Theres a line in a Tim Minchin song which I like to quote from time to time. In it, hes addressing a hippyish alternative-medicine type called Storm, whos banging on about the healing power of herbs. Before we came to tea, I took a natural remedy, he tells her, derived from the bark of a willow tree, a painkiller thats virtually side-effect free. Of course, he means aspirin.

Yesterday, we reported that another natural remedy may actually work as well. Chinese researchers have found that an extract of honeysuckle could fight flu; specifically, a bit of RNA (DNAs simpler cousin) called MIR 2911 seems to interfere with the workings of the influenza virus. The researchers bought their honeysuckle from a Chinese herbal medicine shop, and made it into a sort of tea, in impeccable folk-remedy style.

If the results are confirmed, its quite exciting news: viruses generally, and the fast-mutating flu virus in particular, are tricky things to treat, and flu causes plenty of misery (killing about 100 people a year in Britain, and hundreds of thousands worldwide). The if its confirmed is a big if, because the trials have only been carried out on mice. The researchers themselves are optimistic to the point of overexcitability, pushing it as the first virological penicillin, although an expert I spoke to was very wary about it, saying that there are plenty of hurdles before it could be a real, practical medicine.

The reason people are getting excited about this is because Chinese herbal medicine types have been using honeysuckle tea to treat colds and flu for 1,000 years. The hippyish alternative-medicine types will be crowing. You can almost hear it: Not so cocky now, eh, Mr Scientist Man?

But thats missing the point. Lots of real, actual medicines come from natural sources; the original, bacteriological penicillin was derived from a mould. Aspirin, as Minchin notes, is a willow-bark product. St Johns wort works to relieve low moods and anxiety (and, I should warn you, interacts dangerously with some other medicines). Digitalin is extracted from foxglove and is used to control heart rate. Quinine, the first antimalarial, comes from the cinchona tree.

There are well over 100 medicinal compounds derived from plants. One major reason that the destruction of the rainforest is such a loss is because there are thousands of unknown species of plant in there, any one of which may be the source of a powerful, useful drug that could save your life. Theres nothing wrong with a natural remedy, if it works.

That, though, is the issue: if it works. And the way you find out whether it works is simple: give one group of people the medicine, one group of people a fake medicine, dont tell anyone which is which, and see if one group gets better faster. Thats what science does; thats what the honeysuckle researchers did, albeit with mice rather than people.

Science isnt about ignoring mother nature; its about seeing what works. Sometimes what works is natural, whatever that means. Sometimes its not: in the case of homeopathy, for instance, there have been lots and lots of these sorts of trials, and it has been found not to work. The same is true of reflexology, and of acupuncture.

The reason we know which natural remedies work and which dont is not because we listened to the witch doctors or traditional Chinese herbalists, but because some scientists tested them.

The thing is, there isnt really a divide between medicine and alternative, natural medicine. Theres medicine that works, and everything else. Its science that tells us the difference.

See the rest here:

Let science be the judge of medicine: if it works, it works