short rant

[Annie M]

Just a small rant about the statement that " there is no scientific evidence to support any of these claims". Im not saying use herbals or dont or use hormones or dont or anything
in the support of any substance. But why is it that herbs and other substances that have been around for EVER have not been investigated or tested to produce scientific evidence to support or disprove any
claims? Just curious.

[Aprilrain]

I think lots of natural medicines have been tested and any useful compounds have been isolated and then synthisisized so that the drug company who spent all that money doing scientific research can then turn a profit. Drug companies want patents and you can't patent an herb. For instance morphine which is derived from opium poppies (an herb) was a patentable drug opium was not. Morphine and codeine have since been resynthisised to make every opiad that has ever been marketed and that is a lot of different kinds of pain killers. Hopefully your doctor won't be stinggy with these after your SRS or FFS : )

Besides all that plants are not consistent in their potency and the people selling you herbal remedies may be selling you a part of the plant that doesn't contain the active ingredient your looking for, amongst other unscrupulous practices.

I know the herbal estrogen debate rages on and I won't even bother giving my two cents worth on herbal Verses synthetic (or equine estrogens). Let's instead look at it this way. Estrogens aside for full feminization to occur one MUST take an anti-androgen as well. So even if herbal estrogens are as effective as synthetics your spinning your wheels without getting rid of the T.

There are of course many other reasons to reconsider herbals but that has been discussed ad naseum.

[sandra-leigh]

Do you ever buy (or eat) jalepeno peppers? If you do, then why is it that in the same package, you can get one that is about as mild as a bell pepper, but another is hot enough to blow the roof of your mouth off?

Herbals are like that. Very hard to grow to consistent standards.

[christinac]

Besides all that plants are not consistent in their potency and the people selling you herbal remedies may be selling you a part of the plant that doesn't contain the active ingredient your looking for, amongst other unscrupulous practices.

Also a lot of these derivatives break down rather rapidly after being extracted from thier plant state and lose thier potency. If the container is not dated, there is no way of knowing how long that bottle has been on the shelf.

[Melody Moore]

Medicines derived from plants are processed & refined & to make them effective. Whereas in the raw form, the
chemicals in these medicines are found to be on minute amounts. Other chemicals also found in these plants or
herbals are normally removed, but in the more raw form can be dangerous to your health. You will also find that
the types of Oestrogen that are used in HRT are derived from animals & not plants. Take Premarin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premarin) for example,
it's name derived from (PREgnant MARes' urINe) & is manufactured from urine collected from pregnant mares.

[ReineD]

There isn't enough research funding to test every herbal mixture, nor is there a means for regulating the entire industry, again, because of the cost.

[MarinaKirax]

They have been tested, and the very best molecules, and the very best qualities of just plain good molecules have been tweaked, slightly improved, and given qualities like lasting for 24 hours, or not being destroyed by stomach acids, and the result is the patented molecules you see as drugs. The herbs are Buicks, but the drugs are Ferraris.

[Mikaela]

In most cases, the herbs have been tested and shown to be ineffective, but the same community of people who tend to want something 'natural' don't want to trust the medical and pharmaceutical community. For them, anecdotal evidence is enough. In effect, companies selling herbal supplements are selling you the feeling of taking something safe and natural.

Herbs are not regulated by the FDA as a drug, so they can claim quite a bit before they run into legal ramifications and fraud.