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Lesson 5 : Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Topic 1: History and Folk Use of Echinacea
Topic 2: Echinacea's Benefits: The Scientific Research
Topic 3: How to Use Echinacea Confidently and Safely
Topic 4: History and Folk Use of St. John's Wort
Topic 5: St. John's Wort's Benefits: The Scientific Research
Topic 6: How to Use St. John's Wort Confidently and Safely
Lesson 5 Topic 1
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
History and Folk Use of Echinacea
For its abilities as an immune stimulant, echinacea (pronounced eh-kin-AY-sha) has become America's most popular medicinal herb. Also known as purple cornflower, echinacea helps the body fight colds, the flu, and other infectious diseases.
Echinecea is a tall, daisy-like flower native to the American Great Plains. It was used medicinally by the Plains Indians, who first applied the mashed root to wounds, insect bites and stings, and snakebites. Echinacea was also used as mouthwash and to treat painful teeth and gums, while echinacea tea was used to treat colds, measles, mumps, and arthritis.
Although plains settlers adopted the plant, it remained a folk remedy until 1870. It was at this time that Dr. H. C. F. Meyer, a patent-medicine purveyor from Pawnee City, Nebraska, used it in his Meyer's Blood Purifier, promoting it as "an absolute cure" for rattlesnake bites and a host of other ills. Claims like those of Dr. Meyer gave patent medicines the name "snake oil."
In the mid-1880s, echinacea came to the attention of researchers at the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, a medical school specializing in the scientific study of medicinal herbs. After testing echinacea, the school found it to speed the healing of bee stings, chronic nasal congestion, leg ulcers, and a variety of infections including diphtheria, measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever, and influenza.
Word spread, and, in the days before penicillin and modern antibiotics, the early pharmaceutical industry adopted echinacea as an infection fighter. In fact, during the early 20th century, it would have been hard to find a medicine cabinet that didn't hold a tincture of echinacea.
Gradually, echinacea became a casualty of the war between the herbally inclined Eclectic physicians and orthodox physicians. The orthodox doctors favored the emergence of laboratory-synthesized drugs. By World War II, as modern antibiotics became available, echinacea's popularity waned. After 1950, it was virtually forgotten in this country.
German researchers were primarily responsible for continuing an interest in herbal medicine. In fact, from the 1950s through the 1980s, many studies -- almost all of them German -- showed that echinacea had notable immune-stimulating and infection-fighting properties. By the mid-1980s, Americans were well on their way to rediscovering this herb. Today, echinacea is a mainstay of herbal medicine.
Lesson 5 Topic 2
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
Echinacea's Benefits: The Scientific Research
Echinacea is an immune stimulant. When disease-causing germs attack the body, cells secrete compounds that attract infection-fighting white blood cells (macrophages) to the infected area. The macrophages (literally, "big eaters") then engulf and digest the invaders. Echinacea boosts the macrophages' ability to destroy germs.
Echinacea also energizes other important types of white blood cells, natural killer cells, and T-lymphocytes. The herb also increases secretion of interleukin 1, another component of the immune system.
The bottom line is that infections caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoans heal faster with echinacea than without it.
Echinacea is most popular as a treatment for colds and flu. By the late 1990s, more than a dozen studies had investigated echinacea as a cold treatment. Most showed significant benefit: shorter, milder colds. There were also studies that showed no benefit -- enough to keep critics claiming that echinacea was worthless.
Recently, two mainstream physicians from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, together with a naturopath at Bastyr University (the naturopathic medical school near Seattle), analyzed every published study of echinacea for both the prevention and treatment of colds and flu.
For treatment of the common cold and flu, the researchers analyzed eight studies involving more than 1,000 participants. The trials were double-blind, meaning that some subjects received a placebo while the rest took echinacea. Those who used the herb took it in various preparations -- tablets, capsules, juice, or tincture -- and the preparations used all the immune-boosting parts of the plant: the root, leaves, and flowers.
