Comments on: Traditional Chinese Meds on GC/MS http://www.justchromatography.com/gc/tcm-perennials Everything about Chromatography and Analytical Chemistry Fri, 16 May 2008 04:10:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3 By: Chemist http://www.justchromatography.com/gc/tcm-perennials#comment-147 Chemist Mon, 04 Jun 2007 04:13:50 +0000 http://www.justchromatography.com/gc/tcm-perennials#comment-147 Andrew, I appreciate your comment. TCM is a complete mystery to me; my personal experience is limited to taking some ginseng supplements :) 24 components is a lot, and I am sure each component may potentially have 2-4 active ingredients, so standardization, characterization and QC become a nightmare. Look, even in a simple pharmaceutical formulation with a single API, manufacturing process as well as the method development for QC is not a trivial task. Andrew, I appreciate your comment. TCM is a complete mystery to me; my personal experience is limited to taking some ginseng supplements :)

24 components is a lot, and I am sure each component may potentially have 2-4 active ingredients, so standardization, characterization and QC become a nightmare. Look, even in a simple pharmaceutical formulation with a single API, manufacturing process as well as the method development for QC is not a trivial task.

]]> By: Andrew Sun http://www.justchromatography.com/gc/tcm-perennials#comment-144 Andrew Sun Sun, 03 Jun 2007 04:35:38 +0000 http://www.justchromatography.com/gc/tcm-perennials#comment-144 Talking about TCM, In fact the TCM does not think itself as 'having high activity, low toxicity, and rarely cause complications'. In contrast, it strongly emphasizes the levels of toxicity and the combination of various drugs to avoid complications. Chrysanthemum flower, for example is dried into tea for curing wind-heat (in a modern medical point of view, the so call wind-heat is a state of low-pH in the blood and a higher tendency to inflammation), but it is not effective when using alone. The most famous wind-heat prescription is composed of 24 components including dried chrysanthemum, and we don't know which of them play the main roles. Moreover one must continuously take the drug for weeks to enjoy the effect and we just cannot distinguish whether the drug cured him or he just recovered himself. TCM is a really weird subject of science, if it is. Talking about TCM, In fact the TCM does not think itself as ‘having high activity, low toxicity, and rarely cause complications’. In contrast, it strongly emphasizes the levels of toxicity and the combination of various drugs to avoid complications. Chrysanthemum flower, for example is dried into tea for curing wind-heat (in a modern medical point of view, the so call wind-heat is a state of low-pH in the blood and a higher tendency to inflammation), but it is not effective when using alone. The most famous wind-heat prescription is composed of 24 components including dried chrysanthemum, and we don’t know which of them play the main roles. Moreover one must continuously take the drug for weeks to enjoy the effect and we just cannot distinguish whether the drug cured him or he just recovered himself. TCM is a really weird subject of science, if it is.

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