Traditional Therapies over Uncertain Modern Medicines

Traditional therapies have been running for thousands of years, people have healed the sick with traditional therapies or animal-derived remedies all over the world, which has been handed down through generations.

Around 80 percent of people still use traditional remedies rather than modern medicine for initial healthcare.

In developed nations, traditional therapies are rapidly gaining appeal. The survey suggests up to 80 percent of people have tried therapy such as Hijama therapy or cupping therapy. And a survey conducted in 2018 and found that 60.3 percent of physicians and 76.2 percent of people treat themself with Hijama therapy.

Desperately Seeking Drugs

The fact is that modern science is desperately short of new treatments. It takes around a decade for a new drug to get through the research, development, and manufacturing and the cost is too high.

Due to that drug, many youngsters get used to it and destroy their life. On the other hand, traditional therapy like Hijama helps you in medical conditions and also helps you to get rid of drug-like tobacco etc…

If you are looking forward to having Hijama you should visit Hijama Center Islamabad. Now both scientists and the pharmaceutical industries are looking for new research and looking towards traditional medicine.

Some major breakthroughs have sparked interest in traditional medicine through highly successful and lucrative drugs. The most well-known of these is artemisinin, which is used to treat malaria.

Modernizing Tradition

But making traditional therapy really popular incorporating its knowledge into modern health and ensuring that it meets modern standards for safety and effectiveness is not easy and complete.

And there is growing concern among conservationists that a growing market for traditional therapy threatens biodiversity by over-harvesting medicinal plants or by increasing the use of the body parts of endangered animals such as tigers, rhinos, and elephants.

In addition to the sustainability of natural resources, the marriage between traditional and modern medicine faces several challenges that stem from the main differences in how each is practiced, evaluated and managed.

One of the most striking differences between traditional and modern medicines is the legal protection afforded to knowledge. Traditional practitioners have historically shared their knowledge and experience freely – defining open access even before the term exists. Modern medicine, on the other hand, has strict intellectual property laws and a highly evolved patent system used to protect knowledge about drugs or medical techniques.

As Western researchers realize the wealth of knowledge stored in traditional medicine systems and the need for new drugs becomes more urgent, many scientists have started to search for new native sources: a term called ‘bio prospecting’ (see Bio prospecting).

This plunder of freely available indigenous resources has been termed ‘bio piracy’ and is a strong example of the challenges faced by efforts to make traditional medicine dominant.

Some regions have tried to tackle the problem by enacting laws to protect indigenous knowledge. For Example: Cusco, Peru, last year banned the exploitation of native species for commercial gain, including patenting genes or other resources contained in trees (see Peruvian region outlaws bio piracy).

Regulating

In addition to differences in indigenous and western knowledge systems, efforts to make traditional medicines dominant also need to address significant differences in regulation.

Each country has a kind of national authority on medicines, responsible for the administration and management of modern medicines and the establishment of medicine policies.

The problem with traditional medicine is that it often means different things to different people. A single medicinal plant can be classified as food, dietary supplement or herbal medicine, depending on where you are.

The lack of regulation means that there are as many fake medicines and fake doctors as there are genuine treatments. And that can have fatal results. Many people die every year after taking a fake medicine anti-diabetic drug, used to reduce blood sugar.

Testing

Modern drugs undergo a rigorous series of laboratory tests and clinical tests before reaching the market. Modern medicine has developed powerful methods to prove effectiveness, test safety, and standardize good manufacturing practices.

In contrast, few scientific tests are done to evaluate the products and practices of traditional medicine. Quality tests and production standards tend to be less rigorous or controlled, and in many cases, professionals may not be certified or licensed.

Of course, some researchers believe that putting a drug that has been tried and tested on thousands of people for decades or centuries in the same traps as a new chemical is not appropriate.

But many agree that before a traditional drug can be imported into a conventional pharmaceutical structure, it will need to be reevaluated.

In some cases, this means adapting standard methods to deal with ethical issues that do not arise with the development of conventional drugs. Clinical trials of traditional drugs should follow different rules of research ethics.