All eight studies showed benefit. Six of the studies were statistically significant; two were not, but they showed a clear trend in the direction of benefit. Compared to untreated cold sufferers, the herb produced an average 50 percent reduction in symptom severity and a similar reduction in the number of days the subjects felt ill. The researchers concluded that echinacea does speed the treatment of the common cold.
Commission E, the German counterpart of the Food and Drug Administration, is an expert panel responsible for judging the safety and effectiveness of herbal medicines. They endorse echinacea as a treatment for colds and flu.
With regard to prevention, the researchers analyzed four studies with a total of 1,152 participants. Again, the trials were double-blind and used various preparations of all parts of the plant. None of these studies showed statistically significant preventive value. Based on this information, the reviewers' concluded that echinacea does not help prevent colds or flu.
It should be noted that traditional herbalists have never recommended echinacea as a preventive measure, only as a treatment for infectious illnesses.
In the cold-treatment studies that showed the most benefit, participants began taking echinacea as soon as they felt the first twinges of a cold or flu coming on. It was taken several times a day when symptoms were worse, and less often when there was noted improvement.
Finally, echinacea has been shown to help treat recurrent vaginal yeast infections. In a German study, 203 women with these annoying infections were treated with either a standard pharmaceutical anti-yeast cream or the cream supplemented by oral doses of echinacea. After six months, 60 percent of the women treated with the antifungal cream alone experienced recurrences. Among those also treated with the echinacea supplement, the figure was only 16 percent, a highly significant difference.
Lesson 5 Topic 3
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
How to Use Echinacea Confidently and Safely
Most herbalists recommend using a commercial tincture, though other preparations are available. When using a tincture, take one teaspoon up to three times a day mixed with fruit juice or a beverage herb tea.
In tinctures, echinacea is often paired with goldenseal, an herbal antibiotic that helps treat digestive tract infections. If, however, you are treating a respiratory problem (cold, flu) or any nondigestive tract infection, goldenseal won't help and you should instead buy plain echinacea.
When using other commercial preparations, follow the package directions.
Echinacea often causes a tingling sensation on the tongue. This is normal and harmless and it goes away after about 15 minutes. Echinacea is generally considered safe in amounts typically recommended. However, individuals vary and anyone might experience an allergic reaction. If you notice any odd symptoms shortly after consuming echinacea, stop taking it.
The only group of people who should not use echinacea are those with auto-immune conditions (for example, lupus) since it is possible that stimulating the immune system can potentially aggravate auto-immune diseases. People who are HIV positive should also exercise caution because the AIDS virus attacks the cells of the immune system, and stimulating them might also stimulate the virus.
Can Echinacea Have the Opposite Effect?
Use echinacea only to boost your immune system in the event of an illness. There is some evidence that long-term use can actually depress your immune system, making your body's natural defense against disease less effective. See other indications in The Complete Guide to Herbal Medicines.
Lesson 5 Topic 4
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
History and Folk Use of St. John's Wort
St. John's Wort has been used in herbal medicine for more than 2,000 years. However, it was a minor herb until the 1980s when it was shown to be a potent antidepressant. Now it's one of the most popular medicinal herbs and is considered THE herb for mood problems.
"Wort" is Old English for "plant." The leaves and flowers of St. John's wort contain special glands that release a red oil when pinched.
In ancient and medieval Europe, the prevailing medical philosophy was the Doctrine of Signatures, the belief that herbs' physical appearance -- their "signature" -- revealed their healing value. Because the red oil in St. John's wort resembles blood, it was believed to be a wound treatment. The ancient Greeks and Romans prescribed St. John's wort steeped in wine as a treatment for cuts, burns, and animal bites, and further believed that the herb could protect against witches' spells.
