Chinese Herbal Medicine

[Tricot]

I've recently had acupuncture and it was recommended that I supplement it with a Chinese herbal capsule. When I was researching the suggested capsule - I research everything before I take it including items prescribed by conventional doctors - I came across several studies which showed encouraging results for Mild Cognitive Impairment/early dementia and even an improvement when used alongside Donepezil NOT A CURE! but slowing down the progress of the disease. Participants in the studies showed improved results on the MMSE and other tests.

This surprised me so I decided to see if Alzheimers UK had anything to say about it. They issued quite a comprehensive leaflet about it here:

https://lx.iriss.org.uk/sites/default/files/resources/Complementary_and_alternative_medicine_and_dementia.pdf

but it's dated 2003, 20 years ago! There must have been so much more research done since then.

Has anyone tried Chinese herbal medicine?

 

[canary]

it's dated 2003, 20 years ago! There must have been so much more research done since then.

I would agree. So if nothing has happened in this time then I would expect that the "encouraging results" appear to have not materialised

 

[Tricot]

I would agree. So if nothing has happened in this time then I would expect that the "encouraging results" appear to have not materialised

No. Not at all. There's not a lot of research funding to be had because the big pharmaceutical companies have nothing to gain from investing in research into solutions which aren't going to increase their profits. Large scale good quality research needs lots of investment in time and money. Not surprising then that progress is slow.

 

[canary]

There's not a lot of research funding to be had because the big pharmaceutical companies have nothing to gain from investing in research into solutions which aren't going to increase their profits.

Thats not actually true. There has been research into common cheap drugs to see if they will help dementia and the latest research has been inti so called "life style choices" which wont make any money for pharmaceutical companies

 

[jugglingmum]

A lot of research will have been done, but not that much actually gets published, and if it does get published there can be time for peer review.

I'm pretty certain every large research uni in the UK is undertaking some form of research into Alzheimers in at least one department (daughter is studying Biochemistry and every biochemistry dept we visited had some ongoing research). Some of this will be into causes and some into the effectiveness of drugs, much is grant funded but some is pharma funded.