Bamboo as Medicine

I just finished reading the most interesting article called “Bamboo as Medicine” By Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Traditional Medicine, Portland, OR.

Asia has over 300 specie of bamboo (Zhu Ru) and many different parts of the plants are used in Chinese Medicine. The leaves are used for fevers, the inside whitish-greenish middle is used for convulsions and vomiting. Dried sap from the joints of bamboo are used for fevers and coughs with phlegm and even epilepsy. The stem of small bamboo are used in Japan for urinary retention and blood in the urine. The leaves can also be made into a beer. Not sure if that’s medicinal though. This article has excellent comparisons and characteristics on functions of the different specie, something I never learned in school. There are several species which are specifically for phlegm misting the brain. In Ayurvedic and Tibetan medicine bamboo has many uses including as an aphrodisiac. Since there’s no shortage of bamboo in the world and chemical constituents in bamboo are now known antioxidants, seems like a win-win situation to use bamboo as medicine.

One more bamboo fact. Bamboo was used in ancient China to make writing tablets. A wonderful Chinese SHL teacher I had back in Chinese Medicine College, when faced with a difficult student question on conflicting material, he would always answer with “Bamboo Problem. The meaning was: some very old bamboo reeds survived with ancient text about Chinese Medicine but some disintegrated and written words were lost forever. So bamboo as medicine is great but there’s a reason we don’t still use bamboo as writing tablets.

Check out this great article at: http://www.itmonline.org/arts/bamboo.htm

Malaria, Chinese Herb Advancing Science

In case you haven’t already heard, today is World Malaria Day,
April 25th, 2009.

I can’t think of a better way to start my first blog on Traditional Chinese Medicinal herbs than on the subject of malaria. Ok, I know most of us in the west don’t know much or maybe anything about this disease. Some may even be thinking… isn’t malaria one of those plagues from the middle ages?

Malaria is the number one killer in underdeveloped countries, especially prevalent in Africa where it’s an epidemic. As many as 5 million people each year contract malaria, many recover, many do not. Malaria kills nearly one million people worldwide each year. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given millions of dollars for malaria research with the goal of eliminating malaria in our lifetime and by the looks of recent developments, well… read on.

So what does this have to do with Chinese herbal medicine and why did I choose this topic? Malaria has been successfully treated with Chinese herbal medicine for centuries. This is not news, well not to Acupuncturists or Chinese Medical Doctors nor to the scientists and drug companies searching out a cure or a vaccine for malaria. What is news is what Reuters published in an article (yesterday) which I’ve cited below and am quoting here, “elimination (of malaria) in a number of countries is certainly in sight." Fantastic, right?!

Here’s what really exciting! “New medical treatments such as a drug developed by a Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis using artemisinin, a compound derived from a herb used in Chinese traditional medicine, are driving down deaths and infections, said Chris Hentschel of the Medicines for Malaria Venture.” The FDA has also recently approved the drug Coartem, an artemisinin-based combination treatment (ACT) for malaria, which is said to have a 96% cure rate. Can you imagine: A pharmaceutical company using an herb-derived compound? Should we be shocked?

We in the Chinese Medical community are not shocked. We know the use of Chinese Medicinal herbs have been used for centuries with great success and we’ve all known that Artemisinin, Qing Hao, has been successfully used in the treatment of malaria. But doesn’t it feels great to be vindicated through “Big Pharma” ? When any big pharmaceutical company decides to study the compounds in “our” (Chinese) medicine cabinet we can all stand proud and say, look big pharma, our herbs have proven compounds that even your labs haven’t been able to invent and there’s more in the medicine cabinet than just Artemisinin.

The credibility of Chinese herbal medicine is coming full circle in the scientific age. We can only hope this is just the tip of the iceberg. The efficacy of Chinese herbal medicine has a 2000 plus year history. Reuter’s goes on to report, “The treatment, administered to 57 million people last year, saved half a million lives last year.” That’s big news! If there was a drug that saved 500,00 people in the US, last year alone, we would be hearing about it. Because it’s in underdeveloped nations, this news doesn’t make the nightly 5 o’clock. But I can think of no better way than to start my blog page with what should be the Biggest News in the world today, especially on World Malaria Day.

Reuters Article:Goal of eliminating malaria in sight -
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LO491804.htm

http://www.pharmacychoice.com/News/article.cfm?Article_ID=368705