Treatment of asthma patients with herbal medicine TJ-96: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Alternative medicine use has increased at a remarkable pace all over the world in recent years. Although herbal medicine for the treatment of asthma is becoming the focus of public attention, randomized studies had not been performed, even in Eastern countries including Japan. This study was designed to investigate whether one of the Japanese government approved herbal complexes Saiboku-to (TJ-96) is effective for the treatment of atopic asthma, and to investigate whether this protective activity is associated with a reduction in eosinophilic inflammation. A double-blind, randomized, crossover design was used. Subjects received 2.5 g of TJ-96 or placebo orally 3 times daily for 4 weeks and then, after a washout period of at least 4 weeks, crossed over to receive the alternative treatment. We assessed the effects of pretreatment with TJ-96 on bronchoconstriction precipitated by inhalation of methacholine. Furthermore, eosinophil counts and measurement of eosinophilic cationic protein (ECP) were performed. After 4 weeks of treatment with TJ-96, values of PC20 -methacholine significantly improved in the treatment with TJ-96. Also, patients' symptoms, blood eosinophils, serum ECP, sputum eosinophils, and sputum ECP were significantly decreased. Our results suggest that TJ-96 has an antiinflammatory effect on bronchial eosinophilic infiltration. This study raises further interesting therapeutic possibilities and argues for further trials of new approaches to the treatment of asthma.

Ethnobotanical Study of Plants Used to Treat Asthma in the Maritime Region in Togo

“…In the present study we observed that oral administration of decoction was more used for the treatment of asthma. The oral administration of Japanese herbal complex Saiboku-to (TJ-96) significantly decrease asthma symptoms, blood eosinophils and serum eosinophilic cationic protein (Urata et al, 2002). In addition, herb decoction could improve airway hyper-responsiveness in stabilized asthmatic children (Chan et al, 2006).…”

“…Herbal preparations have been cited as the third most popular complementary treatment modality by British asthma sufferers (Huntley and Ernst, 2000;Urata et al, 2002). Consequently, in the recent decades, the medicinal plants used in the management of the disease have attracted the attention of some authors, through the screening for immunomodulatory activity of plant extracts.…”

Sample sizes for clinical trials using sputum eosinophils as a primary outcome

“…Reporting of sample size calculation Of the 361 search results, 20 studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria [9,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. 11 of the 20 (55%) did not report how the sample size was calculated.…”

Complementary and alternative medicine for the treatment and diagnosis of asthma and allergic diseases

“…One double blind placebo controlled study performed in asthma subjects showed that the gum resin of Boswellia serrata (used in Ayurvedic remedies) was able to significantly improve symptoms and FEV1 after a 6-week course [48]. Two studies reported that saiboku-to (TJ96) improved asthma symptoms, exerted a steroid-sparing effect, reduced bronchial responsiveness and decreased sputum eosinophils in asthma patients [49,50]. One controlled study in 8 asthmatics showed that an extract from Ginko biloba protected against bronchial specific challenge [51].…”