"A traditional Chinese herbal remedy known as kampo helped to relieve daily asthma symptoms https in nearly all of more than  people studied Japanese researchers report. North American allergy https experts tell WebMD that although they find the preliminary findings fascinating further study is needed before they would recommend the herbs. Yoshiteru Shimoide MD head of the Yoshiteru Shimoide Clinic of Internal Medicine in Kagoshima City Japan presented the results here at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy https Asthma https  Immunology AAAAI. Asthma on the Rise in U.S. The number of people in the U.S. with asthma https is growing. One in  people had asthma https in  compared with  in  in  according to the CDC. There is no cure but most people can control their symptoms reduce the severity of their disease and prevent asthma attacks https by avoiding asthma triggers https and correctly using prescribed medicines such as steroid inhalers the CDC says. Theres much room for improvement Shimoide says. He says it was accidentally discovered that kampo herbs could wipe out symptoms in many people while testing the ancient remedy against an allergic skin https disorder known as atopic dermatitis https So his team studied  people with asthma who suffered daily symptoms of the disease. Of those  were given standard treatment typically an inhaled steroid and a bronchodilator https_inhalers_bronchodilators and  were treated with kampo herbs. Symptoms completely disappeared in  of patients taking kampo herbs after an average of  days Shimoide says. In contrast about threefourths of those taking standard asthma medications https still had daily wheeze and other symptoms. Side Effects Still Need Study The study did not look at possible side effects of kampo herbs. But a major problem facing kampo medicine is herbal product quality. There have been cases in which poisonous plants found their way into the herbal mix resulting in kidney https damage for example. In kampo medicine most herbs are taken as a fixed formula. Each individual herb is thought to address a particular imbalance in an ill person. Herbs used in the current study include Scutellaria root Coptis rhizome gardenia fruit hoelen cinnamon https bark and Glycyrrhiza aka licorice root. Asked to comment on the findings Peter Creticos MD of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore tells WebMD This is a fascinating observation. We now need further study. One of the big problems with this preliminary work is that people knew if they were taking the herbs Creticos says. If people are given a drug or an herb that they think will help fight their disease up to  will report they were indeed helped Creticos explains. Also dont try this at home he cautions. Until there is further study looking at the safety of the herbal formula people should only take the herbs as part of a clinical trial https Creticos says. Still the AAAAI does think there is evidence for herbal therapy having an antiinflammatory effect that would fight asthmas underlying cause and is supporting research in the field says William Silvers MD former head of the groups committee on complementary and alternative medicine https These findings were presented at a medical conference. They should be considered preliminary as they have not yet undergone the peer review process in which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to publication in a medical journal."