An experimental study in distinguishing an authentic herbal substance from sham herbal substances

Complementary Therapies in Medicine
Bertrand LoyeungChristopher Zaslawski

Abstract

An unblinded randomised trial can result in biased treatment effect estimates and lead to erroneous conclusions on the efficacy of the therapeutic intervention. Unlike pharmaceutical substances, Chinese herbal medicines have special characteristics including texture, colour, odour and taste as the origin of these constituents are different. In addition, its distinctive odour makes blinding of Chinese herbal medicine RCTs very difficult, as the placebo substance needs to match the special characteristics of the herbal substance being investigated. For these reasons, two studies were undertaken to evaluate whether a participant could distinguish a herbal intervention capsule (Ganopoly combination) when compared to three types of capsules containing culinary materials following a visual, odour and taste evaluation. Study One, was a pilot involving eleven participants (n = 11) while Study Two, involved eighty one participants (n = 81) and was conducted to make improvements on Study One. For both studies, participants were asked to identify which of four capsules were a herbal substance following a visual, smell and taste evaluation. For study One it was found that for both odour (p = .484) and visual appearance (p = .077) the numbe...Continue Reading

Citations

Jul 31, 2020·Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology·Elena Y EnioutinaCatherine M Sherwin

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