Can Chinese herbal medicine help with Osteoporosis?
This is a great study to highlight the complexity of the underlying mechanisms of traditional herbal medicine. The TCM formula, Du Huo Ji Shang Tang, is used for many things but here it's used to treat osteoporosis. The research looked at gene-protein interactions for what they imagined the top 50 genes involved were. They found "multiple components, targets, and pathways" of interactions. Not surprising considering there at 15 different herbs in this formula, but also highlights the difficulty in trying to narrow human-plant medicinal interactions to just ONE active ingredient.