Posted by vlvtelvis on April 22, 2001, at 17:03:09
In reply to new study on st. john's wort, posted by mikes on April 18, 2001, at 15:13:24
I just stumbled across this.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/04/18/MN183130.DTL
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/560669.asp
>
> http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/current/abs/joc02013.html
>
> First of all, it was funded by Pfizer. That should immediately raise some red flags. Plus the article says Pfizer markets an extract of St. John's Wort. I find that hard to believe. In addition, a search for the term "wort" on the Pfizer website returned no results.
>
> How could they say it shouldn't be recommended for mild depression when the study wasn't even done on mild depression? That's ridiculous. As quoted from JAMA, "The number reaching remission of illness was significantly higher with St John's wort than with placebo (P = .02), but the rates were very low in the full intention-to-treat analysis (14/98 [14.3%] vs 5/102 [4.9%], respectively)." So the remission of illness was much greater with SJW than placebo, for MAJOR depression, but they couldn't even say it might work for mild depression. They said it didn't work any better than placebo, actually.
>
>
> The MSNBC article also says many St. John’s wort users do not seek medical advice and are unaware of many of the herb’s risks. Some studies have shown, for example, that St. John’s wort can interfere with drugs used to treat HIV-infection and heart transplant patients.
>
> No offense to those groups, but those don't really seem like risks for the vast majority of the population. Also, another quote from the study synopsis:
> "St John's wort was safe and well tolerated. Headache was the only adverse event that occurred with greater frequency with St John's wort than placebo (39/95 [41%] vs 25/100 [25%], respectively)."
>
> I also know from personal experience that SJW works better than placebo. It was the first thing I tried for depression. I was not expecting it to do anything. But it made me feel better than I usually ever had in my life. And it worked quickly. For chronic depression, which I would consider to be at least moderate.
poster:vlvtelvis
thread:60343
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010417/msgs/60780.html