to protect against the spread cancerous tumors.

Fortunately, scientists overseas have generously picked up where US researchers so abruptly left off. In 1998, a research team at Madrid's Complutense University discovered that THC can selectively induce apoptosis (program cell death) in brain tumor cells without negatively impacting the surrounding healthy cells. Then in 2000, they reported in the journal Nature Medicine that injections of synthetic THC eradicated malignant gliomas (brain tumors) in one-third of treated rats, and prolonged life in another third by six weeks.

In 2003, researchers at the University of Milan in Naples, Italy, reported that non-psychoactive compounds in marijuana inhibited the growth of glioma cells in a dose dependent manner and selectively targeted and killed malignant cancer cells.

The following year, researchers reported in the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research that marijuana's constituents inhibited the spread of brain cancer in human tumor biopsies. In a related development, a research team from the University of South Florida further noted that THC can also selectively inhibit the activation and replication of gamma herpes viruses. The viruses, which can lie dormant for years within white blood cells before becoming active and spreading to other cells, are thought to increase one's chances of developing cancers such as Karposis Sarcoma, Burkitts lymphoma, and Hodgkins disease.

More recently, investigators published pre-clinical findings demonstrating that cannabinoids may play a role in inhibiting cell growth of colectoral cancer, skin carcinoma, breast cancer, and prostate cancer, among other conditions. When investigators compared the efficacy of natural cannabinoids to that of a synthetic agonist, THC proved far more beneficial – selectively decreasing the proliferation of malignant cells and inducing apoptosis more rapidly than its synthetic alternative while simultaneously leaving healthy cells unscathed.

Nevertheless, US politicians have been little swayed by these results, and remain steadfastly opposed to the notion of sponsoring – or even acknowledging – this growing body clinical research, preferring instead to promote the unfounded notion that cannabis use causes cancer. Until this bias changes, expect the bulk of research investigating the use of cannabinoids as anticancer agents to remain overseas and, regrettably, overlooked in the public discourse.

[imdjh]

51. Oh, you're suppose to have nausea. That might explain why I found it useless.

I was just taking it to see what it was like. Same with SOMA- I have no idea why that even requires a prescription.

[Ian David]

2. They also didn't test medicine made from albino children.

Burundi Albino Murder Trial Begins

The trial of 11 people charged with specifically targeting and murdering dozens of Albinos in Burundi, for the purpose of smuggling and selling the body parts for witchcraft in Tanzania, began today with 11 not guilty pleas. According to AFP:

Prosecutor Nicodemus Gahimbare told the court that eight of the suspects embarked on a killing and mutilation spree of albinos on September 8 with the murder of a little girl.


Three others are charged with attempted murder. They all pleaded not guilty. At the latest, a ruling is expected by Wednesday, the prosecutor said. If convicted, the 11 men, among them a government soldier, face life terms.

Albinos in Burundi and Tanzania have long lived with the threat from gangs such as the one on trial, but the governments in those states are now trying to crack down. According to the BBC:

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/19/burundi-albino-murder-tri_n_205230.html

[uppityperson]

3. Are you advocating people treat themselves with these rather than with pharmaceuticals?

If you are, you are practicing medicine without a license.

If you are, and someone chooses to follow your instruction, especially with foxglove, please keep a telephone handy to call 911.

And you post "Exhibit Number Two: Foxglove Strengthens Your Heart

This site describes how an 18th century physician discovered that an old herbal remedy containing foxglove was useful for “dropsy”, which we now call congestive heart failure. Foxglove contains digoxin and other active compounds which aid the heart. Eventually the active ingredients were purified. Unlike Red Yeast Rice, no drug company attached their patent to these gifts of nature."

This seems to be countering your assertion that this wasn't tested. They tested it and purified the ingredients to the one that worked. So, how can you say it wasn't tested?

[Big Blue Marble]

5. By your definition,

aren't you practicing medicine without a licence every time
you take an aspirin or any over the counter medicine?

[uppityperson]

8. Edited to clarify above. Telling others what to do is what I meant.

[Hanse]

19. Aspirin comes with simple, easy to understand instructions.

Aspirin comes in precisely measured doses.

Aspirin has been thoroughly studied.

And aspirin has been determined to be safe enough that it won't harm the patient, even if they're so stupid they fuck up the simple instructions.

Intentional overdoses not withstanding.

[wolfgangmo]

89. aspirin causes stomach hemorrhages with every dose.

GRAS is not necessarily safe depending on the patient and situation.

Leave medicine to the MD's please.

[uppityperson]

93. proof of that assertion? No, it doesn't.

[notadmblnd]

145. I don't know if it causes bleeding every time you take it....

however, a friend of mine was taking aspirin every single day (don't know how much) for years. He collapsed at one of the Detroit Lions games one afternoon. He was hemorrhaging internally. Later on after being hospitalized and diagnosed, we were told that the aspirin was the cause.

[uppityperson]

173. There is a big difference between "aspirin causes stomach hemorrhages with every dose" and "taking

aspirin every single day (we don't know how much) for years".

Even overdosing on water can be harmful

[notadmblnd]

179. I agree, there's potential for abuse in anything.

Pepsi, Coke, cigarettes, marijuana, high fat food, processed food, driving fast cars, drinking and driving, herbal remedies......

[uppityperson]

182. water. sun. foxglove....

[Hanse]

139. Are you making that up? Or plagiarising somebody who made that up?

Because anybody who's ever had aspirin, and that's just about everybody, knows it's bullshit.

Now, sure, acetylsalicylic can cause GI problems. But less so than salicylic acid, and not with every single dose, you silly billy.

"GRAS is not necessarily safe"

Well no, hence the "GR."

Duh.

[truedelphi]

96. good come back. Thanks Blue Marble n/t

[Deep13]

121. but still wrong. nt

[truedelphi]

131. How so? Ho wmany times have you been at a party and someone is inebriated, and someone

Else says "Make a pot of coffee."

Pound for pound coffee is one of the most effective drugs out there. But since many folks in this society would de in bed till noon to catch up on all the friggin sleep they have been deprived, the Powers that Be know better than to eliminate it.

Or chicken soup. There have been various medical journals over the last fifteen eyars pointing out the specifics inside chicken soup that help you with a bad cold or flu. How many times do family members recommend chicken soup for each other?

People constantly offer each other tips about little herbal secrets they have gleaned. And if you added up every injury done to the human body from these "tips" you would probably still find that the doctor's erroneous over medications of the patients with prescription medicine have hurt more people than these tips.

[Hanse]

151. Uh, coffee doesn't actually make people sober.

Plenty of people have wrapped their cars around trees, or pedestrians, believing that myth that coffee clears up alcohol.

And while chicken soup makes people feel better, it doesn't actually cure anything.

[truedelphi]

166. Agreed. Coffee doesn't make people sober.

But it is on the market for its stimulant properties. And is a hard addiciton to quit.

And since peopel think that it sobers up drunkedness, they do suggest it to one another for that purpose.

[Deep13]

120. No. Aspirin is specifically an OTC medication and the user is not...

...advising anyone else. When I worked at a drug store in college, people would ask me which OTC remedy to use. I always referred them to the pharmacist saying I was not qualified to advise them.

[uppityperson]

126. thank you. eom

[Crunchy Frog]

7. Unless I'm mistaken, the above poster is a medical doctor. n/t

[uppityperson]

9. OP?

[Crunchy Frog]

14. Yeah. n/t

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LaurenG]

40. Why, and why should we take your word for it?

:eyes:

[Hanse]

77. Well, I am a Natural Products and Medicinal Chemist.

But please, don't take my word for it.

You can go ahead and study pharmaceutical science yourself. There's nothing magical about it.

[Matariki]

65. What? Do you work for some pharma company?

Your post is uncalled for.

