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Gancao.net sends out a big congratulations to researchers Robin Warren and Barry Marshall who rocked the gastro-intestinal world when they identified H-pylori as a bacteria that plays a key role in many stomach and intestinal ulcers.
Thanks to their work that challenged the conventional wisdom of the day, ulcers that show positive for this bacteria are routinely treated with antibiotics while the stress induced type are treated with different drugs.
This is all well and good, but I just wanted to point out that TCM treats ulcers in a variety of ways as well. Among the most common syndromes we find is what we call "Liver attacking Stomach" which is the stress-induced kind of ulcer, and the "Stomach Fire" type which is treated with formulas that include Huang Lian.
Stomach Fire or heat can look like a bacterial infection now that we have this term for it. The herb that addresses this particular condition is called Huang Lian or "Coptis" (Rz. Coptidis). Guess what? This herb has antibiotic tendencies.
The formula that address Stomach Fire type ulcers includes a healthy dosage of Huang Lian. The formula is called Zhu Jin Wan and comes from a book called Dan Xi Xin Fa or "Teachings of Dan Xi". This book was written in 1481 thus beating the nobel prize winning Australians by a mere 501 years.
This reminds me of the American myth that our continent was discovered by Christopher Columbus rather than Leif Erikson and his vikings or even the Asians who probably walked into North American via a land bridge off the coast of Alaska eons before.
(link)[BBC Health]
Research supporting Huang Lian for H. pylori.