COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE - A REVIEW OF IMMUNOMODULATORY EFFECTS OF CHINESE HERBAL MEDICINES

Popular demand for and scientific interest in complementary or alterna tive medicine, particularly medicinal botanicals, has increased consid erably in recent years. The medicinal botanicals with the longest trad ition, and for which extensive data are available, are Chinese herbal medicines and their Japanese counterparts-Kampo medicines. This review focuses on some representative examples of studies examining the effe cts of some traditional Chinese medicines on various aspects of the im mune response. In vitro as well as in vivo studies are cited, the latt er including not only animal experiments but also clinical trials. Alt hough by no means exhaustive, this review attempts to show that much r esearch has focused on the specific beneficial effects of Chinese herb al medicines. Studies examining the mechanisms by which they exert the ir immunomodulatory actions, however, are found much less frequently. Nonetheless, even the limited number of mechanistic experiments presen ted here reveal that numerous mechanisms are likely involved in the va rious actions of even a single medicine. It will be the elucidation of such mechanisms that will provide the scientific basis for establishi ng the efficacy and safety of not only Chinese herbal medicines but al l forms of medicinal botanicals.