[Name removed]

78. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Raster]

127. Please, do tell. Instead of hurling accusations, please, enlighten us all.

Please show point-by-point the OP's ignorance "...of even basic pharmaceutical science." And while your at it, please explain why the OP should not be practicing medicine.

And before you sling some shitty 9/11 insult my way, NO, I do not believe the "official" 9/11 story.

And whatever did we do before you decided to join our merry little band, eh?

[Hanse]

135. Way ahead of you, Cochese.

Try reading the thread next time.

[Raster]

137. G. F. Y.

Have a nice day!

[eridani]

39. In the case of aspirin, that would be a total disaster

Good thing we can synthesize the active ingredient. Otherwise the demand for willow bark and root by six billion of us would make the genus Salix extinct within a month.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

47. But it would be *naturally* extinct.

You know, like nature! Nature good! Human bad! Bad chemicals! Also, I ONLY USE ORGANIC ASPIRIN. ORGANIC. FROM NATURE.

[wolfgangmo]

88. whoop you slipped on a syllogism

He is not practicing medicine without a license UNLESS he is actually seeing the people he is giving advice to as patients.

And I think he was referring to the fact that foxglove has not be run through a comparative study by HIH office of CAM.

[Voice for Peace]

101. The pharmaceutical companies are using human beings as guinea pigs

for profit. Do I believe they care about people's health? Nope.

[uppityperson]

128. people complain about medicines being held up by testing, others complain they aren't tested before

being released to the public.

You do know that prescribed medicines are held to standards that supplements aren't, don't you?

[Voice for Peace]

141. I trust the people making the supplements I use more than I trust the pharmaceutical companies

or the USDA. I know I'm cynical. I grew up next to a Pfizer plant and it polluted my childhood.

[Hanse]

154. LOL

[defendandprotect]

149. What a joke? Are you advocating that synthetic medicine is less dangerous???

Everyone needs to be educated as to health care --

and the place to begin is to understand the TRUE harm and TRUE side effects

of this poison which the pharm companies put out.

Nor are these simple side effects . . .

[uppityperson]

169. Everything has side effects. Just because something is "natural" does not mean it is safe

[Quantess]

4. St John's Wort is a mild, yet effective, antidepressant.

As far as I know the only side effect is photosensitivity (meaning you'll need extra sunscreen).

[tomp]

54. st. john's wort may interact with other medications. be careful! nt

[madmom]

64. So does grapefruit, all medication interact on some level.

[defendandprotect]

150. Yes . . . because all of these natural foods health and keep healthy various parts of your body.....

grapefruit -- especially red grapefruit -- will lower your blood pressure.

Garlic will help level your blood pressure preventing up and down swings.

AND this isn't even ORGANIC FOOD we're talking about in the main.

Imagine how much better off we'd be had we not been poisoning our food system

by throwing petro-chemicals on all of our soil for decades?

Our food has been robbed of nutrition --

[Quantess]

109. It interacts badly with SSRIs.

[Quantess]

205. St Johns Wort reacts badly to SSRIs

I just wanted to make myself clear.

[mopinko]

60. st john's wort may lift a simple case of the blues. it does nothing for

clinical depression. suggesting that it does is irresponsible. a lot of people who are taking or who should be taking medication for clinical depression are afraid and reluctant to take it. this kind of crap adds to that whole stigmatizing ball of bullshit. go pick on someone less vulnerable, will ya?

[Dora]

73. St. John's Wort alleviated my clinical depression.

I've been down the Paxil and Zoloft road before. St. John's Wort works better for me, without the side effects.

Perhaps it didn't work for you, but no medication (whether natural or patented) is guaranteed to work on every individual the same way.

[Castleman]

105. St. John's Wort works perfectly for me!

Two years ago, I was taking Zoloft for depression, not being able to sleep well, my doc added Trazadone to my drugs, plus of course, I was taking Toprol for blood pressure, Zocor for high
cholesterol, and Tagamet for my stomach issues and acid reflux. All those drugs kept me a happy little zombie that had trouble even expressing my emotions, left me with a dramatically decreased libido and then several years of usage started to make my hair fall out. Decided to research and go natural on myself, and St. John's Wort took the depression down a notch, Valerian kept my mood in check, minus the other drugs, I slept better with no sleep aid needed, and a combination of garlic, hawthorne berries, and red yeast rice and a solid exercise program and better food choices got my cholesterol down to "healthy" levels. Blood pressure is normal, I sleep better, feel better, and my hair's back. I no longer have any stomach issues, and if I'm keyed up about something that might keep me up at night, a little melatonin does the trick. Except the AMA won't recognize that any of my stuff works because nobody owns patents on any of it.
Yep, they're all about money, just look at the battle chelation therapy has had over the last few decades. "No, let's cut your chest cavity open and splice some arteries and veins together instead of giving you a simple transfusion of EDTA to help restore your circulation! Besides, the EDTA won't make us a dime, on the other hand, your bypass surgeon will make 50 grand!"

[Quantess]

108. A simple suggestion for mildly depressed people to try St John's wort is not "stigmatization"

by any stretch of the imagination. And if someone finds that it isn't enough to alleviate their symptoms, then one hopes that they would get the professional help they need to overcome their depression.

I have taken prescribed antidepressants before, and at other times I have taken St Johns Wort when I'm only mildly depressed. I'm so terribly sorry you feel I'm "picking on" people with depression.

[HughMoran]

161. It helped my depression

If it weren't for the even worse than Prozac side effects, it would have been be a fine alternate for me.

[Name removed]

209. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HughMoran]

160. Yep, worked better than some of the prescriptions for me

It's not mild at all though, I would characterize it as being as strong as an of them in the correct dosage.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. I'd like to add one.

Garlic for earaches. Whenever my kids got ear infections when they were little, I'd steam a garlic clove, make a paste and stick in their ear, hold it in with a bit of cotton. In the morning I'd take out the cotton (the garlic would stick to it) and the earache would be gone. It worked every time and my kids swear by it.

[Oregone]

30. Allium has antibiotic characteristics

[pipi_k]

71. Also anti-viral and anti-fungal n/t

[pipi_k]

69. I swear by it for

the common cold and to prevent, or lessen the severity of, bronchitis.

Starting in 2002 and each winter thereafter, I became very ill with colds that progressed to bronchitis.

In 2006 I started taking crushed raw garlic starting in October and continuing until the next March.

I still got a head cold, but it was minor and lasted half the time it usually would. Better than that, it didn't turn to bronchitis. The only drawback to this is that the aroma is quite pungent and Mr Pip bitches about it all winter, but I tell him to deal with it... :7


Another natural remedy I personally found effective was soy supplements for hot flashes, and I was using Evening Primrose Oil for severe breast pain related to perimenopause.

Whether any of these natural remedies have any worth in the medical world is a moot point to me. They worked for me, and that made me happy.

:)


Edited to add:

I tried garlic after trying echinacea, which didn't work.

[bvar22]

81. Garlic!....for all that ails ya!

We grow lots of it.
The older we get, the more we use.

[defendandprotect]

152. LOVE IT . . .but would you believe that last weekend when I went to the shore . . .

I stopped at a long time outdoor local veggie market which is only open in season --

and in looking over what they had I picked up a package of garlic and noticed it was

"Made in China" --

Can anyone deny the insanity and suicidal nature of capitalism any longer?

Let's quit this sytem while we still have some water and plants left!!!

Even our large produce store at the shore -- Delicious Orchards -- has only had garlic

from Argentina since January!!

HELP!!!

[arikara]

174. Uggg... garlic from China

thats all they have in the store here too and I darned well won't buy it. I have a few dried out bits left over from last fall's small crop, I made sure to plant more for this year. Can't wait until its ready as we're pretty much garlic-less now.

