Researchers seek alternative treatments for asthma

• The researchers, from the Weifang Asthma Hospital and Weifang School of Medicine in China, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, sought to investigate alternatives to corticosteroids, the "cornerstone" of Western asthma treatment.
• In the United States, dietary supplements containing more than 10mg of ephedrine alkaloids are outlawed, but the ban does not extend to Ma Huang.
• ASHMI was in fact developed as a simplified version of a 14-herb formula known as MSSM-002, which the same team previously found to effectively reduce the symptoms of asthma in a mouse model.
• Prepared by Weifang Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Factory, ASHMI was formulated on the basis of the actions of the individual herbs in MSSM-002, and according to traditional Chinese medicine formulation concepts.
• Forty-six patients were randomly assigned to receive 12 ASHMI capsules per day, each one containing 0.3g of dried aqueous extract.
• The total daily dosage of extracts was equivalent to 20g of raw Ling-Zhi, 9g of Ku-Shen, and 3g of Gan-Cao.
• Patients in this group also received placebo tablets similar in appearance to prednisone, an oral administration of the hormone cortisone.
• The researchers measured participants' lung function, side effects and serum cortisol, cytokine and igE levels before and after treatment.
• The effects of prednisone and ASHMI on lung function were "slightly but significantly greater" with prednisone.
• However unlike prednisone, ASHMI was seen to have no adverse effects on adrenal function, and had a beneficial effect on TH1 and TH2 cytokine levels.
• In addition, fewer patients receiving ASHMI experienced gastric discomfort compared to those receiving prednisone, and the prednisone patients showed significant weight gain after four weeks of treatment.
• "Taken together, the findings of this study show that ASHMI is effective and well-tolerated in nonsteroid-dependent patients with moderate-severe persistent asthma," wrote the researchers.