Quote:
Originally Posted by sworkhard
Provide me with an example of a drug company that has done statistically significant and valid double blinds tests on a remedy as traditionally prescribed and not the acting agent in the remedy they think actually does the work. Yes it's exaggerated a bit and saying they rarely do so is more accurate. I never said the drug companies didn't look into them. Your putting those words in my mouth. I said they didn't do double blind tests on most of these remedies and as such its likely that there are some legitimate remedies that have not been tested and therefore the statement that any good alternative medicine is already a drug is incorrect. Looking into a remedy and proving statistically that it works are two different things. There's a reason it's mostly independent groups that perform studies on alternative medicines, and those are, or so it seems, mostly to determine the validity of the latest natural fads.
|
Part of any study for any natural product is the isolation and standardization of the active alkaloid. You would not have a very good study if you did not have standardized doses.
When we find a product that shows promise (red yeast rice gave us statins, foxglove gave us digoxin, white willow bark gave us aspirin, Etc,), you have to find out what the active alkaloid is, or how would you test it? Two plants of the exact same species are not likely to produce the same amount of each alkaloid, therefore you have to standardize to have reasonable results our each dose would be different.