[jmowreader]

100. It works for high blood pressure too

[kimmerspixelated]

113. Alright!

I think Garlic has generally been around long enough to where it is accepted as working wonders. I used to eat a garlic sandwich(yuck!), but it always cleared up the cold and congestion right away!

[MilesColtrane]

10. Warning for the casual reader.

Foxglove is poisonous.

It can kill you.

[pipi_k]

72. This was a point that a couple of friends just didn't seem to "get"

These particular friends are always trying whatever the latest Natural Foods/Medicine Guru is hawking.

their big thing...."Well, it's natural, so it must be better"

ummmm....no


too much of anything, natural or not, can often be dangerous, or even deadly.

I wouldn't ever take foxglove, but that's just me... ;)

[Hanse]

11. This is as much bullshit as the "moon causing menstruation" thread.

Because all of these things HAVE been tested by the scientific community.

Exhibit 1: Red yeast can lower cholesterol. That's because, at least come yeast, contain lovastatin. A drug found in Aspergillus before it was ever found in red yeast. And who found it? Scientists.

Exhibit 2: Digoxin. Are you kidding me? Because digoxin's been known by the medical and scientific communities since at least the 19th century. It's still used like any other drug. Or are you talking about self-medicating with foxglove? Because that's a good way to kill yourself.

Exhibit 3: Salicylic acid. Again, are you kidding me? Salicylic acid is a good COX-2 inhibitor, it's also a good way to eat an ulcer through your stomach. Acetylsalicylic acid is a much better improvement on willow bark, and scientists figured that out back in 1800 and something. You might remember the name. Bayer.

Exhibit 4: Valerian root. Valerian root has been studied for decades, the effectives of its various constituents are known and it's just not a particularly good sleep aid. It's no substitute whatsoever for valium, and such a comparison is like comparing aspirin to morphine.

Exhibit 5: opiates. Say what? Opiates haven't been tested by science? Excuse me, but what the fuck are you talking about?

Exhibit 6: THC. The scientific and medical community approved THC for medical use nearly almost 30 years ago now.

Exhibit 7: If something in Ma Huang had any beneficial effect any pharma company WOULD be able to patent it under a novel use patent.

Exhibit 8: Somebody patenting a lycopene derivative sort of disproves your point in Exhibit 7, doesn't it? Furthermore, lycopene doesn't actually cure anything. And moreover, pharma companies aren't actually suppressing lycopene research or tomatoes, now are they?

Exhibit 9: Vitamin D? Scientists don't research vitamin D? Do you realize fact that it's called a vitamin and D mean that scientists have studied it?

[uppityperson]

13. Thank you. I am confused by what the OP seems to be saying also.Would like clarification

[Hanse]

21. The OP is continuing a discussion of this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5822227

Which is about how science proved a bunch of alternative meds don't work, and some scientifically illiterate conspiracy theorists allege a coverup.

[uppityperson]

24. I wonder why started a new thread to continue a discussion of an already existing one

That other thread makes this OP make a bit more sense, thank you for clarifying this, who the "they" OP talks about, who "they" is.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

34. This explains why the DU Foxglove self-medication enthusiasts group is so small...

...and getting smaller.

[OKNancy]

45. Thank YOU!! n/t

[woo me with science]

46. Sad that this post is even needed. Thanks. nt

[LostinVA]

62. Exactly -- the OP is a strawman

[Th1onein]

84. I disagree with you.

There is a natural compound, called uridine triphosphate. Instead of using UTP twenty years ago, to save the lives of children with cystic fibrosis, the pharma instead spent five years creating a synthetic form of it, so that they could market it. Then fifteen more years, getting it to market. It's still in trials, in fact. Can you imagine how many lives would have been saved if they had used the natural product? But, of course, they couldn't make money on that.

It's all about the money, honey. And they didn't need a big conspiracy to do it. The system is set up for just exactly these kinds of things to happen. The system is set up to favor big pharma.

[uppityperson]

90. Where is this found in nature? Wouldn't they have to have done trials even is "natural form" was use

quick googling shows me little. Have you more info as I am interested. Had a friend die recently of adult pulmonrary fibrosis, cf is nasty

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5968913.html

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00004705

[Hanse]

138. UTP is a primary metabolite found in every living human being.

It's the triphosphate of uridine, the RNA nucleotide.

And like all of the examples from the OP, a perfect example that disproves the whole argument.

1. There are patents for UTP, in these cases it's a formulation patent. You can't just walk up to a UTP bush and eat UTP berries, or brew UTP tea. You have to formulate in an inhaler, and being able to do so is an important, novel invention and worth a patent.

2. Even if UTP weren't patentable, there are plenty of drug companies turning profits on generic drugs.

3. UTP isn't a herbal remedy. The ancient Chinese didn't use powdered UTP as an aphrodisiac. UTP was found by scientists, and found to have activity for CF patients by scientists.

4. UTP isn't a very good drug because it isn't very stable. And stability is important because the lungs of CF patients are coated with a thick biofilm muck, and drugs have to penetrate that. A synthetic analogue, uridine tetraphosphate, is far more stable than UTP, and last I heard it was in Phase II trials.

So if that works as planned, it'll be just one more case where patients can thanks chemists instead of mystics.

[Th1onein]

156. The synthetic form of the compound is called denufosol

It's in trials right now for CF patients. If you google it, though, you can read it's history.

My son died of cystic fibrosis almost eleven years ago. I began studying it about three years before he died, and after he died, I could not stop. I am a pretty good little scientist, even if I have no formal education in the field. But I've written a couple of papers, one which I sent out to a journal, and was published. This work is now being used in the EU for the creation of a drug to treat CF. And, of course, I have a patent, here in the US, on another drug, similar to this one.

Having been working in this field for about fourteen years, I know, firsthand, how the cards are stacked against anyone NOT in the pharma industry. No matter what answers you might have, if you can't get a compound out that's synthetic, and therefore patentable for 20 years, you're not going to get it to the people who need it. Of course, the EU has socialized medicine, so they move much faster on these things than in the US.

This is another good reason for socialized medicine in this country.

[uppityperson]

168. I agree wtih a lot of what you write. But what is the natural form, as you had said?

"There is a natural compound, called uridine triphosphate. Instead of using UTP twenty years ago, to save the lives of children with cystic fibrosis, the pharma instead spent five years creating a synthetic form of it, so that they could market it. Then fifteen more years, getting it to market. It's still in trials, in fact. Can you imagine how many lives would have been saved if they had used the natural product? But, of course, they couldn't make money on that."

What is the natural form that they aren't using? Or do you mean the whole process of creation, trials, etc?

Back when I first started nursing I had a young hemophiliac for a patient. I did a bunch of research into hemophilia, and found a bunch on Factor 8, including the fact that one company found a fast and cheap way to make it. They were bought out by a bigger company who sold their product for much more.

Between that and the long involved process to produce a drug for use, a lot of things are never seen.

Edited to add that I forgot am important part. I am sorry about your son and CF really sucks. I am interested in reading what you have on treatments, etc. PM is ok, would send you my private email even.

[Th1onein]

175. Uridine triphosphate. My work is indexed on the NIH website/

PubMed. I am one of the scientists who published the work on the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein and it's transport of glutathione adducts of thiocyanate. It's called, "A New Model of Cystic Fibrosis Pathology: Lack of transport of thiocyanate and it's glutathione adducts."

I also have a non-profit foundation that kind of evolved around my work--Share International Research Foundation. The website, sharktank.org posts a lot of my work, and most of the non-published stuff that I never sent to journals for publication.

Most natural products are never even tested, and if they are, they try to create them synthetically so that they can make a profit from them. It's really a hell of a waste of human life.

