A Chinese herbal treatment often used to treat hepatitis in Asia does not appear to reduce liver inflammation or improve quality of life in people with hepatitis C, new research reports.

Moreover, after 3 months of treatment, herb-takers who participated in the study did not show any change in the amount of virus in their bodies.

“Unfortunately, our results suggested that the herbal compound was no different than placebo,” study author Dr. Jeffrey H. Albrecht told AMN Health.

“At this point in time, I am aware of no conclusive data that these herbs provide any meaningful benefit in” hepatitis C, added the researcher, who is based at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Albrecht noted that the Chinese herbs may have been ineffective either because they simply do not work, or because he and his colleagues used an incorrect dose or combination of herbal agents.

“I think that the long tradition of herbal treatments for viral hepatitis in China and Japan suggest that there may indeed be useful agents that should be tested,” he said.

Hepatitis C is a liver disease caused by infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), which is spread through contact in some way with contaminated blood. In many patients, the virus is never completely cleared from the body and, after years of infection, serious liver problems, such as scarring and cancer, can occur.

The recommended treatment for HCV - interferon injections and orally administered ribavirin - is effective in, at most, 60 percent of patients. It also has potentially severe side effects such as nausea, fatigue, depression and, in some cases, suicidal impulses.

As a result, many HCV patients either fail to clear the virus from their bodies or cannot tolerate the treatment.

In the current study, Albrecht and his team investigated whether 12 weeks of treatment with either a combination of 10 Chinese herbs often used to treat hepatitis in Asia or a placebo drug helped 45 HCV patients.

The researcher explained that even though no research supports the use of Chinese herbs in HCV, the treatment likely remains popular due to “positive publicity” from the alternative health industry, which leads people to believe these treatments work.

Alternative medicine is also largely unregulated, Albrecht noted, which makes it easy for people to obtain treatments without the added step of going through a healthcare provider. And many HCV patients are willing to try whatever treatments they can get their hands on, he noted.

“In the case of HCV, many patients can’t be successfully treated with pharmaceuticals, and are willing to try unconventional approaches out of desperation,” Albrecht said.

He added that the preparation and dosage of the herbs used in the current study were likely safe, but other herbal treatments have been linked to liver problems.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, June 28, 2004.