Complementary Alternative Cardiovascular Medicine

Chapter 2 / Herbs and Supplements 13
and pharmacy schools. Public funding for medical research focused
primarily on cancer and later on AIDS, leaving little support for research
on innovations in natural medicines. Drug companies focused their
research efforts on developing synthetic drugs they could own
through patent protection (see Government Regulation of Herbal
Products section).
The nexus of medicinal plant research shifted to places where they
were still considered an important part of health care, such as Europe and
Asia. In the United States and Western Europe, researchers concentrated
on isolated plant constituents rather than whole herbs or crude extracts.
For example, until recently, there was hardly any research on the health
effects of green tea, but there were thousands of studies on caffeine.
Although numerous studies exist for ephedrine and pseudoephedrine,
there are few on the plant ephedra or its extracts.
Medicinal herb research in Europe accelerated rapidly from the 1960s
to the present. The best herb research was performed in Europe, primarily
because modern medicine in Europe continued the use of complex
or “crude” plant drugs and their extracts. With favorable treatment from
European governments, phytomedicine flourished and European companies
developed sophisticated herb extracts, sponsored research, and
built the European phytomedicine empire that is changing medicine
worldwide. American doctors, scientists, and regulators decried the lack
of sound evidence for medicinal herbs, whereas European scientists
conducted the studies that made phytomedicine a dominant form of
therapy there.
CURRENT WORLDWIDE USE OF HERBS
Herbal medicines are government approved and sold with medicinal
claims throughout Europe and most of Asia, as well as in Australia,
Mexico, and Canada. In other countries, limited health claims based on
traditional uses are allowed. In an informal review by the United States.
Commission on Dietary Supplement Labels, 11 of the 14 countries
reviewed had an abbreviated method for allowing informative medicinal
label claims on herbal products.
Technologically advanced nations’ attempts to control and regulate
herbal medicines in the same way as synthetic drugs, sometimes improving
the reliability of these time-honored treatments but occasionally
creating unforeseen problems.
The most widely used system of herbal medicine in the world is probably
traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), used not only in China but
also throughout Asia and, as a form of alternative medicine, in the United
States and Europe. TCM is probably used to some extent by more than