[uppityperson]

177. Thanks for the info, will look it up since am interested.

So it is not possible to use as medicine in it's natural form, since it is in us all? I think you meant the whole process takes so long and is so costly. But "Most natural products are never even tested, and if they are, they try to create them synthetically so that they can make a profit from them" leads me to think you are saying that UTP has a natural form that could be tested.

As digitalis is in foxglove, is UTP in something like that? Something that is "never even tested'?

[Th1onein]

180. Yes. Instead of testing UTP, and saving lives, they spent 5 years

creating a synthetic form of it. It's one hell of a waste of human life.

[uppityperson]

181. Where would they get the form to test it if not synthetic?

what form would they have tested, rather than spending 5 yrs creating a synthetic form?

Digitalis is found in foxglove. Where is the UTP found that they could have tested it?

[Th1onein]

183. UPT is ubiquitous, across species. You can buy it from a chemical company.

It is synthesized, of course. But, UTP is not patentable, because it is a natural product, and even if it were not, it's been around for more than 20 years.

[uppityperson]

188. I am confused. You say that instead of testing it, they spent 5 yrs developing

synthetic. ALL I am trying to figure out is WHAT would they have tested if they didn't have the synthetic?

I understand it is ubiquitous, the small quick research I did today showed me that. I am trying to figure out, though, WHAT they would have tested, rather than the synthetic?

[Th1onein]

192. They created a synthetic NEW form of it.

Probably, I didn't present it right, in my first post on it. They created a synthetic that was a NEW form of UTP, so that they could patent it.

[uppityperson]

194. OK, so what, where, would they have gotten the old form to test?

slow conversation here, ah well. I understand that they made a synthetic form so they could patent it (rather like aspirin used to be). But what was the old form, from what source, could they have tested rather than making a synthetic form?

For example, they could test digitalis, and they make a synthetic to market.

I think you are saying that there is a chemical in all of us that did something, then they made a slightly different form to patent? Was there a source of the original that they could have tested?

[Why Syzygy]

198. A living cell?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uridine_triphosphate

[Th1onein]

199. There was already a synthetic form of it that they could buy.

And test. They just could not patent it.

[uppityperson]

201. OK, that makes sense. Was trying to figure out if they could test a plant, animal, person, etc

So there was a form they could test, probably cheaply and fairly easily available, but they needed to make a slightly changed form so they could patent it. Rather like all those different types of cold medicine on the shelf at the store are all slightly different and patented so others can't copy it.

Except this is more of a unique thing with real life saving properties.

Thank you for being patient with me with a slow conversation. Edited to add that I have always respected you and what I have seen you writing. Thank you again

[Th1onein]

202. Thank you, uppityperson.

Glad that I could help you to understand. The feeling is mutual.

[Why Syzygy]

190. Hey!

I've been avoiding this thread. Where are you hanging out now days? :hi:

[Th1onein]

193. Why are you avoiding the thread?

I've been busy defending myself for being pro-life. Egads.

[Why Syzygy]

196. Oh.

I've seen enough tedious rants for awhile. (I'm on your side here.)

I meant, where are you parked?

[Th1onein]

197. Oh, I'm in Canton, OH now.

About to journey to New Philadelphia and then to Peoria, IL.

[Why Syzygy]

200. I'm still foot loose.

Give me a shout when you head back down here. If you get a chance.

[Th1onein]

203. Okay. I'll do that.

Our business is one of the few that is skyrocketing in the recession. I'm wondering if I will ever make it home again. And, who knows? I might be going to France. There's a pharma that's asked me to team up with them for work on a drug. I'm supposed to be an expert on it. I am a most reluctant scientist, though, and have no idea what I might be getting myself into. Guess I have to get a passport.

[kimmerspixelated]

114. DING! DING! DING!

[mainer]

68. Exactly. Many pharmaceutical drugs are based on natural substances.

Quinine. Vincristine. Even good old Botox. Science has made use of these for decades.

[SidDithers]

70. +1...

thanks for providing real information.

The woo is strong on DU today.

Sid

[trotsky]

82. Brilliant response.

Way to combat the bullshit.

[uppityperson]

12. Living in the woods, being a hippy, back when in my 20's, had many books on

herbal remedies, and what grew around where I lived. Went out one day and gathered some "miner's lettuce" for a salad, then decided that I wasn't comfortable eating something that I'd ID'd out of a book, so threw it out. Later what grew from that plant was foxglove.

Many medicines have been taken from plants, from herbology. Studies were done, active components synthesized. Sometimes with good result, sometimes not so good. I find it easier and safer to take 2 aspirin than make willowbark tea. I'd also rather take aspirin than make my own opium for pain.

I don't understand what you mean when you write "The researchers deliberately excluded remedies which have been proven effective---some of them in this country---such as the ones described below. Because, hey, you can not make a blanket pharmaceutical industry pleasing statement like “natural remedies do not work” if you test effective treatments."

Some natural remedies do work, and many are tested.

I am confused, if you would explain more of what you mean, I'd appreciate it. And not snark.

[juno jones]

15. K&R!

I too thought the study was woefully limited in the herbs chosen.

Many were not the most effective for treating the ailments chosen, such as cohosh for menopause, there are many herbal singles that are safer and have a better track record of effectivness such as ladie's mantle. Ladie's Mantle is widely used in Europe. In Germany, a study found that it reduced the need for hysterectomy.

Yeah, and funny, they left out cannabis, and all those opiates, ephedra (once known as 'mormon tea' because mormons got around their caffiene prohibitions with a brew made of it.


But please stay away from the foxglove (digitalis) dosage is very important with that one, poisonings occur easily.

[aquart]

22. Ephedra's more dangerous than you think.

I was drinking a lot of ephedra tea during one bad hay fever season, finally figured out it was giving me mini panic attacks. You do NOT want to be taking that and coffee and tea and all your other stimulants.

[juno jones]

28. Perhaps you have a sensitivity to it.

It works fine for me. Although I just drop a couple of ephedra (ma-huang) twigs into a pot of lemonbalm/mint tea from time to time when I need it. I don't do any true ephedra-based suppement or tea.

[Oregone]

32. As I recall, those two compounds work synergistically

(caffeine and ephedra). You shouldn't casually mess with doses (via teas/coffee) with those compounds. Its simply not controlled

[aquart]

44. That's what my body told me.

And was quite nasty about it.

[eShirl]

83. bodybuilders used ephedrine, caffeine, and aspirin (called an ECA Stack)

when they wanted to "cut" (lose subcutaneous fat quickly) in preparation for a bodybuilding contest
(in conjunction, of course, with specific pre-contest diet and exercise)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECA_stack
The effects of the ECA stack in weight loss are primarily due to the ephedrine component. Ephedrine acts both as a beta agonist and stimulates the release of norepinephrine. Increased circulating norepinephrine in the body then acts on white adipose tissue by increasing cAMP levels. This causes a thermogenic effect, raising body temperature and increasing the user's metabolism in conjunction with the rest of the stack.

However, the body's negative feedback system then activates to normalize the metabolism. This is done via the production of phosphodiesterase inside the cells, and prostaglandins outside the cell, which both lower cAMP levels within the cell.

Caffeine inhibits the production of phosphodiesterase inside the cell and therefore slows cAMP breakdown. It also binds with and competitively inhibits adenosine receptors in the brain, triggering the release of epinephrine and increasing cAMP levels further.

Aspirin inhibits prostaglandin production outside of the cells, which, in conjunction with caffeine, greatly prolongs the thermogenic effects and increased metabolism by sustaining elevated cAMP levels.<1>

[truedelphi]

86. Thank you for pointing that out. n/t

[global1]

16. If You'd Like To Do More Research In This Area - Check Out This Link......

http://www.phcog.org/links.html

What you are talking about is Pharmacognosy.

