[A_D_E_P_T]

TCM has a lot of wins along just those lines. For instance:

Artemisinin (qinghaosu) from artemisia annua. This won the 2015 Nobel Prize, and is now the cornerstone of global malaria therapy.

Arsenic trioxide, the purified form of the TCM mineral pishuang, now a very common treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia. Often curative in a single dose: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221304891...

Camptothecin from camptotheca acuminata, precursor of topotecan and irinotecan for solid tumours.

Ephedrine from ephedra sinica -- template for modern bronchodilators and decongestants.

Many others. Omacetaxine, minnelide, and more.

Very often, the first thing a medicinal chemist seeking new drug templates does is look to herbs that are used by indigenous populations or in "traditional" medicine systems. There's an entire journal dedicated to this:

> https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-ethnopharma...

[spauka]

Ironically, you've picked an example (Artemisinin) which is discussed at some length in the linked article - as an example where TCM success is overstated and not backed up by real-world results!

See P5-6 in section "The implausibility problem" - which points out that in order for the treatment to be effective it had to be refined into a form that is not rapidly eliminated from the body.

[A_D_E_P_T]

That's an extremely silly objection when (a) artemisinin is effective as a standalone drug if you administer it frequently enough, (b) the discovery of artemisinin and its derivatives in malaria treatment was quite literally inspired by TCM, and (c) most natural products are modified prior to use in pharmaceutical industry, and artemisinin is particularly lightly modified. (Just given a simple ester in artesunate's case.)

[privatelypublic]

Why should we take TCM any more seriously than traditional western? Do we still boil bark for a headache? Of course not, especially when it comes with so many tannins you get a stomach ache instead?

When you have thousands of years of people writing down their folk cures, sooner or later somebody will be right.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>Why should we take TCM any more seriously than traditional western?

Wasn't the entire idea behind evidence-based medicine to start putting traditional western treatments to the test and check if they actually work? I think we do take traditional western methods quite seriously, and we should do the same with TCM.

With regard to your bark example, right here in the thread someone points out: "E.g. willow bark was used to treat pain for thousands of years, which led to the discovery of aspirin."

[privatelypublic]

I'm not sure if you intentionally missed my points (because the relation between willow tree bark and aspirin is common knowledge in my experience), or there's just a gap I don't know how to bridge...

But no, at a normal conversational level- most the people around me (American midwest) would wait for the rest of the joke if I said I was going to the apothecary to get something for my headache.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

GNC alone has 10 locations in Chicago alone: https://stores.gnc.com/all-stores-illinois/chicago

Selling hundreds of "herbs and natural solutions": https://www.gnc.com/herbs-natural-supplements/

[roncesvalles]

It's still not a vindication of TCM specifically. All traditional medicine cultures have contributed something to modern medicine. E.g. willow bark was used to treat pain for thousands of years, which led to the discovery of aspirin. I believe even cholesterol-reducing statins come from traditional medicinal herb.

Naturopathic medicinal cultures aren't totally bullshit. They're just "unscientific" i.e. they haven't gone through the rigors of the scientific method to establish their efficacy, or often their etiologies and mechanisms of action are completely made-up.

[A_D_E_P_T]

> I believe even cholesterol-reducing statins come from traditional medicinal herb.

Yeah, lovastatin comes from red yeast rice, which is also TCM. The other statins are downstream of it.

> Naturopathic medicinal cultures aren't totally bullshit. They're just "unscientific" i.e. they haven't gone through the rigors of the scientific method to establish their efficacy, or often their etiologies and mechanisms of action are completely made-up.

I agree 100%. But natural products are -- and always have been -- the great repository of drug templates. All modern pharmacopoeias owe a real debt to TCM in particular.

Instead of complaining like the guy who wrote the article in OP, it's best to try and take what's good and discard what's bad, without preconceptions or prejudice.