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Chinese medicine and diabetic foot ulcers

Discussion in 'Diabetic Foot & Wound Management' started by NewsBot, Aug 8, 2006.

  1. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1

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    Influence of an anti-diabetic foot ulcer formula and its component herbs on tissue and systemic glucose homeostasis.
    J Ethnopharmacol. 2006 Jun 27;
     
  2. Herbal medicine

    I did read about a case locally where a clinic was having almost miraculous results treating eczema with homeopathic creams. This was until somebody had a severe reaction and it was discovered that these creams were being made by putting all natural homeopathic ingredients... into a rather concentrated hydrocortizone base. :eek:

    It seems slightly strange that people who were quite happy to use a cream made by blending bits of greenery stopped when they found it also contained a "chemical" (shock horror, steps back in terror and awe)

    Had to smile

    Robert
     
  3. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Is Oral Administration of Chinese Herbal Medicine Effective and Safe as an Adjunctive Therapy for Managing Diabetic Foot Ulcers? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
    Chen M, Zheng H, Yin LP, Xie CG.
    J Altern Complement Med. 2010 Aug 1. [Epub ahead of print]
     
  4. brevis

    brevis Active Member

    Recently had a patient who ditched conventional dressings, offloading and diabetic management to trial chinese medicine. It involved a mix of herbal drinks and a yellow powder to be applied to the wounds.


    The treating GP and myself had a bit of a chuckle when he presented 3 weeks later begging to be squeezed in because the wounds had increased in size and there was obvious infection creating a lovely smell from under the dressings.

    a guess there is a time and a place for it though
     
  5. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Prospective randomized controlled study of a Chinese Herbal Medicine Compound Tangzu Yuyang Ointment for chronic diabetic foot ulcers: A preliminary report.
    Li S, Zhao J, Liu J, Xiang F, Lu D, Liu B, Xu J, Zhang H, Zhang Q, Li X, Yu R, Chen M, Wang X, Wang Y, Chen B.
    J Ethnopharmacol. 2010 Nov 30. [Epub ahead of print]
     
  6. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    A pilot study on the effects of a polyherbal formulation cream on diabetic foot ulcers.
    Viswanathan V, Kesavan R, Kavitha KV, Kumpatla S.
    Indian J Med Res. 2011 Aug;134(2):168-73.
     
  7. Right...
    Wait, what?

    So it did exactly the same as its control group. Which the cochrane database was fairly unimpressed with (at least for deep burns).

    Never have I seen a negative result so artfully expressed in a positive way! "IT WORKS!!! exactly as well as the control sample

    The full text is worth a read.

    I've not taken the references out BTW. This the longest and most enthusiastic list of unreferenced claims since the last pile of dross from Rothbart landed in my inbox!!
     
  8. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    A microarray study on the molecular mechanism for the therapeutic effect of Antidotal and Myogenic Ointmen on the foot ulcer in diabetic rats
    Han HM, Guo L, Jiang LJ, Jiang XY, Lv YL, Pang JK, Bai ZM, Che WJ, Xu RH, Yu P, Li Q.
    Zhongguo Wei Zhong Bing Ji Jiu Yi Xue. 2011 Oct;23(10):621-4.
     
  9. andersonkchan

    andersonkchan Active Member

    hmm.. perhaps we would have more faith if the study was NOT on rats..
     
  10. andersonkchan

    andersonkchan Active Member

    hi Robert,
    It seems like in both your posts in this thread, you've had it out for natural therapies. is it a poor personal experience?
    if Chinese medicine have been around for thousands of years,couldn't the developers of that study write what certain herbs effects were in historical literatures without citations?
    Furthermore, sure some natural remedies would be a sham,as we've ALL seen in today tonight etc , but lets not be negative and judge Chinese / alternative medicine in the " bad" pot!
    Regards
     
  11. cperrin

    cperrin Active Member

    To paraphrase Dara O'Briain - if Chinese/alternative medicine actually worked it would simply be called..medicine
     
  12. andersonkchan

    andersonkchan Active Member

    We are seeing more people taking it up In the past few years though..
    Anyhoo I won't be replying anymore to this thread as its diverging a bit away from pod. :)
     
