Scientific knowledge is increasingly lending its weight to 5,000 years of Chinese herbal medicine but the results are sometimes unexpected, a prominent researcher said yesterday.
"We often think of ginseng as being good for your energy level, but for people with high blood pressure it can be very dangerous," said Yang Ling-ling (楊玲玲), a researcher and professor in Chinese herbal medicine at Taipei Medical College.
Researchers at the college tested ginseng on laboratory rats by forcing them to swim after a heavy dose. Rats with high blood pressure drowned quickly, whereas healthy rats were able to swim for longer with the aid of ginseng than without.
A medicinal soup called "four gods' soup" (
Laboratory tests have confirmed that the edible "jelly fungus" (
Experiments such as these -- which use the evidence-based tools of the modern scientific method to test traditional practices -- are raising the quality of care using Chinese herbal medicine, she said.
"Think of 5,000 years ago when people had to eat the wrong thing and discover the hard way what works and what doesn't," she said.
"We're much luckier to have science to test and prove what we think is true."
RSS