Early Christians named the plant in honor of John the Baptist because it blooms around August 29, the anniversary of the saint's beheading. Christians also adopted the pagan belief that St. John's wort repelled evil spirits. This poem from around 1400 sums up the popular view:
St. John's wort doth charm all witches away
If gathered at midnight on the saint's holy day.
Any devils and witches have no power to harm
Those that gather the plant for a charm.
Noted 17th-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper called St. John's wort "a singular wound herb; boiled in wine and drank, it healeth inward hurts or bruises and closes up the lips of wounds."
Although early colonists introduced European St. John's wort into North America, they found the Indians using the native American herb in much same way it was used by Europeans -- as a wound treatment and a remedy for diarrhea, fever, and skin problems.
America's 19th-century Eclectic physicians, forerunners of today's naturopaths, also considered St. John's wort a useful wound treatment.
Lesson 5 Topic 5
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
St. John's Wort's Benefits: The Scientific Research
St. John's wort contains immune-boosting compounds (flavonoids), so it probably can help treat wounds. It owes its current popularity, however, to another of its compounds called hypericin, the key to its antidepressant action.
In the early 1980s, German researchers discovered that hypericin interferes with the activity of a compound in the body known as monoamine oxidase (MAO), making it an MAO inhibitor. MAO inhibitors are an important class of antidepressants.
In several smaller German studies, people with mild to moderate depression obtained significant relief after taking St. John's wort: mood elevation, improved self-esteem, greater interest in life, increased appetite, and increased normalcy in sleep patterns. Herbalists began recommending the herb for depression, but it did not rise to prominence until 1996.
In 1996 German researchers published a meta-analysis of human studies (clinical trials) in the prestigious British Medical Jou rnal. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique allowing the results of many small studies to be combined as if they were a single large study. (In medical research, one large study is more compelling than several small ones.) The meta-analysis included 23 trials involving 1,757 adults with mild-to-moderate depression. In the combined results, 22 percent of the placebo group enjoyed mood elevation, while 55 percent of those taking St. John's wort experienced significant results.
How beneficial is the herb? One German report claims it to be as effective as Prozac. In a study conducted by researchers in the psychiatry department at the University of Salzburg, Austria, half of the 161 participants with mild-to-moderate depression received a standard dose of Prozac. The other half took 400 mg of St. John's wort twice a day. After six weeks, the two treatments produced comparable results -- significant mood elevation in 72 percent of those taking Prozac and in 71 percent of the group taking St. John's wort. The herb also produced somewhat fewer side effects.
Initially, St. John's wort was considered to be an MAO inhibitor-type antidepressant. But those who take pharmaceutical MAO inhibitors must refrain from eating a large number of foods, or face unpleasant side effects. However, most people taking St. John's wort did not observe these food restrictions, yet did not develop MAO side effects. German researchers have discovered why: Although hypericin resembles an MAO inhibitor, it is chemically more complicated and similar to Prozac, meaning that no food restrictions are necessary.
Like pharmaceutical antidepressants, St. John's wort takes time to deliver its antidepressant benefits -- up to three months.
Commission E approves St. John's wort for the treatment of depression.
Lesson 5 Topic 6
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
How to Use St. John's Wort Confidently and Safely
Depression is a potentially serious condition. Anyone who feels depressed enough to take St. John's wort should be under the care of a physician.
For the treatment of depression, buy a commercial St. John's wort product (preferably a standardized extract) and follow the label directions in consultation with a physician.
Do not take St. John's wort in combination with any other antidepressant medication without first consulting your physician.
St. John's wort is generally considered safe in amounts typically recommended. However, individuals vary and anyone might experience an allergic reaction. If you notice any odd symptoms shortly after taking it, stop.
In livestock fed large amounts of St. John's wort, the hypericin concentrates near the skin and causes sun sensitivity (photosensitization) and blistering sunburn. This side effect appears to be rare in people, but it's possible, especially if you have fair, sun-sensitive skin. If so, take extra precautions when in the sun: a hat and long-sleeved clothing.
