http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/traditional-herbal-treatments-food-allergies-asthma-article-1.320641

Traditional herbal treatments for food allergies & asthma

The specialist: Dr. Xiu-Min Lee, Director of Mount Sinai's Center for Chinese Herbal Therapy?/a>?for Allergy and Asthma

Originally from Beijing, Dr. Xiu-Min Li is a pediatrician who specializes in using traditional Chinese medicine to treat asthma and allergies. For the past two years, her research has focused on creating a botanical drug to treat these common problems.

The big story: Food allergies and asthma are huge health problems in this country, especially for kids. Of the 12 million Americans with food allergies, 3 million are children. What's more, the problem is growing: The incidence of food allergy has doubled over the past 10 years. And asthma is even more common: 38 million Americans have it, including 6 million kids.

Dr. Li is among a group of doctors who believe that traditional Chinese medicine can help treat food allergies and asthma. In fact, some doctors argue that these Chinese treatments may do a better job of treating asthma and food allergy than the regimens currently prescribed by doctors in this country.

Traditional Chinese medicine has used botanical sources - plants like ginger, rhododendron and forsythia - to promote health for thousands of years. "In China, the system is different from ours," says Li. "Traditional Chinese medicines are used in the hospitals, and physicians are trained in using them. Here, traditional Chinese medicine is treated like a dietary supplement."

Meanwhile, the Chinese system seems to work better for responding to these two problems. "Food allergy in China is rare," says Li. "Asthma is not rare in China, but it is much less common than in the United States. In China, 3% of the population has asthma. That number is 10% in the U.S."

Who can benefit: The people who have the most to benefit from the aggressive research being done on traditional Chinese medicine are people with persistent or severe asthma that makes them steroid dependent, and people who have food allergies to peanuts, fish, shellfish or tree nuts.

Traditional treatment: Traditionally, the treatment for food allergy has been straightforward and low-tech: avoidance. "If you are allergic to a certain food, then you avoid that food," explains Li. If you're allergic to peanuts, then you fastidiously avoid eating peanuts and all peanut products; if you're allergic to shellfish, you avoid eating shellfish. When avoidance fails and patients consume the banned food, they can use a liquid antihistamine to control their allergic reaction, and then use an EpiPen to inject epinephrine if necessary.

Researchers have developed an armament of medicines to help people live with asthma, and inhaled steroids are the primary treatment. The downside to steroid treatment is that it can cause negative side effects. "If you use even inhaled steroids very long, it could possibly affect growth and immune-suppression," says Li. And that's one reason parents are showing such strong interest in alternative treatments like traditional Chinese medicine. Last year, one study found that 60% of children with asthma have received an alternative medicine.

Research breakthroughs: Allergy immunology researchers are hard at work testing traditional Chinese medicine in a clinical setting. Such alternative treatments are a matter of great scholarly interest right now. At Mount Sinai alone, Dr. Li is overseeing two FDA-approved clinical studies, one with benefits for asthma sufferers and one for people with food allergy.

Li and her colleagues have developed a promising formula they call Anti-Asthma Herbal Medicine Intervention (ASHMI). "The goal of our testing is to see if this formula can reduce or replace cortical steroids," says Li. In phase one of the trial, they tested for safety; the results showed that ASHMI was safe, and well-tolerated by the patients. In phase two, the researchers will test the formula's efficacy - in other words, "whether ASHMI can reduce or even replace cortical steroids," says Li.

Li's team has produced another formula, Food Allergy Herbal Formula 2 (FAHF 2), which is designed to help people who are allergic to peanut, tree nuts, fish or shellfish. Unlike current responses to food allergy, which respond only after the patient has ingested the food and is having an allergic reaction, FAHF 2 would work preventively. "Our formula can block allergic reactions to food," says Li, "and we're finding that the dose can last six months."

Questions for your doctor:  There's no cure for food allergy, but traditional Chinese medicine can help you manage your child's allergy. Ask: "What can reduce my child's risk?"

Avoidance of the food item is still key, but including traditional medicine in your child's regimen can help protect them from severe allergic reactions. "This way, if kids go to school, camp or on vacation - places with a different food situation - then the parents can have less fear about the situation," says Li.

Similarly, Li advises parents of children with asthma to ask: "Is there a nonsteroid approach we can follow?"

In most cases, the answer is yes, "but you need to follow the protocol and do it under supervision," cautions Li. Fortunately, today, doctors are much more familiar with traditional Chinese medicine than they were in the past, and your doctor should be able to give you a referral if they don't know the field themselves. "Most doctors are open-minded about alternative medicines," says Li, "so they should be on your page."

What you can do:

Get more information. You can call Mount Sinai's Center for Chinese Herbal Therapy for Allergy and Asthma for more information about participating in clinical trials or visiting their clinic, (212) 241-1755.

Don't be hasty. It can take time to switch to a new regimen, Dr. Li explains: "We don't want patients to think that they can stop taking steroids right away." Plus, patients with allergies will still need to practice avoidance.

Don't trust Internet information alone. Li has found Web sites online using her name to advertise products she has never heard of, let alone endorsed. "Patients are very eager for alternatives," says Li, "but you have to be careful online. The patient needs to get a good product."