Herb-Drug Interactions (July 15, 2014)
One of the reasons I chose the school that I did for my education in Chinese medicine was that I thought I would receive much better instruction in the use of Chinese medical herbs than I would in most other schools. (And I was right, too.) But I found when I got back into practice that it was harder to use my education than I had expected -- people view herbs with great suspicion, particularly those people who are on prescription medications, which is practically everyone these days (or so it seems sometimes).
Interestingly, the attitude about this in Asia is entirely different. They welcomed the addition of Western pharmaceuticals to their medical use of herbs, and today they freely mix the use of drugs and herbs in practice. In fact, one reason you need to be careful about where you get your herbs from is that herbal preparations from China commonly contain additions of Western medications, since they feel that using the two together reinforces the beneficial effects of both. (That is anathema to Western medical practice, where we emphasize purity of medications, know exactly what we are using and why, and yet somehow manage to kill hundreds of thousands of people a year anyway.)
So, very briefly, then, here it is. There are very few known herb-pharmaceutical interactions. The ones that you need to watch out for are pretty well known. And most importantly, you can look up the medicine and/or the herb of interest specifically to see if there are any problems. Since there are a number of known drug-drug interactions (did you know that some antibiotics lessen the effectiveness of oral contraceptives?) and even drug-FOOD interactions, this probably isn’t a bad idea whenever you start to take something new. But mixing the two doesn't seem to be a problem.
I DO advise that f you are using Chinese herbs, however, that you get them from a practitioner rather than finding them on the internet, and not just because otherwise you may wind up with one of those drug-herb combos I mentioned. Agricultural products of all types from China have a tendency to be contaminated with heavy metals and heaven only knows what else, and their medicinal herbs are no exception to that. Also, Chinese herbal formulas aren’t prescribed quite the way that Western ones are – a single set of symptoms may have several different causes in Chinese medicine, and if you pick a formula based on symptom only you may actually end up exacerbating your problem.
I would mention in passing that well over 100,000 people die yearly in America from properly prescribed prescription medications. Whereas probably 30% of the population is estimated to have taken herbal medications, and the only death statistic I can find is eight people in 2012. So this is a subject that is worth getting into perspective. Endless news stories screeching about the Dangers Of Herbs are alarmist at best. There’s nothing wrong with a little well-advised caution, but just because something is unfamiliar doesn’t mean that it’s dangerous, and the potential upside of herbs right now, compared to their downside, is tremendous.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014
One of the reasons I chose the school that I did for my education in Chinese medicine was that I thought I would receive much better instruction in the use of Chinese medical herbs than I would in most other schools. (And I was right, too.) But I found when I got back into practice that it was harder to use my education than I had expected -- people view herbs with great suspicion, particularly those people who are on prescription medications, which is practically everyone these days (or so it seems sometimes).
Interestingly, the attitude about this in Asia is entirely different. They welcomed the addition of Western pharmaceuticals to their medical use of herbs, and today they freely mix the use of drugs and herbs in practice. In fact, one reason you need to be careful about where you get your herbs from is that herbal preparations from China commonly contain additions of Western medications, since they feel that using the two together reinforces the beneficial effects of both. (That is anathema to Western medical practice, where we emphasize purity of medications, know exactly what we are using and why, and yet somehow manage to kill hundreds of thousands of people a year anyway.)
So, very briefly, then, here it is. There are very few known herb-pharmaceutical interactions. The ones that you need to watch out for are pretty well known. And most importantly, you can look up the medicine and/or the herb of interest specifically to see if there are any problems. Since there are a number of known drug-drug interactions (did you know that some antibiotics lessen the effectiveness of oral contraceptives?) and even drug-FOOD interactions, this probably isn’t a bad idea whenever you start to take something new. But mixing the two doesn't seem to be a problem.
I DO advise that f you are using Chinese herbs, however, that you get them from a practitioner rather than finding them on the internet, and not just because otherwise you may wind up with one of those drug-herb combos I mentioned. Agricultural products of all types from China have a tendency to be contaminated with heavy metals and heaven only knows what else, and their medicinal herbs are no exception to that. Also, Chinese herbal formulas aren’t prescribed quite the way that Western ones are – a single set of symptoms may have several different causes in Chinese medicine, and if you pick a formula based on symptom only you may actually end up exacerbating your problem.
I would mention in passing that well over 100,000 people die yearly in America from properly prescribed prescription medications. Whereas probably 30% of the population is estimated to have taken herbal medications, and the only death statistic I can find is eight people in 2012. So this is a subject that is worth getting into perspective. Endless news stories screeching about the Dangers Of Herbs are alarmist at best. There’s nothing wrong with a little well-advised caution, but just because something is unfamiliar doesn’t mean that it’s dangerous, and the potential upside of herbs right now, compared to their downside, is tremendous.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014