Don't take St. John's wort if you have HIV and are already taking any of the protease inhibitor (PI) medications. The interaction interferes with the PI. Also, do not take St. John's wort if you are taking cyclosporine to control organ transplant rejection. The herb may interfere with the drug.
Bananas??
While taking St. John's Wort, you should avoid foods containing tyramine. What foods are these? Bananas are one, and chocolate is another. Look up St. John's Wort in The Complete Guide to Herbal Medicines for the rest of the list.
Lesson 5 Assignment
Activity: Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Visit your local health food store, supplement center, or herb shop -- any place that sells medicinal herbs. Explore all the different echinacea and St. John's wort products. Buy one or more if you wish, or simply decide which one you would buy if you needed that herb. That way, if you ever do, you can go right to the product you want
.
In your textbook, read the sections on these two herbs.
Lesson 5 Review
Activity: Echinacea and St. John's Wort
1. When echinacea faded from popularity in the U.S. in the mid-20th century, scientists in which country continued researching it, eventually leading to its repopularization in the U.S.?
A. England
B. Sweden
C. France
D. Germany
2. What value does echinacea have as a cold and flu treatment?
A. Preventive value only
B. Treatment value only
C. Both preventive and treatment value
D. No value
3. Shortly after taking echinacea, which harmless, temporary side effect is common?
A. Scalp itching
B. Toe pain
C. Tongue numbing
D. Sneezing
4. "Wort" is Old English for:
A. Flower
B. Stem
C. Root
D. Plant
5. How effective is St. John's wort as an antidepressant?
A. About as effective as Prozac
B. Less effective than Prozac, but still helpful
C. More effective than Prozac
D. Effective only when taken with Prozac
6. Be sure to consult a physician before taking St. John's wort if:
A. You have hayfever
B. You're already taking antacids
C. You're already taking a pharmaceutical antidepressant
D. You are allergic to penicillin
Topic 1: History and Folk Use of Echinacea
Topic 2: Echinacea's Benefits: The Scientific Research
Topic 3: How to Use Echinacea Confidently and Safely
Topic 4: History and Folk Use of St. John's Wort
Topic 5: St. John's Wort's Benefits: The Scientific Research
Topic 6: How to Use St. John's Wort Confidently and Safely
Lesson 5 Topic 1
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
History and Folk Use of Echinacea
For its abilities as an immune stimulant, echinacea (pronounced eh-kin-AY-sha) has become America's most popular medicinal herb. Also known as purple cornflower, echinacea helps the body fight colds, the flu, and other infectious diseases.
Echinecea is a tall, daisy-like flower native to the American Great Plains. It was used medicinally by the Plains Indians, who first applied the mashed root to wounds, insect bites and stings, and snakebites. Echinacea was also used as mouthwash and to treat painful teeth and gums, while echinacea tea was used to treat colds, measles, mumps, and arthritis.
Although plains settlers adopted the plant, it remained a folk remedy until 1870. It was at this time that Dr. H. C. F. Meyer, a patent-medicine purveyor from Pawnee City, Nebraska, used it in his Meyer's Blood Purifier, promoting it as "an absolute cure" for rattlesnake bites and a host of other ills. Claims like those of Dr. Meyer gave patent medicines the name "snake oil."
In the mid-1880s, echinacea came to the attention of researchers at the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, a medical school specializing in the scientific study of medicinal herbs. After testing echinacea, the school found it to speed the healing of bee stings, chronic nasal congestion, leg ulcers, and a variety of infections including diphtheria, measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever, and influenza.
Word spread, and, in the days before penicillin and modern antibiotics, the early pharmaceutical industry adopted echinacea as an infection fighter. In fact, during the early 20th century, it would have been hard to find a medicine cabinet that didn't hold a tincture of echinacea.
Gradually, echinacea became a casualty of the war between the herbally inclined Eclectic physicians and orthodox physicians. The orthodox doctors favored the emergence of laboratory-synthesized drugs. By World War II, as modern antibiotics became available, echinacea's popularity waned. After 1950, it was virtually forgotten in this country.
