Semester 3, Week 2, Day 5

I paid bills!  LOL sad to be happy about that but these are the people who call you 30 seconds after you miss a payment. I still have a few to take care of but breakfast needs to be had and my daughter has been Katy Kaboom already this morning. They both wanted water so I gave out one cup (there are many cups of water in the living room) but she took his when I gave him one and ...  well, you can guess how well that went.  I'll be starting breakfast once I'm done with this so it won't be long. I turned in one essay yesterday (and got a 97 on it) and, this will shock you if you read here regularly, I got almost a whole chapter read yesterday for homeopathy!  The last essay due is on apoptosis. While I do understand the concept, I'd like to see what the books says before doing my paper if the kids will let me.  I have less than 10 pages in the one chapter (I've already gotten through the needed section) and 6 pages, I think, in another book. There is still another chapter in the first book that is required reading but I'm not going to sweat it if I can't get it done. I've done more reading this week than I can remember since starting my bachelors. Pretty awesome!  I leave you with a discussion on skin. Have a great day!

Option 1: Scientific Perspectives
Skilled herbalists have been practicing their art for millennia without knowledge of botanical classification or herbal constituents. Today, we have added these scientific perspectives to traditional and empirical observations. How is such information helpful or relevant to the contemporary practice of botanical medicine?
Over a century ago, someone discovered penicillin, an anti-biotic made from mold. Most of our medicine prior to that was herbal. People still had issues, didn’t respond to those herbal treatments. The adage became “herbs don’t work” as modern medicine continued to advance. An example is a lot of people had great response to plant-based treatments for menopause. Some said this treatments didn’t work so those treatments were abandoned for modern treatments but those don’t always work and are hazardous. Now, people have options, thanks to these studies. We now know that some respond really well to the modern hormone replacement therapy, some respond well to the hormones derived from animals, and still others respond well to plant-based therapies. Without doing these studies, discovering different ways of treating people would be difficult.

Yesterday, I did my comment on Moghdam, et al. (2016) for Herb 503. This study is a great example of old and new coming together.  We knew valerian would be good for menstrual cramps because we know how that works, thanks to science. What we don’t know is how it helps with the emotional issues of PMS, just that it does.
Since the dawn of man, we have always been looking for the one thing that works for everyone. Which herbs works best for this, which medicine works the best for this, etc. While some people are finally coming to the realization that nothing works for everyone, what can be discovered is the HOW and the WHY something works.  If we can nail that down, it could become easier to treat people rather than the trial and error that is always done no matter which medicine form you take.

References
Moghadam, Z, V., Rezaei, E., Gholami, R. S., Kheirkhah, M., and Haghani, H. (2016). The effect of Valerian root extract on the severity of pre menstrual syndrome symptoms. J Tradit Complement Med. 2016 Jul; 6(3): 309–315. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcme.2015.09.001. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4936757/