Here is its definition:

Pharmacognosy is the study of medicines derived from natural sources. The American Society of Pharmacognosy<1> defines pharmacognosy as "the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical and biological properties of drugs, drug substances or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources."

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

18. That's odd because my NP prescribed Tri-Cor and told me to also take Red Rice Yeast Extract.

Thanks for telling me it doesn't work.

[deek]

20. I believe Red Yeast Rice Extract can not contain the active ingredient anymore

The supplements sold now do nothing.

Thanks, big pharma.

[MADem]

23. They also found that tomatoes can help prevent sunburn (if you eat them!)

I have to wonder how MUCH of some of the herbs they used, too. For example, cinammon is supposed to be helpful to people with diabetes--but it's not helpful if you just use a tiny amount.

It's so easy to "game the results." I just don't trust "Big Pharma" or anyone remotely associated with them to fairly vet herbs.

[Silent3]

25. So everything "natural" is wonderful?

Some natural remedies work for some conditions.

Some synthetic remedies work for some conditions.

Some natural remedies don't work.

The people who say "X is good for treating Y" should be responsible for providing the evidence and testing to support the claim, regardless of whether or not X is natural.

"Natural = good, artificial = bad" is a ridiculously simplistic way to look at the world. Consider the choice between swallowing some synthetic vitamin C and a clump of all-natural poison ivy and get back to me.

[Posteritatis]

26. Don't forget that tasty natural mercury

For when colloidal silver just isn't ridiculous enough. ;)

(Of course, I question the validity of a natural/unnatural dichotomy at all, so I'm probably an outlier in this discussion as far as viewpoints go.)

[progressoid]

191. I'm thinking of trying a little arsenic for my next cold.

That's all natural right? :shrug:

[Mimosa]

27. Some natural remedies are allergens, sad to say

Silent3 I agree with you. My closest pal is an openminded MD.


My DH tried the red rice yeast. It made him itch like crazy. Too bad he couldn't take it. I wish i could take St. John's Wort. It would work fine for me if it didn't cause a side effect which is like a big permanent neck 'crick'. I'm sure it works for some. Dong Quai and guarana can make some people -including me- get arythmia.

[GoCubsGo]

53. That brings up another problem with "natural remedies"

They are not standardized if produced here. There is no guarantee that you will be getting the dosage on the label, because these remedies are not regulated in the U.S. You might be getting more or less than what is stated. Too much could make you itch, or worse. Not enough, and it doesn't work. A rule of thumb I use is to look for products produced in Germany, or from a German company. These remedies are standardized, and they tend to be those herbs that have been studied thoroughly in Germany. St. John's Wort and Black Cohosh (e.g. Remifemin) are the two big ones that come to mind.

[Oregone]

29. Is Fish Oil considered among "natural alternative health remedies"?

Because its damn effective a quite a few things

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

31. This is probably the stupidest fucking post I have ever read on this site.

And in that pantheon I include all the lunatic posts about how George W. Bush caused the Boxing Day tsunami with nuclear weapons. At least that idiocy was harmless.

[uppityperson]

74. ?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5829895&mesg_id=5829895

[SpookyCat]

111. (chuckle...)

:hi:


Too busy today, missed some fun I see...LOL

[tammywammy]

33. I give a thumbs up to valerian

Always helps me to sleep.

[truedelphi]

35. Did you write this up yourself?

You deserve a MacArthur foundation grant of some kind for it.

I get so sick of all the Big Pharma Hype. Starting with how they diss medical marijuana ("It has never been used for any type of effective treatment" ignoring the fact that it was listed in Chinese medical manuals some 5,000 years ago, and that BigPharma itself places articles in various Medical Journals about diffferent cannibinoids and their positive effects on one medical condition or another.)

Anyway thanks for offering this up publicly. Greatly appreciate it.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truedelphi]

37. What? Please read the artricle again.

From foxglove we get digitalis - and you don't have to wander around in the woods looking at purple flowers and trying to figure out which is foxglove in order for it to help you. If you need it, your doctor will write you a prescrition for it.

Same with willow bark = aspirin. Poppies = opiates. Et Cetera.

Jeesh.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

38. What half-mad gibberish is this?

From foxglove we get digitalis

Foxglove is digitalis. Maybe you meant digitalin. You know, one of those pesky extracts isolated by actual scientists rather than people who go wandering...

around in the woods looking at purple flowers and trying to figure out which is foxglove in order for it to help you.

Right.

If you need it, your doctor will write you a prescrition for it.

No. Doctors do not write prescriptions for you to go wander your stupid ass around the forest eating random flowers. They write prescriptions for drugs.

[woo me with science]

41. Thank you.

Just keep shaking my head.

[truedelphi]

85. That is what i meant - you BF.

And I do not mean Best Friend by those intials. Take that prescription, AW!

[duhneece]

91. I appreciate it, too

I appreciate it everytime someone posts about the pharmaceutical industry and its options, however poorly funded research on simpler/cheaper remedies that exist.

[Liberty Belle]

42. Pharmas intentionally set up tests on the wrong parts of plants, or low doses so they will fail.

As a former nutrition industry editor I was told this even by sources within the govt. who were frustrated with what they saw going on inside the pharma-controlled Bush FDA.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

43. As a former nutrition industry editor (and seriously, WTF is that?)

...you ought to be able to cite sources for your claims. I was not aware of the Republican jihad against valerian root extract. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

[GoCubsGo]

55. Not to mention...

Big Pharma is always looking for ways to make money. Why would they sabotage a study that could possibly provide them with a new income source (via synthesizing the active chemicals)? That sort of logic always amazes me, especially when it comes to products like OTC diet pills. If crap like "Relacore" really worked, Big Pharma would be producing it and makinga fortune from it, not these fly-by night companies. And, doctors would be prescribing the stuff left and right. But, they're not. Nice "red flag" there.

[H2O Man]

49. Interesting.

Years ago, a close friend of mine – a pediatrician connected to Syracuse University, who was known nationally for his work on the growing problem of high blood pressure among children – told me that he had been frustrated in his attempts to engage in a study of the kids at Onondaga. These children were the only group within the United States that did not have issues relating to high blood pressure. But when he went to Onondaga to ask permission to do a study, he didn’t get "past the door." Leon would accept his gift of tobacco, and listen quietly, but never give an answer ….which, in a way, really is an answer.

My friend had saved my oldest son’s life when, as a tiny baby less than a week old, a doctor in another community had mis-diagnosed him. Obviously, I felt a lot of gratitude to him. So, one weekend, Chief Waterman and I visited the good doctor at his home. Paul didn’t give him an answer, one way or the other, and so it was up to me to translate. A short time later, the doctor, my son, and I visited Paul at Onondaga.

I had my friend tell Paul about an earlier study he had done. My friend was fascinated by Native American "pre-history," and was on the NYS University’s museum board. This in and of itself was not something that would endear one to the Onondaga. However, in the Jesuit diaries, there was a story about a European visitor with symptoms that today we would recognize as being "rickets." The Onondaga made a tea from a pine bark, and in a short time, the man was well.

From the description of the tree, my friend was able to identify the tree as a White Pine. He took some bark from one, and boiled it. Studying the tea, he found nothing. He did it again, with the same results. Then he realized that boiling the bark in a metal pot was not the way to go; on the third test, he used a clay pot, not unlike those used by the Onondaga, and steeped the tea. And, of course, he found the vitamin D that escaped through the air when metal was used to make the tea.

This type of insight was all Paul needed to hear. Thinking outside of the box can open doors.

[glitch]

66. A lot of wisdom, and patience and willingness to learn, in this post. nt

[uppityperson]

75. Sounds like the issue was boiling vs steeping, not metal vs clay container

"From the description of the tree, my friend was able to identify the tree as a White Pine. He took some bark from one, and boiled it. Studying the tea, he found nothing. He did it again, with the same results. Then he realized that boiling the bark in a metal pot was not the way to go; on the third test, he used a clay pot, not unlike those used by the Onondaga, and steeped the tea. And, of course, he found the vitamin D that escaped through the air when metal was used to make the tea."

