In this podcast, Payel Gupta, MD, speaks about the growing natural remedy market for allergic disease, including possible adverse effects of herbal remedies, medication interactions, and helpful resources for clinicians. Dr Gupta also spoke about these topics during her session titled “Herbal Remedies” at ACAAI Annual Scientific Meeting 2022.

For more ACAAI Annual Scientific Meeting 2022 content, visit the Resource Center.

Payel Gupta, MD, is a pediatric and adult allergy, asthma, and immunology specialist and assistant clinical professor with Mount Sinai Medical Center and SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Medical Director of Allergy, Asthma, Immunology & ENT at LifeMD.com and Chair of the Integrative Medicine Committee for the American College of Allergy and Immunology (New York, NY).

TRANSCRIPTION:

Dr Payel Gupta: Hi everyone. My name is Dr Payel Gupta, and I am an adult and pediatric allergy, asthma, and immunology specialist in New York City. I am the current medical director for LifeMD, which is a national telemedicine platform providing care to people with allergic and other chronic conditions. I am also the current Chair of the Integrative Medicine Committee for the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. During the 2022 meeting for the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, I had the opportunity to present a lecture on herbal therapies for allergic patients to my colleagues. Today, I will outline some of the key takeaways for my presentation that I think apply to most other specialties. First, it is really important for clinicians to understand that people are very interested in supplements and other alternative therapies. The global herbal market is growing at a fast rate with the market at $165 billion in 2022, and projected to be at $347 billion by 2029.

In addition, surveys show that almost half of all people, specifically with allergies try a natural remedy at some point in their allergic journey, and this most likely holds true for most other conditions also. Second, although the US Federal Trade Commission regulates advertising in this country and requires that advertising be truthful and not misleading around these therapies, it can be really hard to keep on top of, especially with all of the social media channels that are being used to provide inaccurate information. Because of this potential for misinformation, it is important that we know where to get accurate information on supplements and the current research that is available so that we can provide the right resources to our patients. One such resource is through the NIH, and they actually created a division dedicated to monitoring complementary and alternative therapies in 1992 because they saw this increase happening.

Now it is called the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine or NCAM. They have information for both consumers and physicians on the data that we have on different supplements and herbal therapies. Their side effects, their uses, or their intended uses, and it's a very important resource that I think everyone should be aware of. Third, although herbal supplements are made from plants, algae, fungi, or a combination of all of these, and these are all considered, quote unquote, "natural products," we know that there is data to show that supplements can interact with medications that patients are taking and make them more or less effective, which is important for us to know and for our patients to know. In addition, they can have negative side effects on their own and can also cause allergic reactions. Herbal supplements can be sold as teas, extracts, tablets, capsules, powders, or in other forms and this is also important for us to know.

Lastly, we, unfortunately, do not have the data we need on most supplements. The studies are few and are not as large as they need to be or they're difficult to compare because of the hundreds of different herbal supplements that are available. However, we must remember that cardiologists, for example, now recommend giving fish oil as a supplement to most of their cardiac patients, which would've been considered alternative medicine years ago, but now it is actually considered standard of care in cardiac medicine. So we cannot deny that supplements can have a role in medical care, and we need stronger evidence to help our patients make the right choices, and hopefully, we're on our way to having stronger evidence in all fields of medicine.

In summary, alternative therapies are being used by more and more of our patients, and we need to be aware of these practices so that we can help our patients make informed decisions. Understanding the resources available for accurate, up-to-date information like the Natural Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the NIH is important because supplements can cause side effects or interact with medications that patients are using. Lastly, we need more research on supplements, but we are slowly seeing this data grow and we all need to be aware and monitor this growing area of medicine.