Just as the first major anti-inflammatory drug to become ubiquitous was based on a folk remedy of chewing or making tea from willow bark, it is likely that others exist naturally that have yet to be identified. Perhaps there even exist others that more specific or potent. When taken out of context, this is the basic assumption of most naturopathic arguments. Where naturopathy becomes most dubious for me is when its proponents insist that natural remedies are more efficacious simply due to the state of being in their “natural” form. Indeed, willow bark is thousands of times less potent volume-for-volume than is isolated salicylic acid.
That aside, I had to seek out any natural-based anti-inflammatory therapies that seemed to be promising in an attempt to appear unbiased about the subject. The Adzuki bean (Vigna angularis; alternatively ‘Azuki’ or ‘Aduki’) is a commonly cultivated bean throughout Asia, especially northeastern Asia. It forms the basis for many Asian dishes and its extract is prescribed to treat inflammation and arthritis in Asian countries [Yu 1197.] Yu, et al, investigated the immune-modulatory activity of an ethanol extract of the bean and found it to down-regulate several critical immune-signaling and transcription factors [Yu 1202.]
Mukai and Sato narrowed the focus further to the active properties of the bean’s coat as the most promising target for further research, as this portion of the bean contains the many polyphenols that they described as responsible for attenuating vascular oxidative stress and inflammation in hypertensive rats [Mukai 17.] Of the most interest to this, our section on anti-inflammatories, is that Mukai described a “significant” decrease in both iNOS and COX-2 expression upon treatment with the bean coat preparation [Mukai Figs. 4 & 5.] Importantly, Yu, et al, were also able to show that the immune-modulatory components of the bean were orally-available [Yu 1204.]
Is it likely that western doctors will begin prescribing beans to chronic inflammation patients? Probably not; however, it may just be a matter of time before we see polyphenols isolated from the Adzuki bean serve as a basis for synthesis, or a direct source of anti-inflammatory drugs themselves.
[For ease of reference, each paper is linked to PubMed, but full-text versions are available as of this post through the UA library online after login.]
Mukai > Pubmed #20185287: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20185287
Yu > Pubmed #21821108: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21821108
I agree with you in that I'm skeptical of naturopathic remedies, but at the same time natural products have played a huge role in spurring development, especially with antibiotics.
ReplyDeleteAs for the 'natural' form being better argument, I agree that this may be true, but only in limited circumstances. I think that often natural product may have a superior outcome than a single compound from the plant. However, I think that this isn't due to any inherent properties in the plant, but that it's from the tens or hundreds of compounds contained in the plant, vs a single compound being tested. But from a drug development standpoint, as well as health and safety, I don't think 'natural' products will prosper. One of the major reasons being that you simply don't know exactly what is in the product you are giving someone, as well as not knowing how much drug is actually contained in it.
Regardless, I hope that there will be continued research into natural products and the compounds they contain because I believe they will be a vast resource for future drug development.
SBrookshire495K
I found it interesting when the authors mentioned the bean is grown in the tropical regions of Asia. There could be a great benefit to increased agricultural and ecological research into the variety of tropical tree legumes that could potentially contain the anti-inflammatory polyphenols.
ReplyDeleteIt would also be interesting to look at the prevalence of arthritis and other inflammatory diseases in the regions that the Adzuki bean is a staple in diets. Would long-term consistent consumption of these beans be protective? Quantity is always a question with these natural components, resveratrol comes to mind in that argument.
The idea of the herbal medicine in the notion of back to nature, as Jeff posted, offering us an alternative source of inflammatory disease treatment. But for me, the research of herbal medicine, specifically polyphenols, the potential substance that suggested by the writer as an anti-inflamatory drugs or immunomodulator, is still in the generating hypothesis phase. This is based on the several facts. First, the plant polyphenols basicly have many and diverse class of compounds and not all actions of individual polyphenols are beneficial. Even some of it has mutagenic and pro-oxidant effects. Secondly, a lot of promising evidences come from in vitro studies and much fewer in animal studies, which have limited predictive value in humans. The biological relevance to human also become a big question because the bioavailability of such compounds in human blood is relatively much lower compared to the level use in most animal studies. Third, there are conflicting result of the epidemiological study of various polyphenol sources, generally green tea and red wine, not bean. In spite of the widely marketing effect of the herbal on human health and tons of studies on plant polyphenol, the question of which polyphenol , have what effect, at what level, to be given for beneficial result in human population is still very big open ended question. The idea is great here, but again, the evil is in the detail.
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