I can't tell you how many of my medical colleagues try to tell me that
there's no medical research to support the use of botanicals.
And the truth of the matter is there actually is a body of scientific research
surrounding botanicals.
And it's been steadily growing over the past several decades.
Now granted,
the amount of research on pharmaceuticals is definitely a lot more than botanicals.
But we do actually have some research on botanicals.
And I expect that it will continue to grow as people see
just how effective botanicals can be for certain medical conditions.
Scientific research is so important because it helps advance
the fields of medicine and allows us to develop new treatments and
technologies that provide lifesaving and optimal treatment for patients.
Evidence-informed practice utilizes the current medical research from the results
of high-quality studies, along with patient preference and clinical expertise,
to ultimately guide decision-making and recommendations for patients.
An evidence-informed practice is an important aspect of providing safe and
effective healthcare for patients.
And this applies to both pharmaceuticals and botanicals.
However, botanical research has a lot of unique challenges when we
compare it to pharmaceutical research.
And we'll be discussing these challenges in regarding obtaining and
interpreting botanical research data during this video.
Systematic reviews and meta-analysis are popular research study designs
because they look at multiple studies and pool the data to reach a conclusion
based on the collective results of these studies.
This presents a really unique challenge for botanicals,
because different botanicals have different extraction techniques.
Different species or different parts of the plants may be used.
The botanical may be administered in pill versus tea versus tincture form.
And when there's so many variables that we have to take into account, it can really
make it difficult to reach a definitive conclusion about one particular botanical.
A whole-systems approach means that prescribers of botanicals
take into account the entire constitution of the patient, and may prescribe
a different botanical for a different person with the same set of symptoms.
And this approach is often very effective for the patient.
However, it's really hard to research or
prove scientifically since the results are not easily replicable.
Botanicals are often also prescribed in combinations,
which helps contribute to the difficulty
of proving that one particular botanical had one particular effect.
True or false?
The individualized nature in which botanicals are prescribed
make it challenging to study and interpret the research results.
For two products to have pharmaceutical equivalence,
both must have the same dosage form, route of administration,
active ingredient, and label stating conditions of use.
Proving pharmaceutical equivalence in botanicals is very challenging.
One reason for this is the active constituents in botanicals
may not be identified or may be multiple in number.
Also, different extraction methods or
techniques used in preparing the plant impacts the therapeutic properties.
With so many variables impacting a plant, proving an herbal product
from one plant is equivalent to another can be extremely difficult.
One option that botanicals have to help with the issue of pharmaceutical
equivalence is the use of standardized extracts.
A standardized extract is a botanical preparation
that has an isolated constituent in a specific, guaranteed amount.
Standardized extracts work well for research studies due to batch-to-batch
consistency that they provide, but they also do have their limitations.
Botanicals tend to work best and are safest in less concentrated amounts than
we found in extracts and when used in combination with other botanicals.
Another limitation is that because constituents of a plant may be unknown or
multiple, manufacturers may not be including the correct active constituents
in an extract.
Botanicals can be consumed in many ways, and
this is one of the things I love about them.
You can take it as a pill, a tea, tincture, a cream, or
a standardized extract, just to name a few examples.
Different preparations affect the medicinal properties of the botanical.
So it's really important to pay attention to this detail
when analyzing scientific literature.
Also, dosages are not well defined for many botanical preparations.
And this can make comparisons from one research article to the next
very challenging.
Growing and
harvesting conditions can impact the therapeutic properties of the plant.
A research study could study the effects of a particular botanical and
find it not to be effective.
But what if the plant study was harvested too young or too old or
during the wrong season?
For example,
milky oat seed must be harvested at a very specific stage to be fully effective.
If researchers tested oats harvested at a different stage and
found milky oat seed to be ineffective,
this conclusion wouldn't represent the most accurate use of the plant.
Randomized controlled trials, or
RCTs, as they're commonly called, are considered the gold standard of research.
It's a valuable tool in proving the effectiveness of a botanical, and
even more importantly, can help compare it to a pharmaceutical that's used for
the same medical condition.
RCTs also help bring a sense of legitimacy to botanicals.
And certain botanical have become accepted into mainstream medicine because of this.
However, you can probably begin to guess some of the drawbacks of RCTs used for
botanicals.
As with any research,
it's important to consider the benefits of the study in addition to its limitations.
The challenges listed in this video can all impact the quality and
conclusions of botanical research.
This makes it particularly important for you to identify good sources for
finding research on botanical medicines so
you have the best evidence to inform your practice.
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