Category Archives: G. BOTANICALS

Pine Bark Extract

Pycnogenol: pine bark discord

Six years ago I wrote an article about pycnogenol. It was a story about a man (Dr. Jacques Masquelier), his invention (the extraction process), and alleged trademark infringement, which prevents him from selling his product in the United States.

Pycnogenol is a scavenger of oxygen free radicals, and Dr. Masquelier’s website presents a long list of benefits attributed to pycnogenol. We await the supporting clinical trial results, however.

The point of this post is to update that original article. Dr. Masquelier (in his late 80s) is retired. His successors continue to defend the extraction process and their product.

7/1/06 9:33 JR

CAM Education, CAM Politics, Herbals

Treating herbal products as medicines in Spain

The latest issue of Functional Foods & Nutraceuticals e-newsletter is out. In it, we learn that Spanish authorities treat herbal products as medicines. They require such products to be withdrawn from the market and to obtain medicinal marketing authorizations.

In contrast to this, the European Commission considers that the absence of adequate procedures to assess the risk to public health that such products allegedly pose is an unjustified barrier to trade.

As a result of complaints from companies that want to market herbals in Spain, the European Commission is pursuing infringement procedures against Spain for hampering the free movement of goods in the market.

6/29/06 21:22 JR

Coffee, Garlic, Ginkgo, Glucosamine/ Chondroitin, NCCAM, Wallace Sampson

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) criticized for bias

In a video taped editorial, Dr. Wallace Sampson complains that the NCCAM on its website, “links to trade and unscientific occupational organizations, and presents anomalous methods in a ‘neutral’ light.” Furthermore, Dr. Wallace states, “It contains minimal cautionary, negative information.” This is all the more disturbing because we expect more from a government-sponsored information resource.

The NCCAM counters “while some scientific evidence exists regarding some CAM therapies, for most there are key questions that are yet to be answered through well-designed scientific studies, questions such as whether these therapies are safe and whether they work for the diseases or medical conditions for which they are used.”

As a clinical professor of medicine (emeritus) at Stanford University, and editor of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, Dr. Sampson’s assessment must not be dismissed. Is it reasonable to expect that studies of CAM be as well designed as those of conventional medicine? I think so.

NCCAM provides a useful service in making CAM data available, but studies of ginseng, Ginkgo biloba, garlic supplements, coffee enemas, and glucosamine, for example, should be held to high study design standards.

6/21/06 22:14 JR