Herbal Medicine takes a (Brock Lesnar sized) hit.

[Usteo]

Osteoarthritis, Chemotherapy toxicity and IBS specifically.

http://press.psprings.co.uk/pgmj/october/633_pj60202.pdf

[Marlowe]

The message here is that this could just as easily be us down the track.  We do need to start working on a treatment model that has a unified principle.  For me, that would be a neurological model as it is a common denominator in all our treatments. 

[Usteo]

Yep, and be sure of this:  Just like that article there will be no shortage of people ready to besmirch us if and when something similar happens.  You can also bet the US Osteos wont be quick to back us since it seems they are currently amongst a push to change the qualification from DO to MD-DO or MDO or something similar.  They want to be recognised as medicos, not osteopaths.  So there is a strong sentiment from our biggest base of practitioners to run from the hills of osteopathic manual therapy.

[Lainie]

Another possible take on this review... In other reviews, there is reasonable evidence for standardised herbal preparations in the treatment of some conditions. What sets this review apart is that the authors investigated indiviualised therapy. Individualised treatment is, by definition, not standardised, and is therefore difficulty to measure and quantify. Putting a bundle of hard to measure stuff together may give you something that is very hard to measure, possibly leading to the conclusion that there is nothing to measure. Perhaps one of the things we can learn from this review is that it may be prudent for us to consider how we might standardise osteopathic treatments so that they are measurable and can be administered in known "doses." 

[Luke Rickards]

This not really a review of the efficacy of herbal medicine per say. What it does suggest is that the models that practitioners use in prescribing individualised herbal formulas need reconsideration. Two of the three studies reviewed here were using CHM, which is prescribed according to a system herbal 'energetics' (for want of a better term) developed purely from empiricism. Western herbalism may suffer similar problems. Individualised herbal medicine treatment prescribed according to the principles of phytotherapy/phytopharmacology, where, at the least, active therapeutic components can be matched with pathophysiology and/or symptomatology, may reveal different results.