[HamdenRice]

52. Excellent post. And I thought the thread to which you are responding was quite bizarre as well

I couldn't quite understand how any literate person could have made the argument that was made there -- which seemed to be that no "alternative" medical remedy had ever worked.

Your point seems to be that some remedies that seem alternative (actually we could more accurately call them folk remedies with unprocessed ingredients) do work.

Once they work and the underlying ingredient is identified, then they cease to be "alternative."

So the point of the other thread was some kind of weird, semantic, Orwellian double talk: "Alternative remedies don't work, unless they do, at which point, they are no longer alternative remedies."

[truedelphi]

95. My head is somewhat in a spin reading this

But you are nailing it.

[Orrex]

102. I haven't seen that other thread, but...

I agree that it's foolishly dismissive to say "Alternative remedies don't work, 'nuff said."

If an alternative remedy can be empirically shown to be effective, and--as you note--once the underlying ingredient or effect is identified--then the remedy becomes part of conventional medicine, and I believe that the first criterion is the more important of the two.

Lacking objective, empirical verification, it would simply be irresponsible to claim that a particular remedy works, regardless of how much subjective, anecdotal testimony might support it.

Still, a particular alternative remedy might work, and so the remedy should be tested in controlled conditions to confirm or disprove its efficacy.

[uppityperson]

129. Thank you, well put. I agree with what you write here.

[renate]

123. I always like what you write

:thumbsup:

I can understand why some people are a little leery of vague ideas of certain herbs "cleansing the blood" or acting like "tonics" and so on, but there really is no lack of scientific research on herbal medicine and while many studies do not indicate an effect better than placebo, many do. Cinnamon, garlic, St. John's wort, turmeric, boswellia, fenugreek, gymnema,.. the list of botanical medicines that have been shown, in double-blind studies, to have a positive effect on health goes on and on. It takes only a tiny amount of looking here to find them:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed

And the active compounds in red wine and fish oil and blueberries (and other foods) weren't developed in labs, but now that they've been identified, nobody would say there's anything woo-woo about them--just like you said.

In such a normally supportive community as DU, I wouldn't have expected the level of vitriol that's leveled here against people who use herbs or other forms of natural medicine and have found them to be helpful. People who don't like herbal medicines shouldn't use them, but I don't understand why it bothers them so much that other people do.
:shrug:

Anyway, thank you for your excellent point about the double talk.

[DireStrike]

56. Tamiflu comes from Star Anise.

[SidDithers]

80. Tamiflu has an ingredient derived from Star Anise...nt

Sid

Edit: previous discussion here http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=222&topic_id=59005

[Odin2005]

57. When the active compound in a "natural" remedy is isolated is ceases to be "Alternative".

At which point the Alt-Med nuts will start dismissing it because once you know what the active compound is you can create it synthetically with 100% purity, which is cheaper and safer. That's why we take Aspirin, Taxol, and Atropine instead of willow, yew, and nightshade extracts.

Vitamins are simple organic compounds and thus can also be produced synthetically.

a chemical compound acts the same no matter if it is from a natural or synthetic source.

Oh, and as another poster stated: FOXGLOVE IS POISONOUS, IT CAN KILL YOU.

[HamdenRice]

63. But can you see how your argument can support the OP?

I made the same point upthread. The argument is basically semantic. Once the scientific basis of an unprocessed folk remedy is known, it ceases to be "alternative" in some people's eyes. But that means that the prior thread, which claimed no alternative remedy had ever been found to work, was simply semantics. Of course, many have been found to work.

Moreover, while digitalis (the name of the drug and of the lovely garden plant) is poisonous, there are plenty of "folk remedies" that there is good reason to take naturally.

For example, it is much better to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables (and hence vitamins and fiber) than to take vitamin pills and metamusil. Yet some would argue that a "healthy organic diet" is alternative and pointless.

[uppityperson]

130. A healthy diet is MUCH better than taking multi-vitamins and supplements.

I agree that the semantics of "it is alternative until it is proven scientifically that it works, at which point it becomes medicine, not alternative" does not mean no alternative health care works.

ed for non-typo

[McCamy Taylor]

58. For the record, I am not advocating that we TAKE the herbs listed above.

Instead, I want folks to remember that many of our best medications are derived from "natural remedies". That means that until recently, medical science was more than willing to study herbs, test them, refine them.

If our scientists are unwilling to even consider or test "naturals" which may be discovered in the future (unless they can patent the natural) then we are going to miss out. Nature tends to create beneficial substances, because it creates a symbiosis between animals and plants.

[uppityperson]

76. Thank you for clarifying as your purpose was unclear, since those things HAVE been

tested, couldn't understand the claim that they hadn't.

Yes, scientists do need to test plants to find new medicines. I am glad they are doing so, things like the yew tree.

[unc70]

106. That is a false argument. Scientists are busy testing these and other drugs

You make claims in various subjects and then recoil when the problems with you positions are pointed out by others.

All one needs to do is check places like "The Peoples Pharmacy" and you will be linked with all sorts of research involving herbal and altenative treatments right along with those from pharma. But making false claims that these items haven't even been tested! Google could be your friend.

[Vidar]

59. My doctor showed me a West German study several years back

testing all the popular natural remedies. About 40% worked. Of course such a study couldn't even be done in the US because of the long reach of the pharmaceutical industry.

[LostinVA]

61. Your OP is actually a strawman -- all of these things HAVE been scientifically and empirically teste...

And are now part of medicine. Just because they can chemically create aspirin doesn';t mean that "aspirin" still doesn't come from white willow bark. The same with the other things listed. Some natural remedies ARE medicine, like tea tree oil for certain burns and skin conditions.


*Foxglove is VERY poisonous to pretty much all mammals, unless it's used very carefully. Do NOT use it.

[truedelphi]

97. Your statement -

all of these things HAVE been scientifically and empirically tested
Is exactly the point that the Mccamy Taylor was attempting to get across. He should have had a disclaimer in there, not to go out and start gathering up the herbs and using them indiscriminately. (However I think many of us are rather bound to our cubicles (or the phone) or we would not be typing so much, but just in case...) And I believe he finally inserted such a disclaimer into one of the responding comments.

And I believe that he started this thread in response to another thread, that was all about dissing plants and natural medicine. You can find that thread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5822227

[SidDithers]

67. Who said "Natural Remedies don't work"?...nt

Sid

[McCamy Taylor]

87. The Associated Press has been attempting to influence public opinion imho

with its recent series on "natural" remedies.

Here is the AP telling us that natural remedies are "risky". Headlines can be all that some people see.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/09/health/main5075428.shtml

Here is AP with "herbal remedies" can "interfere" with cancer treatment. Also from this week (see the trend?)

http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/06/for_some_cancer_patients_natur.html

Here is "billions spent, no alternative med cures" a headline which also kind of jumps out of the page at you from AP.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=807874&BCCode=BN&newsdate=6/10/2009

All of these are from this week (last week Editor and Publisher warned that AP was going to do a running series on alternative remedies).

Someone who reads these headlines, all printed in the same week, will come away with the impression that the prevailing wisdom is that alternative remedies are a waste of money, do not work and make your cancer spread faster. However, many of our most effective medications came about the study of natural compounds.

[uppityperson]

92. Are you saying those 3 articles are inaccurate?

There is so much advertising for "natural" remedies, that I see nothing wrong with pointing out that they can be risky, that "natural" does not equal no risk.

