Tibetan medicine has grown out of millennia of observation and mystical insights, but in the absence of scientific rigor. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, NCCAM, has detected some positive benefits for selected herbal remedies for many disorders, including depression and dietary problems. Try them only with caution as scientific proof of benefits is still incomplete.
Disturbed Happiness Of The Mind
Bob Flaws, an internationally recognized authority, practitioner and author on Tibetan medicines, says some herbs and medicines in the Tibetan pharmacopea may demonstrate activity in treating depression and stress-related emotional difficulties. The cause must be understood to prescribe the right medicine. A specific, complex herbal formulation called Sem-kyi De-kyid or Sem-de, which translates to "happiness of the mind," or "mental happiness," illustrates this principle. Under stress, the "life-wind," or energy within your body's main energy channels, is said to become depressed and accumulate pathologically. This is said to make your "heart spirit" stir restlessly, cause mental-emotional restlessness, anxiety, irritability, easy fright, poor concentration, insomnia and heart palpitations -- the well-known symptoms of depression.
Medicinal Herbs
Sem-de contains the herb Aquilaria agollocha, also called Chen Xiang, which is supposed to assist the kidneys in absorbing your qi, or life energy. Another Sem-de herb, Mucuna prurita, contains L-dopa, medically proved to treat Parkinson's Disease. Traditional Tibetan medical practitioners may have interpreted this as a calming agent for its ability to relieve Parkinson's tremors. Among the 15 herbs in this complex formulation are also Piper nigrum and longum, herbs with known analgesic effects, and Eugenia caryophylla, called Ding Xiang, with anti emetic, stomach-soothing properties. Flaws prescribes this Tibetan antidepressant in a dose of 2 to 3 g per day taken with hot broth or warm water.
Diet And Lifestyle Factors
His Holiness, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, advises adjustment of improper diets underlying excessive weight before considering traditional Tibetan medicines. A weight disorder is said to result from a combination of improper diet and lifestyle. Examples include alcoholism, hypertension and heart disease. Tibetan treatment for weight loss does not begin with medicines. Food reduction is said to be less important than identifying harmful and beneficial foods and the number and timing of daily meals. This makes proper food selection the medicine of choice, enabling Tibetan medical practitioners to adjust diets relative to each individual's condition.
Herbal Medicines
Only after diet modification and lifestyle changes have failed do traditional Tibetan medical practitioners prescribe herbal medicines. Anywhere from 3 to 150 herbs may be formulated together to address a condition contributing to or resulting from excess weight. Herbal weight-loss medicines may be modified at each doctor's visit when two to four formulas may be prescribed for specific times of day. Self-diagnosis and a recommendation of specific herbal treatments are discouraged due to the vast array of herbs and complex diagnostics and judgments required.
Caution
The NCCAM recognizes some traditional Tibetan and Chinese medicines as possibly effective. However, few modern, scientifically proven principles underlie their proposed modes of action and only a few controlled studies have confirmed effectiveness in treating depression or weight loss. Talk to your doctor before using these traditional herbal medicines. Some contain powerful substances which, while they may be effective, may interact with other medicines and may produce other effects not yet fully understood.
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