German researchers were primarily responsible for continuing an interest in herbal medicine. In fact, from the 1950s through the 1980s, many studies -- almost all of them German -- showed that echinacea had notable immune-stimulating and infection-fighting properties. By the mid-1980s, Americans were well on their way to rediscovering this herb. Today, echinacea is a mainstay of herbal medicine.
Lesson 5 Topic 2
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
Echinacea's Benefits: The Scientific Research
Echinacea is an immune stimulant. When disease-causing germs attack the body, cells secrete compounds that attract infection-fighting white blood cells (macrophages) to the infected area. The macrophages (literally, "big eaters") then engulf and digest the invaders. Echinacea boosts the macrophages' ability to destroy germs.
Echinacea also energizes other important types of white blood cells, natural killer cells, and T-lymphocytes. The herb also increases secretion of interleukin 1, another component of the immune system.
The bottom line is that infections caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoans heal faster with echinacea than without it.
Echinacea is most popular as a treatment for colds and flu. By the late 1990s, more than a dozen studies had investigated echinacea as a cold treatment. Most showed significant benefit: shorter, milder colds. There were also studies that showed no benefit -- enough to keep critics claiming that echinacea was worthless.
Recently, two mainstream physicians from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, together with a naturopath at Bastyr University (the naturopathic medical school near Seattle), analyzed every published study of echinacea for both the prevention and treatment of colds and flu.
For treatment of the common cold and flu, the researchers analyzed eight studies involving more than 1,000 participants. The trials were double-blind, meaning that some subjects received a placebo while the rest took echinacea. Those who used the herb took it in various preparations -- tablets, capsules, juice, or tincture -- and the preparations used all the immune-boosting parts of the plant: the root, leaves, and flowers.
All eight studies showed benefit. Six of the studies were statistically significant; two were not, but they showed a clear trend in the direction of benefit. Compared to untreated cold sufferers, the herb produced an average 50 percent reduction in symptom severity and a similar reduction in the number of days the subjects felt ill. The researchers concluded that echinacea does speed the treatment of the common cold.
Commission E, the German counterpart of the Food and Drug Administration, is an expert panel responsible for judging the safety and effectiveness of herbal medicines. They endorse echinacea as a treatment for colds and flu.
With regard to prevention, the researchers analyzed four studies with a total of 1,152 participants. Again, the trials were double-blind and used various preparations of all parts of the plant. None of these studies showed statistically significant preventive value. Based on this information, the reviewers' concluded that echinacea does not help prevent colds or flu.
It should be noted that traditional herbalists have never recommended echinacea as a preventive measure, only as a treatment for infectious illnesses.
In the cold-treatment studies that showed the most benefit, participants began taking echinacea as soon as they felt the first twinges of a cold or flu coming on. It was taken several times a day when symptoms were worse, and less often when there was noted improvement.
Finally, echinacea has been shown to help treat recurrent vaginal yeast infections. In a German study, 203 women with these annoying infections were treated with either a standard pharmaceutical anti-yeast cream or the cream supplemented by oral doses of echinacea. After six months, 60 percent of the women treated with the antifungal cream alone experienced recurrences. Among those also treated with the echinacea supplement, the figure was only 16 percent, a highly significant difference.
Lesson 5 Topic 3
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
How to Use Echinacea Confidently and Safely
Most herbalists recommend using a commercial tincture, though other preparations are available. When using a tincture, take one teaspoon up to three times a day mixed with fruit juice or a beverage herb tea.
In tinctures, echinacea is often paired with goldenseal, an herbal antibiotic that helps treat digestive tract infections. If, however, you are treating a respiratory problem (cold, flu) or any nondigestive tract infection, goldenseal won't help and you should instead buy plain echinacea.
When using other commercial preparations, follow the package directions.
