Chinese herbal medicine can be as effective as Tamiflu in flu treatment for some symptoms, research has shown. The findings have been published in Annals of Internal Medicine, a prestigious journal from the American College of Physicians.
Researchers compared a Chinese herbal medicine with oseltamivir, which is marketed as Tamiflu, on 410 patients who had been diagnosed with the H1N1 influenza virus.
To test the effectiveness, researchers looked at how quickly body temperature was brought down to 37 degrees Celsius or under. When patients were given either Tamiflu or the Chinese medicine, both treatments were effective: Tamiflu resolved fever within 20 hours, and the Chinese medicine resolved fever within 16 hours. When patients received Tamiflu in combination with the Chinese medicine, the improvement was significant, with fever resolution within 15 hours. This compares with untreated patients, where fever resolved in an average of 26 hours.
Those receiving the herbal treatment alone had less need for antibiotics: only 9.7% were given antibiotics, compared with 15.7% of those receiving Tamiflu alone.
Further details are available in the RCHM’s press release.
