Medical Herbalism

Medical Herbalism. Journal for the Clinical Practioner onder redactie van Paul Bergner.
is een van de weinig professionele kruidentijdschriften, waarin ook de praktijk van de fytotherapie aan bod komt. In de onderstaande link krijg je de mogelijkheid om de oudere, maar niet verouderde nummers volledig in te kijken. Een unieke gelegenheid om de zeer degelijke bespreking en behandeling van verschillende aandoeningen met fyto- en aromatherapie te bestuderen. Natuurlijk is het wat op een Amerikaanse leest geschoeid, waardoor er ook kruiden vermeld worden, die wij in Europa weinig kennen of gebruiken. Maar ondanks dat blijft het wel interessant, al is er wel enige vakkennis vereist om de adviezen in de praktijk te brengen. Verder worden er ook interessante case studies besproken. Ik lees dit blad al jaren en het heeft mij veel kennis bijgebracht over het medicinaal gebruik van kruiden.

Garlic and Helicobacter pylori revisited by Paul Bergner
We reported in Volume 10, Number 1-2 on research indicating that garlic preparations may effectively treat Helicobacter pylori infection, which often accompanies peptic ulcers and gastritis (Bergner). A recent trial has found one garlic preparation ineffective for this (Ernst), but don’t throw away your bulbs yet.
In the trial, twenty individuals who tested positive for H. pylori using a breath test received 300 mg tablets of dried garlic powder (a product from Lichtwer Pharma in Germany) three times a day for eight weeks. After an eight week follow up, only one of the patients was free from the infection, as demonstrated by the breath test. The researchers then did single case follow ups comparing the crushed tablets with fresh garlic. They do not report the result of this, or details of the duration of the treatment, the method of preparation, and so on, reporting only that a whole bulb of garlic caused acute nausea and vomiting in a patient. Its not surprising that garlic powder tablets had little or no effect on the infection. The potent antimicrobial substance in garlic is allicin, which has a half life of about 18 hours. Allicin degrades into other sulfur- containing constituents, many of which have medicinal effects, but none with the equivalent topical antibiotic effect of allicin. It is released after crushing fresh garlic, and is for practical purposes gone within 3-5 days. Commercial garlic power products are made with minimal cutting of the bulb in order to preserve the allicin content. Although in-vitro research shows that many powdered garlic products retain their aliin content (the precursor to allicin), invivo comparisons of powders and fresh garlic are lacking.

Actual clinical reports indicate that freshly or recently crushed cloves are much more effective for antibiotic purposes. Dr. Subhuti Dharmananda of the Institute for Traditional Medicine in Portland, Oregon uses garlic to help control intestinal infections in AIDS patients. He reports that powdered products were ineffective for this purpose, even in doses of 27 tablets per day, but that of freshly blended garlic in doses of three cloves 1-3 times a day effectively treated some opportunistic intestinal infections of AIDS. What he reports for these infections may be true of H. pylori as well.
In-vitro-research indicates that concentrations of allicin such as would be found in 2-6 cloves of garlic blended in a quart of water are effective against H. pylori (Sivam et al), a dose is in the same range that Dharmananda reports effective clinically. Another weakness of the Ernst trial is the method used for testing H. pylori. The breath test detects infection but cannot quantify it. The infections could have been reduced in all the patients without this fact being detected by the test.

Bergner, P. The herbal noose tightens on H. pylori and ulcers. Medical Herbalism 1998;10(1-2):19-20
Dharmananda S. Garlic as the central therapy in the treatment of AIDS. Portland, Oregon: Institute for
Traditional Medicine, 1992
Ernst, E. Is Garlic an Effective Treatment for Helicobacter pylori Infection? Arch Int Med 1999; 159 (Nov 8):2484-2485
Sivam GP, Lampe JW, Ulness B, Swanzy SR, Potter JD. Helicobacter pylori—in vitro susceptibility to garlic (Alliumsativum) extract. Nutr Cancer 1997;27(2):118-121

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