For more than a century, the pharmaceutical industry has recognized the importance of the plant world as a source for conventional medications, including those being used in the treatment of cancer. Many of today's standard of care chemotherapy drugs, were derived originally from plant-based sources such as paclitaxel taxol from the Pacific Yew tree, etoposide VP-16 which originates from the mandrake plant and vincristine which comes from the vinca family of plants. As a result, herbal medicine has moved significantly, from the kitchen-based wisdom of traditional medicine to the high-tech pharmaceutical industry. This transition has utilized the accepted technologies for identification of the plant based source as well as quantification and quality control of the end-product. At the end of this process, the final herbal-based product may seem no different from a conventional drug. Though, for nonconventional remedies, the legislature in virtually all western countries has designated them as dietary supplements. Thus requiring a significantly less rigorous process before it can be sold to the consumer. Despite these advances, the home-based foundation for most herbal medicinal preparation remains a significant participant, with traditional cooking and herbal medicine still very dominant in most Middle Eastern cuisines. I asked Professor Efraim Lev to describe what he feels is the extent to which herbs still play an active role in medical practice. Based on his extensive research of what is taking place in markets throughout the Middle East. For market survey that I conducted with colleagues in Israel and then in Jordan and for my visits to markets in Egypt and Morocco, Turkey, and other places, it is very clear that the Arabic medicine of the medieval period, exist in the market of today. So, you go there and you find all the material from animal origin, inorganic origin, or plants they still exist. They still sell them in the markets. For medical purposes you mean? For medical purposes. Yeah, of course. Some of them of course, are spices and condiments and so on but people are coming to buy to improve their health. It's very interesting and when you interview the sellers and you ask them what do you do with this or even a customer come to the seller and ask for his advice they would take a book from the 13th century and consult it. Some of the books are written by Muslim physician at that time, even Obiang for example and some of the book that are still used until present day, one of them was written by the 13th century physician and pharmacist [inaudible] and it's called [inaudible] and this is very interesting. In order to better understand the relevance of traditional herbal medicine in present Arab culture, I interviewed Professor Bashar Saad, a leading researcher of traditional Arab and Islamic Medicine and the president of the Al-Qasemi Academy Baqa El-Gharbia, Israel. The Al-Qasemi Academy is located inside Baqa, El-Gharbia and is part of the Arab community in the region. To what extent is this amazing culture of Islamic-Arabic medicine still exists within the daily medical encounters of patients from the Arab community? As I think is the revival of the medical system is like all other medical system all over the world, we have coming back to the medicine to helps to the nature. People aren't satisfied with the chemical and with the synthetic medicine and coming back it's the same trend we have here in our area. All people are proud of their history. You see, if you look at it and back all these medical system, medical shops and so on are named according to Avicenna, Razis and a lot of schools here in Baqa are named according to Razis, Avicenna and Lantaki [inaudible] all these famous people here. This medical system still existing, I think every household here in Baqa or in the Arab world has its own plants used for simple things, simple diseases. But when it's come to real things, people go to the Western medicine. That's why, still existing and you will appreciate, know this in the L'Etoile, 40 years ago, we did a survey with the chromocyte from Lantaki and as the people here in Arab sectarian Israel and also in the West Bank, according to their opinion to traditional medicine medicine bland in general. We ask them one question, if you have the choice between synthetic or herbal medicine what do you prefer? More the majority, absolute majority more than 95 percent said, if we have a herb that's have the self-efficacy as medicinal plant as the drug we prefer the herbal medicine. To our surprise also as the physician what they think about medicine, and what they think about nature or natural product and was surprised to hit about 40 percent of the physician who learned, who studied medicine and Western schools and so on, prefer would prefer medicinal plants, if this medicinal plants has or have their efficacy and toxic tested in the labs. Also people preferred to have medicine plants that are tested in the labs at least their toxicity to be sure that they have no side effects as the chemical ones. But again, most people here use the medicine plants and we did also with you the survey in cancer patients and percentage of people who use this medicine plants or alternative medicines or natural product and the absolute majority of people use this but they use them in combination. Not as, we don't speak here about alternative either Western or helps. They use in combination to gather the start with chemotherapy and use them to help them to improve their situation and so on. At our medical center, we run a kitchen workshop for patients with cancer who are being treated with chemotherapy. The workshop held at the Lin Medical Center of Clalit Health Services in Haifa provides patients with information and guidance on proper nutrition and the use of herbal medicine during chemotherapy. Addressing symptoms such as gastrointestinal complaints and helping patients improve their quality of life and daily functioning. The workshop is very much a hands on and it was designed by a multidisciplinary team of integrative physicians, and occupational therapist, a registered dietitian, a spiritual care provider, and a psych oncologists from the integrative oncology program in Haifa. The program was established in 2008, and takes place within a conventional oncologists service at the medical center. The workshop is part of an integrative medicine program which provides patients with cancer with an evidence-based, safe, and effective complimentary integrative treatment plan. In the video shown here, we can see the steps taken during the preparation of a three ingredient herbal remedy which was designed for chemotherapy treated patients suffering from stomatitis with mouth sores as well as an altered sense of taste. The formula contains a fresh carob seratonious liquid extract in Arabic 'Hubel Haub'. The remedy is prepared by adding chopped sage, Salvia officinalis, all 40 cursor leaves to a thick paste of sesame tahini which is then sprayed with the carob extract. The preparation can be applied directly to the sore areas of the mouth up to five times daily.
