(NaturalNews) Increasingly, Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is being put to the test by Western scientists -- and the results are sometimes not only successful but downright astounding. A case in point: a new review of CHM research by British scientists just published in
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews shows
treating endometriosis with Chinese herbs may not only relieve symptoms of the disease, CHM appears to have comparable benefits to drugs and even laparoscopic surgery with fewer adverse effects.This is important news because
endometriosis is a huge problem in the US and Western
medicine has yet to come up with any viable
treatment that doesn't have serious
side effects. According to the National Institutes of Health (
NIH), at least 5.5 million
women in North America alone have the disorder and 30 to 40 percent of them are infertile. A condition that
causes tissue that normally lines the uterus to grow on the ovaries, bowels, and bladder, behind the uterus or elsewhere, endometriosis often produces debilitating
pain that can keep a woman from going to work or school and put enormous strains on relationships. Endometriosis commonly causes severe cramps during menstrual periods, excessive bleeding during periods, chronic pelvic discomfort that can spread to the lower back and pain during or after sex.
The cause of endometriosis remains unknown so
doctors tend to treat it with prescription pain medications, hormones that can have devastating masculizing effects and even
surgery to remove the endometrial growths. In some cases, doctors remove a woman's reproductive organs to try to reduce pain. As the Cochrane
review points out, however, surgery doesn't always
lead to long-term improvement in
symptoms and drug treatments can cause a host of new problems such as hot flushes, acne and weight gain.
The new study is the first English language systematic review of CHM for the treatment of endometriosis. The researchers analyzed, in particular, two trials of 158 women. In one clinical trial, therapy with
Chinese herbs provided a reduction of symptoms that was comparable to the relief provided by the hormone
medication gestrinone. However, the
herbs, unlike the drug, caused few side effects. In the second trial, CHM was even more successful in treating endometriosis than the hormonal
drug danazol. Once again, the
Chinese herbs produced far fewer side effects than the Western medication.
"These findings suggest that Chinese herbs may be just as effective as certain conventional drug treatments for women suffering from endometriosis, but at present we don't have enough evidence to generalize the
results," said lead researcher Andrew Flower of the Complementary Medicine Research Unit at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom in a statement to the media.
A growing number of
scientists are actively studying the efficacy of CHM for other conditions, as well. For example, as reported previously in Natural News, researchers have found Chinese herbs can relieve menstrual cramps better than drugs (
http://www.naturalnews.com/022969_menstrual_pain_drugs_Chinese_herbs.html) and CHM may also be a successful treatment for type 2 diabetes (
http://www.naturalnews.com/024051_diabetes_bitter_melon_medicine.html). Earlier this year, scientists reported in the
Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology that Chinese herbs appear to help asthma patients, too.
Reference:
Flower A, Liu JP, Chen S, Lewith G, Little P. Chinese
herbal medicine for endometriosis.
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD006568. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD006568.pub2.
For more information:http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/endometriosis.htmlhttp://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/061609.htm
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