Metabolomics study of the effect of Danggui Buxue Tang on rats with chronic fatigue syndrome, 2022, Miao et al

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
Abstract

Danggui Buxue Tang (DBT), a traditional Chinese medicine formula for “invigorating qi and enriching blood”, has been reported to produce a good effect on chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). However, the related mechanism remains largely unresolved. In this study, a metabolomics approach with gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry combined with pattern recognition was devised to estimate the extent to which DBT alleviated CFS induced by food restriction and force swimming in rats. After four weeks of treatment, the endurance capability of rats was significantly better and the motionless time was significantly shorter in the DBT group than in CFS model group. Moreover, the activities of SOD and GSH-Px were increased, while the levels of MDA, IL-6 and TNF-α were decreased in the DBT treatment group. Fifteen significantly changed metabolites were observed in the serum of rats with CFS, which was reversed markedly by DBT treatment. Metabolic pathway analysis showed that DBT could possibly alleviate CFS in rats by regulating phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan biosynthesis, glycine, serine and the metabolism of threonine, glycerolipid, glyoxylate, dicarboxylate and tyrosine. It was observed that the metabolism of glycine, serine and threonine was most closely related to the improvement of CFS by DBT treatment. This study showed that DBT could improve CFS effectively and metabolomics was a powerful means to gain insights into the traditional Chinese medicine formulas against CFS.

Paywall, https://analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmc.5379
 
I was tempted not to post this one, given that I'm not convinced that 'starved and exhausted rats are fed something new and some changes were able to be recorded' is going to be valuable information for us, but here it is for completeness sake.
 
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Given that there's no evidence that reduced food and exercise to exhaustion have anything to do with causing CFS in humans, this research seems pretty irrelevant.

Why not do the metabolomics on humans with CFS in a clinical trial of the Chinese remedy?
 
I think first of all the researchers need to determine the medicinal chemistry of the Chinese medicine before they dive into the diagnostic hay pile.

What are the molecular compounds involved?

If there are some tradional medicines that are beneficial, that's great. Where is the quality control of herbs and roots. From harvest and gathering, and are they contaminated by mold or heavy metals. Who is to say unless there's chemical analysis.

Where is the science?
.
 
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From: https://edzardernst.com/2013/12/the-myth-about-traditional-chinese-medicine/

"What is being offered in our country to patients as TCM is a construct that was created in China on an office desk which has been altered further on its way to the West.

Already at the beginning of the 20th century, reformers and revolutionaries urged that the traditional medicine in China should be abolished and that the western form of medicine should be introduced instead. Traditional thinking was seen as backwards and it was held responsible for the oppressing superiority of the West. The introduction of Western natural sciences, medicine and technology was also thought later, after the foundation of the People’s Republic, to be essential for rendering the country competitive again. Since the traditional Chinese medicine could not be totally abolished then because it offered a living to many citizens, it was reduced to a kernel, which could be brought just about in line with the scientific orientation of the future communist society. In the 1950s and 60s, an especially appointed commission had been working on this task. The filtrate which they created from the original medical tradition was hence forward to be called TCM vis a vis foreigners."

TCM is an unchallengeable artefact in Chinese academia, it produces all sorts of contortions in Chinese research that makes any study referencing it of dubious value.
 
shak8 said:
I think first of all the researchers need to determine the medicinal chemistry of the Chinese medicine before they dive into the diagnostic hay pile.

What are the molecular compounds involved?

If there are some tradional medicines that are beneficial, that's great. Where is the quality control of herbs and roots. From harvest and gathering, and are they contaminated by mold or heavy metals. Who is to say unless there's chemical analysis.

Where is the science?
.
Click to expand...
Most TCM is funded by the government for cultural reasons, not scientific.

Psychosomatizers love to speak of a "cultural illness", but the real irony is that what they are practicing is cultural medicine. TCM is just more open about it, but it's basically the Chinese equivalent of the psychosomatic constructs Western medicine, no one expects science there. Equivalent in terms of the culture of medicine, not in their underlying ideas. Either way, it's for the practitioners, not the patients.

Except with actual ingredients that, sometimes, actually do something. Whether it works or not is a different issue, but they do have active ingredients, so it's more of a traditional snake oil model, compared to the imaginary snake oil model of psychosomatic medicine.
 
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