1,800-Year-Old Herbal Mix Heals the Gut

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1,800-Year-Old Herbal Mix Heals the Gut

An age-old mixture of four herbs could spare patients with cancer some

of

the side effects of chemotherapy.

The cocktail comprises Chinese peonies, Chinese liquorice, the fruit of

the buckthorn tree and flowers of the Chinese skullcap plant. In China,

they call it 'Huang Qin Tang' and have used it to treat gastrointestinal

problems for about 1,800 years.

A start-up pharmaceutical company called PhytoCeutica has dubbed its

proprietary pill of the blend 'PHY906,' and shown in early clinical

trials that the mix can combat the severe diarrhoea caused by many

chemotherapy drugs, which destroy fast-dividing gut cells in addition to

tumour cells. Now, researchers at PhytoCeutica and Yale University

School of Medicine, both in New Haven, Connecticut, have some early

leads on how PHY906 does this, despite the fact that most of its

individual chemical components remain unknown.

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