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from the those-greybeards-might-have-been-on-to-something dept.
A centuries-old herbal medicine, discovered by Chinese scientists and used to effectively treat malaria, has been found to potentially aid in the treatment of tuberculosis and may slow the evolution of drug resistance.
In a promising study led by Robert Abramovitch, a Michigan State University microbiologist and TB expert, the ancient remedy artemisinin stopped the ability of TB-causing bacteria, known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, to become dormant. This stage of the disease often makes the use of antibiotics ineffective.
The study is published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
"When TB bacteria are dormant, they become highly tolerant to antibiotics," Abramovitch said, an assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine. "Blocking dormancy makes the TB bacteria more sensitive to these drugs and could shorten treatment times."
Huiqing Zheng, et. al., Inhibitors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DosRST signaling and persistence. Nature Chemical Biology, 2016; DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.2259
(Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:30AM
One wonders at the sheer levels of experimentation that Western physicians must have undertaken and the untold lives that must have been lost to find all the cures and treatments attributed to ancient Western herbal medicines.
There is a lot of occidental pre-scientific medicine too, you know, and some of the treatments we use today came about after attempts to evaluate and isolate the effective parts with the scientific method. That process is part of modern pharmacology, called pharmacognosy. Since at least the days of ancient Sumer willow bark tea had been used as a treatment for fevers and inflammation, and soon enough they managed to figure out that a family of chemicals called salicylates present in willow bark had been responsible for its anti-inflammatory properties. That soon led to the development of aspirin. Opium was another such herbal treatment which later science has refined into morphine and related drugs. And now the ancient Chinese pharmacopoeia is getting the same treatment. In this way artemisinin was discovered by Tu Youyou, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2014, and now they’re finding artemisinin is also good for other things too. So no, what we are seeing here is real, honest to goodness pharmacological research.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:29PM
Absinthe works pretty well, too. It has been inappropriately maligned. The alcohol can make a problem worse, but so does much of anything not taken in moderation.
The focus on thujone has lead to ignoring other benefits the wormwood plant has had to offer, but the thujone fascination is only a more recent marvel.
Just growing it with other plants, it is clear that artemis won't tolerate playing (or being planted) with others. Even bugs don't like it; they will avoid the plant unless the wormwood is approaching old age (6th or 7th year of growth) or is already sickly due to environmental stresses.
These curious effects have been well documented and explored in even ancient greek history; one medical use was wine with wormwood soaked in it to eliminate intestinal parasites, etc. The high alcohol content of modern absinthes was to extract the thujone, not the artemisinin. Alcohol draws out some alkaloids; water draws out others. Using both, such as in wine, was a good way to get a fast acting effect. Plus, there's no doubting it is bitter. No one would add wormwood to a salad. Bitter plants often are inspect repellents in some way.
With that said, it is no wonder that it was rediscovered a few years ago that it works well against parasites, of which Malaria is spread via. I am sure there are other parasite problems this can be tried with, with varying degrees of success; perhaps that cat parasite in the news due to it's drug getting jacked in price by the "pharma bro"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:47PM
Marijuana works too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuhqkXKqAII [youtube.com]
In fact many medicines have come from plants etc that people have used[1]. Aspirin is a common example. There are others:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biguanide#History [wikipedia.org]
The biguanide class of antidiabetic drugs, which also includes the withdrawn agents phenformin and buformin, originates from the French lilac or goat's rue (Galega officinalis), a plant used in folk medicine for several centuries.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_yeast_rice#Uses [wikipedia.org]
People can come up with useful working stuff without knowing the full theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation#China [wikipedia.org]
But a fair bit of knowledge can be lost if stuff like this happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars [wikipedia.org]
Even those who didn't get killed might start keeping stuff secret. And there can be lots of unwritten knowledge for natural medicine. There's a story of some scientists asking some medicine person for herbs against snake venom, they got the herbs/medicine, tried it on rodents and it worked, but when they asked for more the medicine guy got suspicious and stopped cooperating. So they tried to get the same herbs themselves but the herbs they got didn't work. They didn't know the secret. Whether it was where or when it's plucked or how it was prepared etc. It's just like not all oranges are the same - some are sweet and some aren't, and some fruits look like oranges but have furanocoumarins. And not all chili peppers are of the same hotness.
[1] Apparently some pharma bunch go visit tribes to figure out what herbs they use and for what and then check them for medical uses.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:27PM
All I can offer is an anecdote with an antidote. I was in China and got extremely sick from something. Delirious and shitting myself kind of sick.
A doctor came in with some herbal medicine wrapped in wax balls. Very different kind of pills to say the least. BUT THEY WORKED. I'm still alive, and no longer exploding from every orifice.
I find it funny to poo poo the Chinese when we take some of their more interesting discoveries and mass produce them in energy drinks. It's good enough to keep us awake, but it's not up there with Western medicine right?
They took care of me. One data point I know, but it's not fair to denigrate all of Eastern medicine in that fashion.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @07:03AM