Ayurvedic medicine

[bioman]

^^ Easier said than done.

I'm just taking some potent (6-year root type quality) ginseng now. If you could isolate the active ingredient of ginseng there would be $$$ to be made as a prescription drug for a whole range of conditions. No-one has ever managed it. I've tried the 80% ginseng extracts ... ain't as good as the real stuff.

AX might have pulled it off in Slim Xtreme - I can't remember if it felt ginseng like - or else they have used a borderline legal amphetamine type compound. PP - Eric has a photo where they are extracting from ginseng. To my knowledge no-one has really managed to concerntrate the active ingredients to mimic the real stuff.
Thats only the start of the process to purifying a specific compound.

Phytopharm tried this with Hoodia in collaboration with Phizer (a big company) for a slimming drug (okay this is African not Indian). They couldn't do it.

Yeah I can see why USP are keen on defending Indian medicine. There product range is massively dependent on it - Prime, PowerFull... although APump I dunno.

Having said all that according to the wiki a number of companies are trying to obtain compounds from ashwagandha. Thats adaptogen I need to try - suppose to be good for sleep.

This largely because most of the really effective herbs work via synergy of several to dozens of compounds. Pharma has to get their head out of the "there's one active in this plant and we have to strip it out" mentality and start concentrating ALL of the actives. The American Botanical Council is a big proponent of the synergy theory.

 

[matthias7]

^^^
Its hard just to get out one component: getting the PD5 stuff out of icariin never happened, it had to be accidentally discovered before PD5 could be test in icariin.

Curcumin appears to be very trendy right now.

 

[GuyverX]

This largely because most of the really effective herbs work via synergy of several to dozens of compounds. Pharma has to get their head out of the "there's one active in this plant and we have to strip it out" mentality and start concentrating ALL of the actives. The American Botanical Council is a big proponent of the synergy theory.

That is like the whole Rhampoticum vs. Ecdysterone deal.
Quite a few people taking the whole root in a tea report a wide range of benefits.