  13. Hello yourself.

    Curses. Foiled:D

    Rather more profound than that. We might start with the moniker of "natural therapies". There seems to be a feeling that if something is "natural" it is safe and/or efficatious and/or intrinsically virtuous. Even if this WERE true (and its really, really not) Chinese herbal medicine is about as natural as pizza. Also posessed of approximately the same medicinal properties.*

    But my personal feelings on the whole mess aside, the post you quoted was simply a critique of a truly diabolical paper. And if you stick around for a while you'll notice that I tend to have a downer on them whatever the subject matter. If it seems that I do it more with alternative medicine, its because alternative medicine tends to produce such God awful literature.

    No. No no no no no. No.

    Firstly, if its in historical literature then that historical literature should be cited. *** But secondly and more importantly, Just because something has been done for hundreds or thousands of years don't mean its any good. Bloodletting was used for thousands of years. In what proports to be a scientific paper, you just can't get away with "it is thought that". Besides, how do you KNOW that those things have been used for thousands of years? Without a historical citation that person could have just made that up on the spot!

    If I tell you that the ancient mayans used to stick purple spotted tree frogs in their bottoms to cure piles, you'd be right to ask me for a reference before you handed over $70 for a dessicated purple spotted tree frog. You would be foolish to believe that just because I TELL YOU its been used for thousands of years I'd be exempt from providing evidence of the fact. You'd be of questionable judgement to believe that the ancient mayans were better at curing piles than modern medicine, or that just because rectally administered purple spotted tree frogs are natural, they are either safe or effective.

    Sucks for the frog too.

    Why on earth not? We should not view therapies as sound until shown to be a placebo (which is very different to a sham BTW) but as ineffective until shown to be effective. New we might split hairs about the value of deductive evidence, rationales etc in mechanics, but we're not talking about mechanics here, we're talking about stuff you eat / rub on / stick up your nose (I don't know!). There is no deduction possible for these without pharmacological data. The models along the lines of "like cures like" and "balances yang" are, in common parlance, ********. As my learned colleague so appositely quoted:-


    So yeah. You could say I've got a bit of a downer on "natural" (lit, unproven) medicine. On the terrible literature, the misleading abstract, the special dispensation they demand for research methods, the potential harm they can do, either by comission or omission, the woolly thinking they promote, the damage they do to the public psyche, and the links they have to some truly sinister and destructive groups / individuals (Matthias Rath springs to mind).

    Kind regards
    Robert

    PS. Just don't get me started on MMS. I have rather stronger feelings on that stuff. The people who sell that should be publically flogged in my humble (arf) opinion.


    * Less actually. There is good deductive evidence that a dominos Mighty meaty pizza** would be an effective treatment for malnutrition. Which is more evidence than there is for any chinese remedy I've ever heard of!

    ** Other brands are available.

    *** I checked the wiki entry on glaucoma today. That too was only partially cited
     
  14. Reading that back, I got a little carried away there. I'll go sniff some lavender or something.

    My wife bought some arnica last weekend when my son bounced his head off a marble floor. Told her there were two ways she could use it, over my dead body or behind my turned back.

    Its still in the box so I'm assuming it was neither. And miraculously the bruise still cleared up in no time at all. Perhaps the homeopathy principle applied and some air which had been near the tube touched the skin.
     
  15. cperrin

    cperrin Active Member

    Just because people are taking it up doesnt mean to say it actually works/good for them, more and more people are taking up smack, that doesnt mean im going be jumping on the bandwagon any time soon.

    The idea behind chinese/alternative 'medicine' is bad enough, but the real problem is when it actually stops people from seeking the medical help they really need..or maybe its natural selection in full flow...
     
  16. Maybe the wife should have asked where you stand on the use of tea tree oil ;)
     
  17. Might be better if it actually worked like that, but unfortunatley not. It only kills people slowly. For natural selection it would have to affect things which killed people more quickly and effectively.

    Strangely however, no matter how much faith people evince in alternative medicine, or how much suspicion in "kemiculs" and "western drugs", that is still where they turn when they have a broken leg, a stomach ulcer or a steering wheel embedded in their rib cage.