[truedelphi]

94. Please note that NO TV CHANNEL NEWS TEAM has ever inquired into the healthiness

of the Glade, Lysols, and Febreeze sprays the ads encourage us to use.

THE WHO says that formaldehydes and benzenes are found in the personal care items like those above.

The vitamin stores and the health food stores do not spend huge amounts advertising on TV (Except for infomercials) But Johnsons and Johnson, a family company, does spend big bucks. And its products are probably responsible for twenty per cent if not more of all cancers out there. I doubt we will know because of how the Big Pharma people control the so-called studies. (Look at this OP just posted here at DU - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3919900)

Another thing, RoundUp the herbicide, has interactive effects with certain drugs. It ups some prescription meds and it blocks and/or decreases effects of others. But you will not find any TV news channel team reporting on the dangers of a Monsanto product. Too much money in advertising. The only person I know of who took on Monsanto was Elliott Spitzer, and we all know what happened to him.

[trotsky]

98. ZOMFG!!!!!!1!

Round-Up makes us use high-priced call girls???

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THIS!?!?!?!?!!

SEND IN THE NATIONAL GUARD!!!!!!!!1!!1

[truedelphi]

99. In your dreams, and only in your dreams,

RoundUp makes us use high priced escort, service people.

But there will definitely not be any pesty little crabs on the playground, if RoundUp is involved...

[BuddhaGirl]

79. great post!

thanks!!

[earth mom]

103. There is a ton of money to be made in stuffing people with pills and keeping them sick.

The pharma giants are pure evil. :puke:

[kimmerspixelated]

118. I couldn't agree more!

[uppityperson]

132. there is a ton of money to be made in stuffing people with pills and keeping them dependent indeed

that includes vitamins and supplements. The Vita/Supp giants are making a ton of money off people who think they need what they don't need.

[Stellabella]

104. Dietary Supplements: Unregulated and Unsafe

There's a big problem with these remedies. There's no regulation on them, thanks to the concerted effort put forth by natural food stores like GNC. So the supplement you think has valerian in it, for instance, could have none at all or an amount too small to be effective. The purity is in question, as is the dosage.

The FDA can't examine these supplements, and there are often other ingredients in them not listed on the label. If you want these supplements to be taken seriously as part of the health care system, they should be under the control of the FDA.

http://content.herbalgram.org/bodywise/herbalgram/articleview.asp?a=49

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090511/NEWS/905095019?Title=Dietary-Supplements-Unregulated-and-Unsafe

[kimmerspixelated]

122. That's too much of a blanket statement.

Kinda like saying all blondes are dumb.

[uppityperson]

133. Are you saying dietary supplements are regualted? By whom?

ed for typo

[Stellabella]

143. WTF?

That makes no sense at all.

If a corporation makes something that a person ingests, it has to be regulated in order to be sure that corporation is making a pure, safe product. Go back and read what's at those links.

I trust Consumer Reports and the FDA far more than corporations.

[bertman]

107. Two days ago for the first time I read the label on an aspirin bottle--actually several of them.

I could not believe what goes into one little bitty 81mg. aspirin tablet. Read the label sometime.

Recommend this thread.

[salvorhardin]

119. What's so scary about the ingredients in an average asperin tablet?

Bayer Aspirin (325mg)

Active ingredient (in each tablet)
Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid). Pain reliever/fever reducer

Inactive ingredients
carnauba wax*, corn starch, hypromellose, powdered cellulose, triacetin
* may contain this ingredient
http://www.rxlist.com/aspirin-drug.htm

I assume you have no problem with the acetylsalicylic acid, but let's look at the other ingredients.

• Carnauba wax: A wax derived from the leaves of the carnauba palm. It's used as a release agent, anti-caking agent, and surface finishing agent. Sure, it's used for surfboard wax, but it's also in your Tic-Tacs, Altoids and many, many candys. All natural!


• Corn starch: Made from slightly fermented grain. Gluten free! All natural!


• Hypromellose: Used as an excipient because the human body can't absorb aspirin directly. Also used as a release agent. Derived from wood pulp, it's used in a wide variety of products (including foods) because it's also an alternative to animal gelatin. It's not all natural because it's a semisynthetic, but then so isn't the aspirin!


• Powdered Cellulose: A biodegradable starch that makes up the cell walls of plants. In short, it's that dietary fiber your doctor keeps telling you that you should get more of. In industrial use it's usually extracted from wood pulp and cotton. Has a gazillion different uses, but probably being used as a water-soluble binder. It's one of the primary ingredients of smokeless black powder and... your poop. All natural!


• Triacetin: It's a triester, aka fat. Used mostly as a food additive to make things soluble in water. It's also the only ingredient on the list which is 100% artificial. When humans go to Mars, they might get over half of their daily calories from triacetin though because, as I mentioned, it's a fat, thus ideal for producing artificial foods.

So there you go. Aspirin tablets. Not exactly a chemical horror show.

[bertman]

136. You must be buying the ORGANIC Whole Foods aspirin tablets. Here's the list of

inactive ingredients in my Rite-Aid 81mg aspirin:

black iron oxide
colloidal silicon dioxide
corn starch
D & C yellow #10
FD & C yellow #6
hypromellose
microcrystalline cellulose
polydextrose
polyethylene glycol
polyvinyl acetate phthalate
propylene glycol
shellac wax
sodium alginate
sodium bicarbonate
stearic acid
talc
titanium dioxide
triacetin
triethyl citrate

I also checked the label on the Bayer and the list was similar except it had something called aluminum something-or-other in it along with the other inactive ingredients.

[salvorhardin]

142. Most of those extra ingredients are in the coating of the aspirin tablets

They're either dyes or sweeteners. For instance, Polydextrose commonly replaces sugar, starch and fat in foods manufactured for diabetics.

Look up each of those ingredients and find out what it really is. You'll find that none of them are scary and they're all perfectly safe in quantities far larger than in your aspirin tablets.

[bertman]

146. Thanks for the information, salvorhardin. Perfectly safe in quantities such as taking them

and other supplements, meds with the same types of inactive ingredients daily for years? I'm just wondering.

[Hanse]

153. Yes.

It's fine.

[salvorhardin]

157. Definitely

They don't put the percentage by weight of each ingredient on the package because they don't have to. I think they should, because if they did then you'd find that they represent an incredibly tiny portion of the entire tablet. Honestly, you will get into trouble with the aspirin itself long before you'll have to worry about the inactive ingredients.

[bertman]

159. Thank you for easing my mind. Next question: why so few ingredients in your "organic"

aspirin and so many in my Rite-Aid aspirin?

[salvorhardin]

162. I don't know

I suspect it has to do with intellectual property rights, branding and marketing mostly. Pretty colors, "mouth feel", taste, texture, that sort of thing. Anything to make the Rite-Aid product more appealing to overcome the consumer confidence in the name brand. Kind of funny that the generic store brand has more ingredients than the Big Pharma name brand though. :D

Quasi-related topic: If you want to read a good book that deals with this sort of thing in foods, see if you can get a hold of The Taste of Sweet: Our Complicated Love Affair with Our Favorite Treats by Joanne Chen. The book deals with the history of sweet, our perceptions and cultural biases about sweet foods, and how food scientists go about creating the tastes we think we know and love. For instance, the strawberry flavor we all think we know has changed enormously over the past 50 years, so much so that if you tasted something flavored with strawberry from the 1950s it might actually be unrecognizable to you as strawberry.

The book isn't without its problems. The author serves up some questionable history a couple of times, and delves into credulous reporting more than that, and she clearly has food issues but overall it's a good, quick, fun read.
http://www.amazon.com/Taste-Sweet-Complicated-Affair-Favorite/dp/0307351912

[bertman]

208. I'll put that one on my "to read" list. There was quite a bit of info on that topic in the

book "Fast Food Nation", plus Michael Pollan got into it in "Omnivore's Dilemma". Thanks for the info.

