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Neem Therapist, Kathy McMahon
| 20 April 2005 |
| St. John's Wort Equivalent to World's Best-selling Antidepressant |
St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum L., Clusiaceae) is one of the world's best-researched phytomedicines. One criticism from the medical community, however, has been that most of the clinical research on St. John's wort (SJW) has matched it against the tricyclic antidepressants, rather than newer, more commonly used agents. It should be noted that during the time at which most SJW research was conducted, doctors favored the tricyclic antidepressants. Now, physicians claim that in order for research results to be truly meaningful, SJW must be compared with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants.
The latest clinical trial investigating the antidepressant effects of SJW does just that, by comparing it to fluoxetine (Prozac®) - the world's best selling antidepressant (Schrader, 2000). This German study was funded not by a pharmaceutical company, or by a company that manufacturers SJW extract, but by the German medical insurance system. The results were impressive. The study concluded, "…the two treatments are essentially equipotent in their antidepressant effects." Furthermore, the researchers asserted that there was "…no evidence to suggest an advantage in treating these patients with fluoxetine." |
posted by Kathy Mcahon @ 9:04 pm
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