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HERBAL Medicine— relieves seasonal allergic rhinitis
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Chinese herbal medicine
relieves both nasal and non-nasal symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis, an Australian study has found.
The herbal medicine formula was based on traditional Chinese medicine theory and consists of 18 herbs.
Dr Charlie Xue told a complementary medicine research symposium that current conventional treatments for the condition are associated with side effects.
He and his colleagues at RMIT University's Chinese Medicine Research Group and School of Medical Sciences conducted a randomized controlled trial of 49 people over 10 weeks.
"Our findings indicate that the actions of the Chinese herbal formulation may involve multiple inhibitions of the release of inflammatory mediators from targeted cells.
"We are now trying to improve the formula to reduce the number of herbs, to identify the key pharmacological mechanisms and remove the herbs which don't have those actions.
"Then we will conduct another trial, after which we hope to prepare the product for the market."
Dr Xue said the problem with a hayfever trial is that there is a very short window of opportunity.
Normally it is late October-late December in Melbourne, when the highest pollen counts occur.
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