Herbal remedies may offer asthma sufferers relief from their debilitating symptoms. There is no known cure for asthma, a chronic condition that causes inflammation of the airways. Its most common symptoms are shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, wheezing and coughing.
If you have been diagnosed with asthma, you are likely to be prescribed steroid medication to keep the symptoms under control and a bronchodilator containing non-steroidal drugs to alleviate the symptoms when they do appear.
The preliminary findings of recent Japanese research, however, suggest that using kampo herbs, a traditional Chinese herbal remedy, can provide relief from asthma symptoms. The study involved almost 300 people with asthma who showed daily symptoms of the condition.
The majority of patients in the study were given kampo herbs instead of the typical inhaled steroid and bronchodilator and, according to the team’s findings, 94% of those treated with kampo herbs reported that their daily symptoms disappeared after an average 16 days of taking them.
Kampo medicine is an ancient Chinese herbal remedy that is also widely practised in Japan to treat lots of medical conditions. A combination of herbs is used to treat different conditions in individuals – the mix used in the Japanese research included Scutellaria root, gardenia fruit, cinnamon bark and liquorice root.
As the study didn’t examine any potential side effects of using kampo herbs on asthma sufferers, more detailed research is required. The issue of the quality of the herbs used in any remedy also has to be addressed before kampo herbs could be safely recommended as a treatment for the symptoms of asthma.
As the Japanese study, presented to a conference of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, is only preliminary research, the academy said a wider study is needed in which participants are not aware that the herbal remedy they are taking may help with their symptoms. This is because it is known that many people in clinical trials such as this will often report positive effects even if they haven’t experienced any.
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