People of all backgrounds and nationalities coming into my clinic ask questions about an herb or tea they think can cure their diabetes. In many cultures, there are medical schools dedicated to training people on herbal medications and other non-western forms of healing like acupuncture and rakhi. Their knowledge is based on hundreds of years of experience, so this is no small thing.

Before you get riled up and ready to rake me over the coals about the herbals in your own medicine cabinet, let me say that I do not doubt that certain herbs have medicinal properties. A lot of the medicines in a standard pharmacy actually first came from a plant. And I myself drank about five gallons of what we called “bush tea” as a child, made lovingly by my grandmother, whenever I had a cold or a bellyache. In general, I have no problem with patients taking herbal supplements but I do have concerns.

One is that people often do not realize that THESE ARE MEDICINES. For some reason, a lot of folks are happy to take anything they think of as natural, even if it means taking a cup full of pills everyday (I have had some patients bring me their list of 20 herbs/supplements), but the one diabetes pill from their local pharmacy they think of as poison. Please listen well: ALL MEDICATIONS, whether directly from the earth or not, have a potential for side effects. Whether it came from a laboratory or your backyard, it has potential to do both good and bad. Natural does not mean harmless.

My other concern is when patients take only herbs and no prescribed medicine at all. As a group, doctors like evidence: before we give a pill to someone in our clinic, we need to know that thousands and thousands of people took this medication and it helped their blood sugars. Conservative and stodgy? Yes, but most of us operate that way anyway. In western medicine we do not have vast amounts of data about many herbs. But stay tuned: attention on herbal medications is growing by leap and bounds so this will likely continue to change and evolve as more data becomes available.

So I cannot tell you yes or no about your herbs, because I, having received classic western medical education, know very little about herbal medicine. I have not asked patients to stop their herbal remedies for diabetes unless I see a potential side effect happening, or their diabetes is not controlled on it. Then we start fresh again with standard medications. There are some natural supplements like Chromium that are being studied to see if they really do treat diabetes. Cinnamon showed some promise for a while but a recent study published in 2007 now calls the extent of the benefit into question. When my patients tell me about supplements or herbs they take, I research them, so I can offer some advice. It is your decision, but please at least be up front with your doctors about any herbal or / natural medicines you are taking. Whether they agree or disagree, it is important for you to be on the same page.

Until next time!

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 3:40 pm and is filed under SugarStats Status.
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