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medpundit |
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Monday, March 04, 2002This is worth noting. One of the arguments of the pro-herbal movement in this country is that they have been used for years in Europe without any problems. Wrong. As this article makes clear, products have been pulled off the shelf in Europe and in England because of toxic side effects and drug interactions. In the United States, however, no one has the authority to police these herbal drugs. They are considered "dietary supplements" as if they were as harmless as Flinstone vitamins. If only that were the case. Some choice excerpts from the article: "In the year 2000 evidence surfaced that St John’s wort could interfere with certain prescription medicines, including drugs used to treat transplant patients (cyclosporin), heart conditions and blood clots (warfarin, digoxin), asthma (theophylline), depression (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — SSRIs) migraine (triptans), HIV infection and the Pill." "But that is only St John’s wort. “There is a real lack of research into drug-herb interactions,” says Dr Jo Barnes, of the Centre for Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy at the School of Pharmacy, University of London. Lists of potential interactions are compiled on the basis of what is known about the chemical constituents of plants and conventional drugs. This knowledge is considerable. Dong quai, feverfew and ginkgo could all theoretically interfere with the anticoagulant warfarin. Ginseng, if taken with caffeine, could increase blood pressure. Echinacea can be toxic to the liver and should not be combined with drugs that can cause liver damage. A recent study, in Clinical Infectious Diseases, one of the few carried out so far, found that garlic supplements halved the effectiveness of the anti-HIV drug saquinavir, valerian is inadvisable with sedatives and so on." And so on, indeed. posted by Sydney on 3/04/2002 09:44:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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