(Source: British Medical Journal, 2003; 327: "This Week in the BMJ')
(Source: Archives of Internal Medicine, 2003; 163: 1448-53
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E-NEWS BROADCAST No.
60 - 27 November 03
Please feel free to email this broadcast to any friends you feel would appreciate receiving it.
THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE, I: Are the wort's days numbered?
We're not gamblers, but. . . we bet St John's wort (hypericum) will soon be banned in virtually every country in the West before too long.
It will be a sad fate for a herb that has helped many hundreds of thousands of people with mild depression. It has been used for years in countries such as Germany, and more than a handful of medical trials had confirmed that it was a very effective therapy for mild depression, and without any nasty side effects.
Germans spend four times as much on St John's wort as on the antidepressant drug Prozac, and nearly 4 per cent of Americans have taken it for at least a month for their depression.
Then one study discovered that it was not a very effective treatment for major depression, although nobody had ever suggested it was.
This was quickly followed by various reports that suggested the herb interfered with prescription drugs, such as cyclosporine for transplant patients, and the Pill. The Irish health authorities were quick to act, and banned the herb.
But things have gone from bad to worse for this traditional remedy, and this time the blow may well be fatal. A recent study has discovered that it can reduce the effectiveness of up to half of all prescription drugs. This extraordinary conclusion is based on a study of 12 healthy volunteers who were given the herb for 14 days.
Most will immediately say that the study is too small to be significant, but we reckon the pharmaceutical industry will seize on this to force its ban.
As they say, to understand medicine you just have to follow the money . .
(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2003; 290: 1500-4).
THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE, II: The screw tightens a little more.
. .
In a similar vein (are we detecting a trend here?) many in conventional medicine are getting worried about the claims being made for nutritional and herbal products that are being advertised on the Web.
Any such claims fly in the face of the American legislation known as DSHEA (the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act 1994) which allowed the free supply of alternative remedies in the United States, provided neither manufacturer nor retailer made any claims for their efficacy. It was a last-minute deal that stopped legislation that sought to ban all remedies that had not been clinically tested for their effectiveness and safety.
Since then, the Web has exploded and unscrupulous suppliers are making amazing claims for their products; most, however, are making more modest claims, and ones that have been proved anecdotally, and sometimes in trials.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School checked the claims being made on 443 Web sites, 81 per cent of which were making health claims for products, and over half of these said their products could treat, prevent, diagnose or cure specific diseases.
The practice is of course wrong, and possibly even dangerous. 'Buyer beware' has to be the watchword for anyone who is shopping for health products on the Web.
DSHEA requires the co-operation and self-regulation of the alternative medicines market, and Web suppliers clearly fly in the face of this.
So . . . it doesn't take an enormous leap from there to suggest that legislators may have to tighten up DSHEA, and quickly. After all, it would only be following on from tighter controls being imposed by the EU. . .
(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2003; 290: 1505-9).
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