Medicinal potential of plants

I REFER to the various reports under the headline “Medicine or menace” ( The Star,

Nov 26) where, among others, it was stated that data from Hospital Selayang, which is the national tertiary referral centre for liver diseases, showed that 42% of drug-induced acute liver failure cases from 2001 to 2017 were possibly due to traditional and complementary medicine.

This is yet another proof that the problem of unlicensed traditional medicine sellers providing people with unregistered and adulterated herbal products at street markets, shops and online needs to be tackled more effectively now rather than later. .

I fully agree that lack of safety regulations, poor quality control and incorrect usage of herbal medication could have fatal outcomes. Thankfully, Malaysia has a good and efficient drug regulatory system and there is regular surveillance of products on the market.

The story of the 73-year-old man with the small lump on his neck who consumed an herbal drink inappropriately made me wonder if Malaysians, including health professionals, feel fortunate to live in a country with such a rich choice of traditional and complementary medicines (TCM) and are generally less sceptical about TCM compared to people in other countries.

The discovery of antibiotics in 1928 was one of the most significant events in medical history and is said to have added a decade to the life expectancy of humans. Antibiotics were responsible for a dramatic reduction in the number of deaths from infectious diseases.

Nowadays, however, overuse and misuse of this lifesaving group of medicines has led to the biggest threat to global health – antibiotic resistance, where antibiotics are no longer effective in treating bacterial infections.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded the warning that the world is heading towards a pre-antibiotic era in which simple infections can become life-threatening. Infections with resistant micro-organisms already kill hundreds to thousands a year glob- ally, and it is predicted that by 2050, that figure could be more than 10 million. The economic cost would also be significant, and it is predicted that the world economy could be hit by up to US$100 trillion by 2050 if we do not act.

The world urgently needs to change the way it prescribes and uses antibiotics, and therefore alternatives to antibiotics need to be determined. Herbal medicine could be one of the players in this. But worldwide research in TCM is seriously hampered by lack of research infrastructure, funding, research expertise among TCM practitioners, appropriate research models and strategies, and the scepticism of the conventional scientific community.

Nevertheless, TCM research might contribute to controlling antimicrobial resistance and, in the broader context, improving health, reducing disease, and cutting down on healthcare costs.

High quality studies already report that herbal medicine, if proven safe and effective, could be used to relieve symptoms of minor infections. For example, a study published in PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science based in California, showed that Andrographis paniculata, which is known locally as hempedu bumi, appears beneficial and safe for relieving acute respiratory tract infection symptoms (colds and coughs) and reducing the time to become symptom-free.

Another study conducted in the United Kingdom and published earlier this year in BMJ Open, a peer-reviewed open access medical journal published by the BMJ (a wholly-owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association), showed that general practice surgeries with doctors who also have training in complementary and alternative medicine prescribe fewer antibiotics to patients and may hold the key to reducing over-prescription of these drugs.

Worldwide, there is a huge disparity between public funding for conventional drug research and TCM. However, research is key in educating Malaysians, including clinicians, on the proper use of all medicines!

The rich choice of TCM in Malaysia should be seen as beneficial for the general health of the local population and not as a risk.

Let’s do high quality research to educate. If we lose antibiotics, we would have nothing left to combat infections! So, we have nothing to lose by investing in studying the lifesaving skills of all these promising herbs!

DR ESTHER VAN DER WERF Senior Lecturer in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Taylor’s University, Selangor