Chinese Herbal Medicine and Kidney Stones

Chinese Herbs.
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Kidney stone pain or ureteric colic is perhaps the most feared symptom of urolithiasis. People who experience it at its worst will do anything that they have been told will help in the passing kidney stones. Because of this fact there are many questionable products on the market which claim to pass kidney stones or dissolve kidney stones. From time to time I have reviewed some of the more prominent preparations.

There is a natural tendency to discount what we don't understand or were not trained to understand. I am no exception to this rule, having not been trained in traditional herbal medicine in a country where it is practiced. However I do believe the current upsurge in published studies utilizing traditional medicine has allowed for a bridging of knowledge between two worlds which are destined to collide. Clearly herbal medicine represents an area where there are opportunities to be exploited in development of new pharmaceutical agents. While practitioners of herbal medicine stand to gain valuable insight into the possible drug interactions which may occur between established pharmaceuticals and herbal preparations.

Therefore I was excited to note the following study published in the Brazilian Journal of Urology as recorded in the pubmed database. The purpose of the study was to assess the evidence based literature supporting the use of traditional Chinese medicine Kampo herbal and acupuncture in stone disease management.


Kampo literally means medicine from China and its a traditional japanese therapeutic system.

Kampo is said to have little or no side effects. If proven then this would be a significant advantage over traditional therapies for long term treatment of chronic kidney stones.
The herbs of Kampo are Chorei-to, Wullingsan, Kin Quan Cao, Nia Shi Mixture


Chorei-to
A mixture of herbs for nephritis and kidney stones. This mixture of herbs when examined together did not prevent formation of calcium phosphate crystals in an experimental model however individual herbs in the mixture had possible beneficial effect. Takusya decreased tissue calcium concentration and reduced tissue calcium oxalate in rat kidneys. Overall the constituents may increase solubility of calcium oxalate which is a good thing. The effect was not particularly strong in the experiments done.


Wullingsan

A combination of herbs thought to act as a diuretic. In laboratory studies wullingsan was able to reduce the rate of nucleation or the start of stone formation at specific dosages, however at higher doses the extract increased stone formation.


Jin Quan Cao
The main anti stone ingredient is called DS-T, it is believed to block urinary calcium excretion by either inhibiting the endogenous synthesis of 1-25(OH)2D from 1-alphaD3 in the kidney or by inhibiting the action of 1-25(OH)2D on increased intestinal absorption of Ca.

Niao Shi Mixture (NSM)

For more than 30 years, NSM has been used clinically at Guanganmen Hospital (Beijing, China) to treat urinary calculus and is very effective at preventing hydroxyproline stones.


Most of the studies were done in animals or in purely experimental models. It is possible that the herbs studied could have had a more pronounced and universally positive effects in humans. Properly designed studies of individual component vs placebo and separate components will be needed to produce the level of evidence needed for these preparations to be accepted into the western model of medicine. However the positive effects are intriguing to say the least


Previous review of Indian Herbal Medicines for Kidney stones
Previous review of URIFLOW