How many patients self-medicate with St John's wort?

Abstract

Aims and MethodSt John's wort is popularly taken as a herbal remedy, but it interacts with prescribed drugs. The aim of this survey was to estimate the prevalence of patients self-medicating with St John's wort. All new referrals to a community mental health team over 5 months were asked about any use of St John's wort.ResultsFifteen patients, of 101, had taken St John's wort at some time and of those seven were currently taking it. Patients who used St John's wort tended to be younger and female. Only nine of the 15 patients took it for depressive symptoms and none had received medical advice. One patient was taking an interacting medication.Clinical ImplicationsA significant number of patients are taking St John's wort. In order to prevent drug interactions, doctors should ask all patients whether they use it, especially young women who may be on the contraceptive pill. Patients need better education about its risks and benefits and it should be taken with medical advice.

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“…Due to putative medicinal property it was recommended against various disorders from the first century onwards by various Greek physicians (such as Dioscorides, Galen, Hippocrates, and Pliny). Ever since then it has endured as a popular remedy for intestinal worms, anxiety, cuts, burns, depression, snakebites, and menstrual disorders (Castleman, 2001;Redvers et al, 2001). The species is also known to possess hypotensive, antibacterial, spasmolytic, stimulating (Chopra and Nayar, 1956), diuretic, (Solujic et al, 1997), analgesic, anti-inflammatory (Bukhari et al, 2004), anticancer, antitumor, antioxidant, antischizophrenic, anticonvulsant, and antidiabetic properties (Birt et al, 2009;Caraci et al, 2011;Can and Ozkay, 2012).…”

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