Echinacea often causes a tingling sensation on the tongue. This is normal and harmless and it goes away after about 15 minutes. Echinacea is generally considered safe in amounts typically recommended. However, individuals vary and anyone might experience an allergic reaction. If you notice any odd symptoms shortly after consuming echinacea, stop taking it.
The only group of people who should not use echinacea are those with auto-immune conditions (for example, lupus) since it is possible that stimulating the immune system can potentially aggravate auto-immune diseases. People who are HIV positive should also exercise caution because the AIDS virus attacks the cells of the immune system, and stimulating them might also stimulate the virus.
Can Echinacea Have the Opposite Effect?
Use echinacea only to boost your immune system in the event of an illness. There is some evidence that long-term use can actually depress your immune system, making your body's natural defense against disease less effective. See other indications in The Complete Guide to Herbal Medicines.
Lesson 5 Topic 4
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
History and Folk Use of St. John's Wort
St. John's Wort has been used in herbal medicine for more than 2,000 years. However, it was a minor herb until the 1980s when it was shown to be a potent antidepressant. Now it's one of the most popular medicinal herbs and is considered THE herb for mood problems.
"Wort" is Old English for "plant." The leaves and flowers of St. John's wort contain special glands that release a red oil when pinched.
In ancient and medieval Europe, the prevailing medical philosophy was the Doctrine of Signatures, the belief that herbs' physical appearance -- their "signature" -- revealed their healing value. Because the red oil in St. John's wort resembles blood, it was believed to be a wound treatment. The ancient Greeks and Romans prescribed St. John's wort steeped in wine as a treatment for cuts, burns, and animal bites, and further believed that the herb could protect against witches' spells.
Early Christians named the plant in honor of John the Baptist because it blooms around August 29, the anniversary of the saint's beheading. Christians also adopted the pagan belief that St. John's wort repelled evil spirits. This poem from around 1400 sums up the popular view:
St. John's wort doth charm all witches away
If gathered at midnight on the saint's holy day.
Any devils and witches have no power to harm
Those that gather the plant for a charm.
Noted 17th-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper called St. John's wort "a singular wound herb; boiled in wine and drank, it healeth inward hurts or bruises and closes up the lips of wounds."
Although early colonists introduced European St. John's wort into North America, they found the Indians using the native American herb in much same way it was used by Europeans -- as a wound treatment and a remedy for diarrhea, fever, and skin problems.
America's 19th-century Eclectic physicians, forerunners of today's naturopaths, also considered St. John's wort a useful wound treatment.
Lesson 5 Topic 5
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
St. John's Wort's Benefits: The Scientific Research
St. John's wort contains immune-boosting compounds (flavonoids), so it probably can help treat wounds. It owes its current popularity, however, to another of its compounds called hypericin, the key to its antidepressant action.
In the early 1980s, German researchers discovered that hypericin interferes with the activity of a compound in the body known as monoamine oxidase (MAO), making it an MAO inhibitor. MAO inhibitors are an important class of antidepressants.
In several smaller German studies, people with mild to moderate depression obtained significant relief after taking St. John's wort: mood elevation, improved self-esteem, greater interest in life, increased appetite, and increased normalcy in sleep patterns. Herbalists began recommending the herb for depression, but it did not rise to prominence until 1996.
In 1996 German researchers published a meta-analysis of human studies (clinical trials) in the prestigious British Medical Jou rnal. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique allowing the results of many small studies to be combined as if they were a single large study. (In medical research, one large study is more compelling than several small ones.) The meta-analysis included 23 trials involving 1,757 adults with mild-to-moderate depression. In the combined results, 22 percent of the placebo group enjoyed mood elevation, while 55 percent of those taking St. John's wort experienced significant results.
