Posted by toby on August 10, 1999, at 10:18:48
In reply to Re: The Effexor Lie, posted by Jim on August 1, 1999, at 15:57:30
With regard to St. John's Wort interacting with foods containing tyramine and leading to lethal hypertension, Jim is correct that clinically this has not been seen. I did use the word "can" in my statement and I won't retract it because there is the potential for this to happen. There has been at least one reported case of an interaction of SJW with the SSRI Paxil in which a woman was taking SJW and then took a Paxil tablet she had left over from an old prescription and became extremely sedated to the point of not being able to get out of bed. This was reported in the American Family Physician journal in 1998. The way the most Americans think about herbals (non-toxic, harmless, yet good for you) and the way people think about medicine in general (if a little is good, more must be better) it would seem to be only a matter of time before somebody takes just the wrong combo of meds and herbs and combined with their own idiosyncratic metabolism, has a very bed reaction. However, that was not the point of my statement in the last post. It was only to point out that herbals are not completely harmless as the herbal industry would have us believe. You must treat them with the same respect as any prescribed medication. And one msut remember that the people working in many of the shops where herbals are sold are not experts (kudos to the ones who are) and even those who do know their stuff when it comes to herbals may not know all the nuances of what interacts with what when it comes to taking an herbal with another medication. If you don't believe me, perhaps you would believe that icon of scientific lore, People Magazine. I refer you to the Aug 2, 1999 issue, pages 105-109.
poster:toby
thread:8909
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990814/msgs/9857.html