    Until we hear the options as "fire, ambulance, police or homeopath" or see people googling "acupuncture for compound fracture of the tibial", or see them going to the reiki practitioner when they start vomiting blood and digesting their own stomach lining, they will probably continue to breed.
     
  18. blinda

    blinda MVP


    :D Get the feeling that you`re not gonna live that one down?

    AND doubting the powers of arnica? What would Dad say about that?

    Glad lil` Andrew is OK now.
     
  19. A fabulous tool to prevent parents from blowing large holes in their childrens feet with OTC caustics or cryotherapy applicators in well meaning but misguided attempts to treat small, inoffensive and previously painless VPs. ;)

    The fundamental difference between VPs and Diabetic ulcers being that the former will generally self resolve in short order and without complications wheras the latter will not.

    Although I seem to remember Blinda saying its the shizzle for OM nails...

    (I may have misheard).
     
  20. blinda

    blinda MVP

    Agreed, so long as the TTO is applied via a suitable vehicle cream, ie not neat, nor oxidated. Love a placebo, me.

    True, yet believe it or not, TTO has been used for the latter. Scary reading;
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21559069?dopt=Abstract

    Shizzle indeed.
     
  21. DTT

    DTT Well-Known Member

    Ahh hmmm Dad here :D

    Arnica Gel ? yep used it for years despite my equally sceptical consultant poo pooing the use of it.

    The only post operative pain I ever used to get complaints about after nail surgery was the injection sites.

    Tried applying Arnica Gel over those sites..... Never had a complaint since the consultant is now a convert for its use in those circumstances.:drinks

    So Robert stop arguing about what you know nothing about !!

    Bloody Kids

    Cheers
    D ;) (AKA DAD to Bel & RI :drinks )
     
  22. Hey Dad.

    I generally apply a few seconds of cosmic energy over injection sites by shaking my shakra over it. And I also have no complaints of soreness in the area :drinks

    So that's OK then :D;)
     
  23. DTT

    DTT Well-Known Member

    Now your talkin silly :rolleyes:

    What I said works and has done for many a long year my son. When you grow up and your as old as me you will be able to make a firm judgement on a lot of things including this ( if the NHS can afford arnica gel that is :D)

    Rob it WORKS !!!!
    Cheers
    D;)
     
  24. blinda

    blinda MVP

    Oooooh, sorry Robert. Did I dob you in?

    Don`t worry, Dad. He`s always making stuff up in the name of `science`:rolleyes:, like he did about that chap Isaac Newton who supposedly shot an apple off his son's head. How, exactly, does this gravity stuff explain how Oliver French threw his bouncy ball up in the playground on Thursday and it never EVER came back down again? I know it happened because I saw it with my own eyes..... Another time he even tried to convince us that God doesn't make new clean water for us to drink every day, but instead we get the old stuff that has been flushed down the toilet with turds and bits of dental floss in it that's just floated off back into the sky somehow. Honestly, he must think we're all so thick!


    Source; (Wouldn`t want to plagiarise)http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
     
  25. Del, Its a PLACEBO!!!!!;)
     
  26. DTT

    DTT Well-Known Member

    bloody know all kids !! wont be told grumble grumble grumble :deadhorse::D

    Cheers son

    D ;)
     
  27. Was waiting for you to tell me that just because its a placebo, does not mean it does not also work ;)

    Which is a not entirely invalid argument.
     
  28. DTT

    DTT Well-Known Member

    No I was going to say that with a placebo the patient should have some knowledge of what you are trying to do ??

    I dont tell them I just apply it , as far as the patient is concerned it is just a part of the Tx.

    Those that have it are pain free those that didnt were not SO everyone gets it unless they shout allergy to it on the initial assement.

    Sorry just my un- scientific methods which work toward "pain free podiatry" ;)

    One day you will learn Son :D

    Cheers
    D;)
     
  29. dragon_v723

    dragon_v723 Active Member

    strange...from my experience with several chinese pts with diabetic ulcer before none of them reported use of herbal or anything just traditional western medicine, and btw they dont have podiatry there......
     
