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'Herbal Viagra' May Be Potent Alternative
THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2000
The Boston Globe
A concoction touted as an "herbal Viagra"
without the side effects has shown it can prevent impotence in rats, giving
at least a measure of scientific support to the briskly selling product
known as "BetterMAN."
Developed by a Marblehead biologist born in China and familiar with traditional
remedies, the supplement is aimed at two of middle-aged men's biggest
complaints—erectile difficulties and frequent nighttime trips to
the bathroom.
Though mainstream researchers are skeptical, BetterMAN's developer, Peipei
Wu Wishnow, claims it can restore and maintain male potency, while also
reducing the need to urinate at night that occurs in many older men with
enlarged prostate glands.
Unlike Viagra, the blockbuster impotence drug that men take an hour or
two before sex, BetterMAN is taken daily with rest periods of a few days.
By some mechanism that isn't understood, the herbs affect the man's physiology
to restore sexual potency, and without the need for before-sex treatment
each time.
Thus, an erection seems "like a normal reaction" because the herbal brew
"is not like something you have to take and wait," said one user, a 72-year-old
retired military man from the Boston area who requested anonymity.
"This increases the spontaneity and frequency" of sex compared to the
delayed action of Viagra, said Wishnow in an interview. "Women like this
spontaneity, and some women have purchased it for their husbands."
However, until now, proof of BetterMAN's effectiveness has been scant.
Although Wishnow reports good results in a small sample of men, the product
has not undergone any stringent or large-scale clinical testing, as would
a prescription drug, and the Food and Drug Administration doesn't allow
such food supplements to be advertised with medical claims.
But BetterMAN can produce a better rat, according to the study being
published today in the Journal of Urology -that is, a rat whose potency
isn't diminished by the same fatty diet that hampered erections in rodents
that didn't get the product.
The lead author of the report, Dr. Tom Lue, a urologist at the University
of California in San Francisco, said he was approached by Wishnow's company,
Interceuticals, and he agreed to test the product because of an interest
in herbal remedies fostered by his father, who was a Chinese herbalist.
After months of feeding the animals a high-cholesterol diet, Lue used
an electrical current to stimulate erections in the animals. The rats
that didn't get BetterMAN had only half the normal erections as those
the got the herb treatment, Lue reported.
"What the mechanism is, we don't know," said Lue. But the experiment
ruled out a placebo effect because the rats were under anesthesia during
the testing.
Lue said he would not recommend BetterMAN for people without more testing,
but several independent pharmacists in the Boston area estimated that
hundreds of their customers were using the remedy, a mixture of 18 herbs,
and reporting very good results.
Some claimed BetterMAN was even better than Viagra because it can be
used to prevent erection problems as well as to restore lost potency.
"I hadn't woken up in the morning with an erection for a couple of years,
and that happens regularly now," said John Wielki, 51, of Woburn, who's
taken the herbal mixture for about a year. In addition, Wielki says he
used to get up 10 or 12 times a night to urinate because of a swollen
prostate, but now it's only two or three times.
The herbal remedy usually begins to show benefits after about two months
of daily use, said Wishnow, a biologist who did graduate work at MIT and
the California Institute of Technology. The cost of treatment with the
herbs is about $40 a month, and the herbal remedy is available at Wishnow's
Web site, http://www.bettermannow.com/.
Viagra costs about $10 per pill. Some insurers cover a limited supply
of Viagra, often four pills per month. If a man wanted to use it more
often, he would have to pay out of pocket, and at that point the herbal
remedy might work out to be cheaper since it has a fixed cost.
None of this anecdotal evidence is impressive to scientists in the mainstream
medical world. Unless a drug is tested against an inactive substance,
or placebo, say the scientists, there's no way to exclude the possibility
that sheer enthusiasm isn't responsible for some of the effect.
Dr. Irwin Goldstein, a Boston University urologist who was involved in
the early research on Viagra, commented yesterday, "Some of the herbal
medicines that have been pooh-poohed for many years" may have value, he
said, "but to go out and espouse the use [of BetterMAN] in humans, based
on a single rat study, is inappropriate," he said.
Copyright © 2000 The Boston Globe. All Rights Reserved.
 
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