for example, ashwagandha or valerian. whenever you search them up it states something akin to “safe to use for up to 6 weeks. long term effects are unknown”
people have been using these medicines for centuries… can’t they just conduct research?
In: Biology
Because it is extremely expensive to run a useful study on some random herb long term. Or really anything.
Like an actual RCD trial:
Not just hm we got some case reports of liver damage in people who admit to using the drug.
You gotta recruit a few hundred people, supply the medication to them, split into placebo and verum group, and then watch those 100+ people for several years while they take their provided dose of the medication. I.e. frequent testing that they are really taking it, or the drug needs to be applied by the study team.
You‘ll note how that’s gonna cost millions.
And then you won’t get the important part anyway: shady herb are virtually always contaminated with hepatotoxic moulds. Because they aren’t stored properly. Allowed to get wet etc.
So the study would show herb A is safe longterm, people buy some uncontrolled gas station variant of the herb take high dosages contaminated with the mould toxins and end up with liver cancer etc.
If the drug is safe short term with no noticeable organ damage, the incidence of long term damage is also going to likely be low and thus require that high number of test subjects.
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