  30. That's because the majority of Chinese are not as stupid as the minority of westerners.
     
  31. Hans, the clever horse knows ;)
     
  32. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Treatment of diabetic foot by clearing heat, detoxification, activating blood, and dredging collaterals method
    Wang ZH, Wang XY, Zhang YL, Zhao L, Li HX.
    Zhongguo Zhong Xi Yi Jie He Za Zhi. 2013 Apr;33(4):480-3.
     
  33. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member


    Invalid study. You can only compare one treatment with another treatment to claim superiority. Not one treatment with no treatment.

    Bill Liggins
     
  34. Ros Kidd

    Ros Kidd Active Member

    Over the years I've seen lots of "ancient" cures applied to diabetic foot ulcers by patients and wondered whether I'd missed the point. Surely if you developed DM T1 before 1922 you died fairly quickly and possibly without foot ulcers being a chronic problem. DM T2 must have been quite rare. Hum ..but rats, yes there would be lots of rats to experiment with in ancient times, but then you got those rat flea sores and died the next day. Hum..discussing these points with patients often required me to use an ancient remedy of crushed fermented grape juice at home after work.
    Ros
     
  35. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    Now THAT (emphasis) remedy which is diluted with water in the creation, applied internally,works for me also!

    Cheers

    Bill
     
  36. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF POLY HERBAL EXTRACT AGAINST DIABETIC FOOT INFECTION
    T. Viswasanthi, S. Mohana Lakshmi, K. Thamizhvanan, J. Rajesh
    Journal of Global Trends in Pharmaceutical Sciences Volume 4, Issue 4, pp -1285-1290, October-December 2013
     
  37. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    Quote. "In majority of traditional systems of medicine, diabetes is better managed by the combination of herbs (Polyherbal) instead of single herb because of synergism and less side effects. When compared to synthetic medicines herbal remedies are more acceptable as they are safer with fewer side effects than the synthetic ones. T. Viswasanthi et al/JGTPS/Volume 4, Issue 4, October – December 2013 1289. in the present study poly herbal ethanolic extract showed excellent antimicrobial activity which may be due to the presence of phytoconstituents such as tannins and phenolic compounds. So this in vitro antimicrobial study demonstrated that folk medicine can be as effective as modern medicine to kill the pathogenic microorganisms."

    Unfortunately, the study didn't show that at all. The 'modern medicine' was streptomycin and it was proven by this study to be more effective than 'folk medicine'! It is difficult to comprehend how the authors can argue against their own results. In addition, no 'synergism' and/or 'less side effects' were shown. This is not surprising since the study was in vitro, not in vivo.

    As two previous contributors have noted, if these preparations really were miracle cures:
    " ......having good anti diabetic, anti microbial, anti oxidant, anti inflammatory, wound healing activity, anti fungal, anti cancer, anti ulcer, analgesic and anti diuretic activity....", then they would be incorporated in 'modern medicine'. They are not, at least in part because this sort of shabby, inaccurate and unscientific studies mitigate against serious consideration of their efficacy.

    Having said that, I still believe that borotannic complex was a very effective treatment for mycosis when used externally (sorry, didn't do a blinded study). It might be that, as stated, the tannic acid annd phenolic compounds are the most effective constituents of the 'medicine' mentioned above. If that is the case, then why, oh why, are these not tested without the rigmarole of 'polyherbal extracts?

    I'm off to drink a couple of pints of dihydromonoxide with added natural poly remedy of barley, malt and yeasts. Perhaps it will make me feel more charitable. Again, sorry, my test will not be double blinded.

    Bill Liggins
     
  38. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Chinese herbal foot bath plus acupoint massage beneficial to the improvement of grade 0 diabetic foot
    Xiao-xia Lin, Xu-yuan Xu, Bin-bin Shangguan
    Journal of Acupuncture and Tuina Science; September 2014, Volume 12, Issue 5, pp 290-294
     
  39. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    Benefits of Chinese medicine among patients with diabetic foot: an expert review from clinical studies.
    Huang YY, Jiang M, Zhang C, Wang Z, He D, Guo YM, Tian JP, Yu XC1, Lu AP.
    Curr Vasc Pharmacol. 2014 Oct 14
     
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