Anti-Aging Strategies

Now for some controversy. A researcher named Jason Lazarou, in the April 15, 1998, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, describes Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR). He emphasized that ADRs are all too frequent and, in fact, are between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death. Ironically, in hospitals the majority of ADR problems are "due to inadequate monitoring or therapies and doses." The numbers are frightening: "In 1994 in the United States, 106,000 hospitalized patients died from an ADR." So the challenge remains for the discerning clinician just how significant the risks of herbs such as Ma huang (ephedra) really are.

Studies show that Ma huang may indeed increase the heart rate of some volunteers who have normal blood pressure. But so does a sauna. All in all, Ma huang had variable effects on blood pressure. Interestingly, a random analysis of this traditional Chinese herb using gas chromatography failed to show any nasty synthetic isomers, such as synthetic Ephedra alkaloids.

We all became gun shy after the weight-loss drugs Redux (dexfenflu-ramine) and Pondimin (fenfluramine), part of the popular fen-phen combination, were unceremoniously removed from the market in 1997. Even so, there are a lot of entrepreneurs anxious to offer a "natural" replacement for these products. According to the January-February 1998 issue of FDA Consumer, the range of recorded complications have included "high blood pressure and headaches to heart attacks and even death." Such warnings certainly ring familiar with what Lazarou chronicled as all-too-frequent ADRs from properly approved FDA drugs. Let us not ignore some 1,500 documented cases including 38 deaths from a rare blood disorder from another fen-phen product, 5-hydroxy tryptophan, closely related to L-tryptophan.

The take-home advice from this allopathic physician is that you run about as great a chance of running into a problem taking an ephedrine product as, let's say, popping amoxicillin for bronchitis or the codeine derivative in Vicoden. Make sure that you review your natural remedies with a naturopath or, at least, the purveyor where you buy the potion of your choice. I wouldn't take a drop myself until I reviewed the drug with Dr. David Lu, a third generation Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist now in Minneapolis who knows alternative pharmaceuticals the way I know western synthetic drugs. Knowing as much as possible can ensure smooth sailing without any unwanted drug reactions.