How beneficial is the herb? One German report claims it to be as effective as Prozac. In a study conducted by researchers in the psychiatry department at the University of Salzburg, Austria, half of the 161 participants with mild-to-moderate depression received a standard dose of Prozac. The other half took 400 mg of St. John's wort twice a day. After six weeks, the two treatments produced comparable results -- significant mood elevation in 72 percent of those taking Prozac and in 71 percent of the group taking St. John's wort. The herb also produced somewhat fewer side effects.
Initially, St. John's wort was considered to be an MAO inhibitor-type antidepressant. But those who take pharmaceutical MAO inhibitors must refrain from eating a large number of foods, or face unpleasant side effects. However, most people taking St. John's wort did not observe these food restrictions, yet did not develop MAO side effects. German researchers have discovered why: Although hypericin resembles an MAO inhibitor, it is chemically more complicated and similar to Prozac, meaning that no food restrictions are necessary.
Like pharmaceutical antidepressants, St. John's wort takes time to deliver its antidepressant benefits -- up to three months.
Commission E approves St. John's wort for the treatment of depression.
Lesson 5 Topic 6
Lecture and Discussion
Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Research shows that echinacea helps treat the common cold and other infectious diseases. Studies also show that St. John's wort is as effective for depression as pharmaceutical antidepressants.
How to Use St. John's Wort Confidently and Safely
Depression is a potentially serious condition. Anyone who feels depressed enough to take St. John's wort should be under the care of a physician.
For the treatment of depression, buy a commercial St. John's wort product (preferably a standardized extract) and follow the label directions in consultation with a physician.
Do not take St. John's wort in combination with any other antidepressant medication without first consulting your physician.
St. John's wort is generally considered safe in amounts typically recommended. However, individuals vary and anyone might experience an allergic reaction. If you notice any odd symptoms shortly after taking it, stop.
In livestock fed large amounts of St. John's wort, the hypericin concentrates near the skin and causes sun sensitivity (photosensitization) and blistering sunburn. This side effect appears to be rare in people, but it's possible, especially if you have fair, sun-sensitive skin. If so, take extra precautions when in the sun: a hat and long-sleeved clothing.
Don't take St. John's wort if you have HIV and are already taking any of the protease inhibitor (PI) medications. The interaction interferes with the PI. Also, do not take St. John's wort if you are taking cyclosporine to control organ transplant rejection. The herb may interfere with the drug.
Bananas??
While taking St. John's Wort, you should avoid foods containing tyramine. What foods are these? Bananas are one, and chocolate is another. Look up St. John's Wort in The Complete Guide to Herbal Medicines for the rest of the list.
Lesson 5 Assignment
Activity: Echinacea and St. John's Wort
Visit your local health food store, supplement center, or herb shop -- any place that sells medicinal herbs. Explore all the different echinacea and St. John's wort products. Buy one or more if you wish, or simply decide which one you would buy if you needed that herb. That way, if you ever do, you can go right to the product you want
.
In your textbook, read the sections on these two herbs.
Lesson 5 Review
Activity: Echinacea and St. John's Wort
1. When echinacea faded from popularity in the U.S. in the mid-20th century, scientists in which country continued researching it, eventually leading to its repopularization in the U.S.?
A. England
B. Sweden
C. France
D. Germany
2. What value does echinacea have as a cold and flu treatment?
A. Preventive value only
B. Treatment value only
C. Both preventive and treatment value
D. No value
3. Shortly after taking echinacea, which harmless, temporary side effect is common?
A. Scalp itching
B. Toe pain
C. Tongue numbing
D. Sneezing
4. "Wort" is Old English for:
A. Flower
B. Stem
C. Root
D. Plant
5. How effective is St. John's wort as an antidepressant?
A. About as effective as Prozac
B. Less effective than Prozac, but still helpful
C. More effective than Prozac
D. Effective only when taken with Prozac
6. Be sure to consult a physician before taking St. John's wort if:
A. You have hayfever
B. You're already taking antacids
C. You're already taking a pharmaceutical antidepressant
D. You are allergic to penicillin