[progressoid]

110. WTF?

This thread is so full of convoluted bullshit and hyperbole, I'm just gonna do a few of these:
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

And get a drink. Rest assured, it will be an all natural drink. Hopefully 80 proof.

[kimmerspixelated]

112. THANKS FOR POSTING!!!!

I have been trying to put these same ideas out there myself, but you put it together quite well! But there are so many nay-sayers! It's their loss, let them poison themselves with pharma's crap instead, if they are that pig-headed.

[Jackpine Radical]

115. Not to mention St. John's wort--

hich is as effective as any of the antidepressants, and with fewer side effects. They've been trying to shut this one down for years.

[BrklynLiberal]

116. Thanks very much!!!

[Deep13]

117. If they weren't tested, how can they be proven to work?

You seem to be suggesting the lack of evidence is evidence itself. Kind of how the lack of evidence for UFOs proves that there is a conspiracy of secrecy. It's still a lack of evidence.

And no one thinks natural remedies can't work. Many therapies use naturally occurring substances or behaviors. It's just that they have to be rigorously tested like anything else to see if they do work. The first effective antibiotic was sulfa and was made from a substance that did not exist in nature. It was actually created in a German lab which was looking for cloth dyes. The next breakthrough was the rediscovery of the antibacterial properties of bread mold.

[Stellabella]

144. Thank you - exactly!

Very, very few people in this country who are out to make a buck are going to mass produce something that can be sold without being checked or regulated. Especially something we eat.

Double blind tests and regulation are what the supplement industry needs to submit to if they want to be taken seriously.

[Deep13]

167. AND all those homeopathic "remedies" sprouting on store shelves like mushrooms.

Let's see the test results for those.

[uppityperson]

171. They don't need testing since they are Natural, Safe and Inexpensive

see?

[Deep13]

176. Well they may be safe because they don't do anything...

...but they are not exactly inexpensive. :hi:

[uppityperson]

178. dang, forgot the smiley

:sarcasm:

[Stellabella]

184. Yes, as natural as arsenic!

:hi:

[dorkulon]

185. We've already tested water.

It's very effective for treating dehydration. :spray:

[progressoid]

195. They have too been tested.

There's proof all over the internet tubes. You just can't understand it because your blinded by all that scientificese.

So there. nya nya nya.

[jillan]

124. Epsom Salts - another one.

Soak in a hot bath with 2 cups of epsom salts whenever you don't feel good - and I guarantee you will feel better.
Also your homegrown tomatoes and roses love having it added to their soil.

Another one is Tea tree oil. Nature's antiseptic.
If you ever have a toothache, gargle with a few drops added to warm water. Makes your mouth feel really really clean too.

[farmboxer]

125. Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About

by Kevin Trudeau

He tells it like it is. It's well worth reading.

[progressoid]

134. Kevin Trudeau? Convicted of felony larceny and fraud Trudeau?

Fined by the FTC numberous times for over 37 million dollars Trudeau?

Banned from infomercials for three years for continuing to make fraudulent claims pertaining to the book Trudeau?

Ummm...no thanks.

[SalviaBlue]

140. Thanks for posting...

will read later.

[defendandprotect]

147. Good to see your comments . . . yes, there is no medicine without natural plants . . .

and anything that is turned into synthetic form is a harm to us all --

just look at the killer side effects of most of these pharmed drugs!!

I've just been suffering with a very bad air conditioning cold-croup thing

and found a great new natural remedy for chest congestion . . .

two onions, sliced thin sauteed in two tablespoons evo - mix in one teaspoon curry powder

take as needed.

Glad to see your interest in this subject --

and imagine if we still had majority organic foods!!!

:)

[uppityperson]

172. Eating local and what is in season can help also

Do you really need bananas year round? (for example)

"anything that is turned into synthetic form is a harm to us all --
just look at the killer side effects of most of these pharmed drugs!!"

Realize that the "natural" or plant forms also have killer side effects. For example, foxglove.

[rateyes]

148. DO NOT TRY FOXGLOVE. They don't call that plant Dead Man's Bells

and Witches' Gloves for nothing. One bite of the top of stem of that plant can kill you. Children have died from drinking water from a vase that held that plant.

Geesh, let's be careful with shit like this.

[defendandprotect]

155. In looking over the replies it's not surprising to see the pharm/FDA

"natural remedies" are bad and dangerous propaganda works!!!

People should begin to educate themselves on these issues --

unless they totally trust our corporate government?

[Stellabella]

186. I trust government, especially a Democratic government, far more than

corporations.

If a company won't allow its products to undergo scrutiny, they should not be trusted.

[dorkulon]

158. Isn't this proof that science DOES accept natural remedies when they actually work?

They find the substances that work and adopt their use. What is not okay about that?

[RoccoR5955]

163. I have been "studying" the use of medicinal herbs for the past 38 years...

...and I couldn't agree with you more.

It seems that Western medicine is all about treating symptoms, and making money, rather than healing an entire person. Eastern medicine concentrates on the whole organism, and not just the symptoms, but lifestyle, diet and other things. Many herbs, with the help of acupuncture, diet, lifestyle change, and common sense, can heal a person, but may not make any doctors, or the corporations they shill for rich.

Years ago, I studied "Back to Eden," by Jethro Kloss, and it was the beginning of this long journey of using no drugs, and only the herbs that are furnished by nature. Though I do not practice professionally, I often can cure my own ills, as well as those of my loved ones, by using techniques that are literally thousands of years old. Hey, why mess with success. If it's really serious, I defer to the medical industry, as they have the tech, and other knowledge that I may be lacking.

I wish that you might consider two herbs that are also being slowly accepted by Western medicine. They would be Ginseng and Ginger. These are two herbs that I feel are practically a cure-all.

Just my not so humble opinion.

Thanks for the interesting read. I can rest assured that I am not alone in my feelings about Western medicine.

[DissedByBush]

164. I second valerian root

It works wonders.

Ginger also does better than most drugs for motion sickness.

St. John's Wort for depression instead of all those expensive antidepressants people are popping and feeding their kids.

[MC Blitzen]

165. nature's remedies

hard to profit off of what grows freely

[dorkulon]

187. Tell that to farmers. /nt

[omega minimo]

170. Can this ass kickin hippie shit thread be a DUzy? THANK YOU

:yourock:

[JeffR]

206. Well, no, but I can use this occasion to give it a kick.

Very interesting read.

:kick:

[omega minimo]

207. It's great, the work and the support for it. Thanks to the OP and to you JeffR

:bounce:

[wiley]

189. This is so all over the place

The FDA can only enforce laws they are given by Congress. They do an excellent job with the petty cash and authority they have. They need much more money and power.

Until you advocate testing Ma Huang or anything in the same manner as an RCT of a pharmaceutical product, stop whining and suffer from the stupidity of those who believe that anything they want to use can't be tested in a manner inconsistent with just giving someone a product someone believes works.If you are so concerned about things that work better than pharmaceutical products advocate that these things be tested against FDA approved drugs using stimulus funds.

To say that Valerian Root and Valium are equivalent is an astoundingly stupid thing to say. People don't get addicted to Valerian Root - usually they just get a little nauseous with no clinical effect at all - nor is it dangerous to suddenly stop taking Valerian Root. Valium however, can kill many different ways if used precipitously. Hard to tell if it is more dangerous than other benzodiazepines.

There are lots of herbal extracts that should be controlled substances, and others which show great promise as therapeutics. But both pot and poppies should be legal to grow anywhere in the US as long as it is not done for commercial purposes. For that, one should need a farming license and certification.

[BobTheSubgenius]

204. That was exactly my experience with Valerian.

Mild nausea (that began with the smell of it) and no medicinal effect at all.