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11 April 2008, 00:29
Commercial herbal medicines vary widely in standard - new probation
Skullcap is a powerful medicinal herb. The genus Scutellaria consists of above 350 species worldwide and has been used near many cultures to treat a collection of medical conditions, including anxiety, nervous disorders, liver disease and cancers.
The UEL team conducted a number of examination to analogize the flavonoid biomarker content of eleven commercial tinctures derived from the two most commonly-used species, S. American skullcap) and S. Chinese skullcap). They fashion that commercial tinctures of both Scutellaria species vary widely in the drug-to-extract ratio (ranging from 1:1 to 1:5) and alcohol concentration (25 to 70%), depending on the manufacturer.
Thus, for the herbalist there is no guarantee or measure of either quality or efficacy from the products currently available. They suggested this varying could assist to explain the variable efficacy of herbal drug used in clinical practice and also the variation in the reported activity of herbal medicines and dietary supplements in clinical trying out and in assays of pharmacological activity.
Dr Olivia Corcoran, lead researcher and head of Forensic Science at UEL, said: Wide variability in the biomarker content of herbal preparations undermines the practice of herbal drug itself. There is an urgent call for for products to be labelled with accurate assessment of the content of agreed biomarkers.
Without such labelling, it is immensely difficult to assess the effects of herbal medicines, various of which are known to be vain in low doses and dangerous in high concentrations." Patrick Wilson Quelle: Weitere Informationen:
Medizintechnik 09.04.2008 Veranstaltungsnachrichten Global IIR Convention "Airport IT", Berlin 09.04.2008 Veranstaltungsnachrichten 9.
From http://innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften~.html
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19 March 2008, 04:41
Traditional Healer Calls Championing Recognition - ModernGhana.com
NICHOLAS Kofi Antwi, a traditional herbalist at Kubease in the Ashanti Region, has pointed out that unless Government and the Ministry of Trim see the need to make good use of traditional herbalists, there would always be acute shortage of doctors in the country.
According to him, the habit of Ghanaians not having reliance in themselves and always wanting to rely on foreigners for everything, would create a lot of hardships in the near future and again put pressure on health professionals.
The 57-year-old traditional herbalist who was the earlier Director of the Global Analysis Centre at Betom in Koforidua in the Eastern Region, lamented that it was very unfortunate that Ghanaians wanted to imitate whites in nearly all their endeavours. Dr.
Antwi of the Chronic Infection and HIV Back Treatment Centre, who for some years now has been in the media, expressed his sentiments when speaking to newsman in Kumasi on Thursday March 13, 2008 at his residence at Kubease.
According to him, there were a lot of herbs in the country as most of the trees and off inaugurate in the various forests could be used as herbs if one shot Ghanaians invested process in them.
Antwi said contrastive with overseas where both traditional herbalists and medical doctors were equally being used close to the citizens, Ghanaians have always looked down upon their traditional herbalists, although almost all the drugs that have been imported into the country have their more desirable displace in the country.
He was nevertheless quick to unite that although it occasionally becomes necessary to use foreign drugs, most of the effective ones could be constitute in the country"s herbs.
Antwi said a lot of drugs that hog been donated by foreign donors were medicament that could easily be commence in the numerous trees and leaves in the country"s forests if Government and the Ministry of Health would show some interest in the traditional formula of healing.
According to him, it is chief that both the usual herbalists and medical general practitioner in the territory come well-adjusted to share their experiences.
Antwi said it is too disheartening that Ghanaian leaders wait to hear from foreigners that an antidote for HIV AIDS has been found, and then landing them for support although many herbalists in the sovereign state have claimed to have detected some herbs that could be mixed calm to treat the disease.
He said it is based on Ghanaians" attitude in relying on foreigners representing medical recommendation and treatment that the country"s leaders do not much want to pay heed to such claims.
Antwi, narrating how he detected herbs that were able to cure HIV AIDS, said owing to his gangling stay in Kenya, he managed to tap some scholarship from that country"s form personel whilst working in a pharmaceutical shop.
He said after his long stay in Kenya and other foreign countries, he realized that Ghana had the most fit trees and leaves that could be used for the drugs he had studied.
From http://modernghana.com/news/160500/1/traditional-healer-call~
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07 March 2008, 08:04
Stillwater food co-op has built community of shoppers
The club, or grocery co-op, is yet going strong today. The original store, called the Dale Co-op, started with 15 members.
Housed in the basement of a momentous construction in downtown Stillwater, it had stone walls, a stone floor, and large bins brimming with whole grains, rice, granola and peanut butter. Besides in the store: 50-gallon drum of homegrown honey. From its backward origins, Stillwater's only food co-op has grown up.
Last month blatant its 30th anniversary. River Mart Community Co-op, as the set aside is known today has almost 4,000 members and occupies a prominent room on Leading Street, right on the St. Croix River.
The bulk foods section store more than 750 items. Staff members include an herbalist and a physical trainer. And annual receipts apex $4 million.
The changes, say member employees, reflect the evolution of the Look-alike Cities co-op movement from tiny start-ups with very little money and inventory to cosmopolitan businesses with an established presence in the food industry.
In spite of increased striving from grocery store chains that carry biological and yet bulk foods, Watercourse Marketplace has survived for three decades because the St.
Croix Valley regional has embraced the co-op concept, said Mead Stone, general manager of River Market. It is a store where human beings can come together, where people see friends, where people can talk," he said.
The livelihood remainder on the strength of the community." One circumstance that's remained consistent over the years is the customers' values, said longtime colleague and employee Sharona Erickson.
They really do burden about what they're eating, its relation to their own condition and the contact their eating has on the world," she said. Co-ops are businesses owned by the fellow of the business.
But nonmembers also can department store at the stores. Waterway Market is one of about 15 co-ops in the seven-county underground area.
Minnesota has a rich ritual of co-op activity, said Gail Graham, general executive of Mississippi Bazaar in St. Paul and a co-op historian. It goes wager to the turn of the century with the Scandinavian population up in the Iron Range," she said.
The Finns, back then they brought the entire consideration of cooperation back from Finland." In the mid-to-late 1970s, there were more than 30 co-ops in the Twin Cities, Graham said.
The ones that remain after three decades are generally thriving, she said, on the other hand distinct include faced defy over the years.
A couple years ago, River Market's livelihood suffered when the Stillwater lift span closed for a few months, cutting elsewhere Wisconsin customers. About 20 percent of the co-op's customers aware in Wisconsin.
Approximately the same time, Kowalski's opened off of Hwy. 36 in Stillwater. There were stretch when some of us were worried that we weren't going to make it," said Marianne Barratt, River Market's general merchandise buyer.
Her memories of the co-op in its ahead of time days admit characters like the "cheese ladies," a category of volunteers who would come into the co-op to handle the cheese, Barratt explained.