Ephedra, the debate continues

[shaolinstylee]

Well, I heard about this on the radio today, so I was looking for info online. I came up with a few stories, this being one


What does it do to the use of mahwong in tcm in the US?

[daodejing]

For now, ma huang is cool, but you can only "legally" get if its prescribed by a licensed tcm practitioner. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it starts getting more expensive, because any patent medicine or tcm herbal pill that isn't made in the u.s. cannot be imported under the current legislation.

And as part of the ban we can't prescirbe for weight loss, energy, or sports performance, which is fine since that's not why we use ma huang.

Ma huang does only 2 things well. It dilates the lungs, and it drives out water vigorously through sweatting and urination. As such, its a spectacularly bad to excercise while on it.

[master splinter]

they use ma huang(ephedra) in almost every decongesting med you can get over the counter, one is sudafed which most likely stands for pseodo ephedrine, the main ingredient. ephedra was totally legal until metabolife users got addicted to it.

[daodejing]

Nobody got addicted to it. Ephedra is a very strong diaphoretic, in addition, overdose can lead to irregular heartbeat. Taking something that makes you sweat WAY more than normal while dilating your bronchi and messing with your cardiac pace maker and then engaging in vigoruos excercise is a dumb, dumb, dumb thing.

First of all, you're going to run into electrolyte issues very quickly as you sweat out all the water in your body. Check out the thread water if you're curious how this can be a life threatening issue. This sudden drop in serum electrolytes is going to make the irregular heartbeat even worse however, and things can get really really bad really quick if you keep sweating and keep your heartrate up.

Ephedra was illegalized because of the inherent dangers in its popular over the counter misuse as a weight loss supplement (used as such for its stimulant and diuretic properties, which are only applicable when you overdose on the herb) and a performance enhancing (many athletes were mistakenly using it to boost energy levels) herb.

Addiction had nothing to do with it. Proffessional athletes dying from the side effects of their cardiac arthymias, that had something to do with it.