ASTRAGULUS
Chicken soup is
sort of a universal remedy for the common cold. Even in China they
use it, although they use it alongside snake soup. But whichever one
you like, in China they're likely to grate some of this root into
the soup. It's the root of the astragalus plant. And they say it increases
the body's chi, sort of internal energy.
Now, our modern
western science doesn't really understand what chi is, and neither
do I. But I think it has something to do with immune function. So
we would say astragalus supposedly increases the body's reactions
- that is it improves immune function. Does it do that? Do we have
any evidence? Well, we do some interesting chemistry on it. We extract
compounds from the root and we find that they do have physiological
activity. Astragalan B for example increases the activity of natural
killer cells. Interleukin-2, which is an immune chemical is also boosted.
What does that
mean though? Well, in China they use astragalus alongside radiation
and chemotherapy for cancer patients because those treatments reduce
the immune function of the body. Astragalus supposedly improves it.
In North America we haven't done that because we just don't have enough
clinical studies. Although cancer patients can certainly ask their
physician to look into this to see whether or not astragalus may be
beneficial. Even for heart disease, in China there's a belief
that using astragalus root with in 36 hours of heart attack can improve
heart function. It increases the beating strength of the heart, we'll
have to wait and see on that one too.
In North America
we like to go for encapsulated supplements and we have them. You can
get these astragalus pills, 500 to 1000 milligrams, sort of a ball
park guess for what may be useful. But we don't have any long term
studies. That's the problem. We don't know if it will interact with
other medication, such as blood thinners - coumadin for example. We
don't know how it behaves under anesthesia, does it interact with
the anesthetics. So we still have a lot to learn. All of this need
to learn is kind of stressful. But the Chinese tell us astragalus
root is the best antidote to stress.
