I love the way you put scientific consensus in quote marks, as if the knowledge and evidence of years of peer-reviewed work can be shrugged off on the basis of a single anecdote and marketing.

Anyway, this is an old post. I no longer have time to argue these points and have closed comments. Thanks for your interest.

On the other hand, some effects are so dramatic that I can’t deny their efficacy. One example of such is given by my daughter, who has a form of ADD where much of her brain is overactive. As a result, if unmedicated, she feels absolutely driven to ‘do’, that is she is constantly thinking about what she wants to do next, pretty unaware of what is going on around her, and almost constantly frustrated and angry about the things she envisions doing but is not able to make happen. Through Amen Clinics we found out that GABA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid – the chief inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain) helps this kind of condition. But the “scientific” consensus is that it can’t help because it does not cross the blood brain barrier. I have been told by doctors that it can’t be doing anything because of this. But with GABA she calms down and relaxes, laughs at things that would have made her angry, turns into a pretty normal happy kid. Take her off of it for 48 hours and she goes back to the way she used to be.

The point is that if you put herbals in order from least obviously acting to most obviously acting (with GABA in my daughter being towards the ‘most obviously’ end), there is no bright line anywhere along this continuum where you can says, “OK, below this point we want to have scientific proof, and above this point the evidence is so dramatic that we can accept anecdotal evidence and be pretty sure that it works”. It is not necessary to scientifically proof absolutely every assertion before you accept it. If I required, or was required, to meet this standard, my daughter’s and my family’s lives would be much more difficult and much less happy. But each person has to draw this line for themselves. You just draw your line further up towards the obviously effective than I do. Every person draws that line in a different place depending on their need and experience, and that is OK. I see, and hope you see, a really good role for you in this area is helping people make an informed decision about where they draw their line between what they accept as believable and what they want harder proof for.

My own perspective on looking for help for my spouse/partner for her CFIDS was that I immediately discounted anything where the messenger said something like “and for the ultimate cure buy our super deluxe energy rejuvenator”.

On Complex and emergent systems, I must apologize for my non-sequitur. I wasn’t bringing the subject up as relevant to this particular thread, but was just wondering if perhaps you had another thread going somewhere that discussed these areas

I don’t see the relevance of discussions on complexity or emergent systems. The marketing claims for a herbal extract have nothing to do with emergent systems, although I am sure marketeers would love to be able to attach such labels if it helped them sell more snake oil.

Does make me wonder though – are you having any discussions on complexity and emergent systems? A favorite subject of mine, although I was having trouble finding books on it until I realized that they are mostly in the computer section at the bookstores. One of my favorites is Out of Control by Kevin Kelly, but it was published in 1994, but I haven’t found anything more recent that is similar in approach.

But back to the original subject, given the history of this particular herbal it is hard to imagine (assuming you aren’t highly allergic) that it could do you any harm taken for a short time. Of course you are in the position of having to decide which of however many herbal remedies you might try, if you were to start down this road, so I can to some extent understand your reluctance. My own experience with it was that it noticeably lifted my mood and increased my energy, and my partner has the same experience.

I say apocryphal because it is nowhere in his writings. The story seems to have originated with Francis Bacon

http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/02/francis-bacon-and-horses-teeth.html

There are just too many claims for this plant and not enough evidence. Recent work by one team has focused on antidepressant, anxiolytic effects and smoking-cessation assistance another team talk about preventing binge eating, it’s a rather limited literature. The rosavins may well have physiological activity, my truck is with the marketing hype that suggests it is some kind of medical panacea. It is not. Moreover, the word “adaptogen” seems to be nothing more than a rebranding of phrases such as rejuvenating, tonic, and restorative with apparently no basis in science that allows marketeers to use a sciencey-sounding word in their sales guff.