‘Scientification’ of Jamu, the Jamu Proving Ground in the Scientific Field

Public knowledge about plants for medicine has been empirically proven from generations, since ancient times. This local wisdom in this field of medicine is slowly starting to be proven scientifically for its safety and efficacy through the herbal medicine scientification.

Image source: www.kompasiana.com

Scientification of jamu is jamu scientific-proving through health service-based research. The jamu scientification process can only be carried out in health care facilities that have the permit or are in accordance with the provisions of the legislation, namely Article 6 of the Minister of Health Regulation 003/2010.

One of the institutions that continues to make efforts to scientifically proving the effectivity of jamu is B2P2TOOT, a research institution under the Indonesian Ministry of Health. Until now, there have been 11 scientific herbs produced by B2P2TOOT, namely:

1.  Jamu for Diabetic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIan3n73Evo

2.  Jamu for Uric Acid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL2UAYaHD2g&t=2s

3.  Jamu for High Blood Pressure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQn2G75nDYI&t=2s

4.  Jamu for Arthritis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ZbJvx0RQ0&t=2s

5.  Jamu for Body Fitness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPcGpofbaPw

6. Weight Loss Jamu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl4v-74v47A&t=2s

7.  Jamu for Liver Disorders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjP6IiSJYqw&t=4s

8.  Jamu for Gastritis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBtCTtRsWB4&t=2s

9.  Jamu for Hemorrhoids

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhrXvEcPsm0&t=3s

10.  Jamu for Urinary Stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXoUp-i3t4c&t=4s

11.  Jamu for High Cholesterol Levels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFw9jfUQr3w

The scientification process for a type of jamu takes 2-3 years. The first stage in the jamu scientification program is conducting ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacology studies in certain ethnic groups. The goal is to get basic data about the types of plants, traditional herbs, and the uses of these herbs. This ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacology study will later become the basis for identifying plant species, plant parts used, traditional herbs used, and indications of each plant or herb. This basic data will then become the basis for further scientific evidence that will be studied by herbal pharmacologists.

Then do the herbs that have been empirically proven to provide health benefits still need to be scientifically proven again?

“Jamu scientification is biomedical science. However, the therapeutic approach and evaluation of therapeutic outcomes is a holistic approach. With this approach, it is hoped that herbal therapy modalities can be accepted in the medical community as an alternative therapy. Given that the mechanism of action of herbal medicine still uses a biomedical approach (modern science), it is necessary to seek an explanation of the relationship between clinical outcomes and modalities of herbal therapy. Therefore, knowledge and research related to the pharmacology of empirical jamu is still needed if you want to be accepted by modern medicine,” explained dr. Danang Ardianto.

Image source: pitpdhmi.net

Even though the jamu scientification has made a great contribution to the world of health, especially in the field of traditional medicine, it does not mean that the jamu scientification process does not have its problems.

“Currently, the obstacle faced in jamu scientificification process is that some medical personnel have not received the results of herbal medicine scientificification as complementary therapy. Another obstacle is the weak management of inter-institutional research because each researcher works on his research project without synergizing with other researchers. In addition, the results of scientific jamu research have not been of interest to pharmaceutical companies because there are no standard rules that must be met by the industry when registering scientific herbal products to BPOM,” added dr. Danang

On this 2021 National Jamu Day, dr. Danang hopes that in the future there will be more and more scientific evidence for existing herbs through coordinated research. With this scientific evidence, hopefully traditional medicine is seen and used on a par with modern medicine according to the level of scientific evidence in health care facilities. dr. Danang also hopes that traditional medicine will be included in the JKN program. “Hopefully Indonesia can develop a body of knowledge or a tree of traditional Indonesian health sciences,” he concluded.