Posted by bleauberry on November 5, 2009, at 18:19:54
In reply to Re: You Must Use Caution With St. Johns Wort » TenMan, posted by SLS on November 5, 2009, at 10:08:52
This study is full of words like "could", "should", "potentiall", and theory.
No actual case reports of documented SJW-induced eye damage have been presented.
In general, isolated concentrated singular molecules, such as prescription meds, that have only a few years or a few decades of experience, probably in my opinion present much greater risks than plants that have been tested in realtime for centuries or thousands of years.
Whatever the case, the risks and actual events are extremely low.
This study, if anything, tells me that if I were to take a high dose of SJW for a prolonged period of time, it would be wise for me to have good sunglasses when outdoors. In essence, that was the stated conclusion at the end of the study in the last sentence.
Rather than guessing, maybe we can recruit the assistance of hundreds or thousands of longterm SJW users to see what their experiences have been. That can be found in the archives of sjwinfo.org. Plan on spending a few days there because it is huge. I spent an entire weekend there once trying to make a list of all reported side effects, an estimate of improvement vs remission vs failure, results with diffferent brands (trying to choose my own brand), bizarre outcomes, and such. Finding out what happened with real people like you and me trounces anything a theorist can dream up.
Not prescribed 6 times more often than SSRIs, but rather, 6 times more often than Prozac. I don't think even Lexapro or Effexor or Zoloft are prescribed 6 times more often than Prozac. So no matter, the point remains the same. It is prescribed a lot, and that would not be happening if it was not providing safe repeatable results statistically equivalent to or better than other medical options.
> Here is something you can stick in the sand:
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> - Scott
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> "Therefore, in the presence of light, hypericin can induce changes in lens protein that could lead to the formation of cataracts. Appropriate precautions should be taken to protect the eye from intense sunlight while on this antidepressant medication."
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> Photochem Photobiol. 2000 Aug;72(2):200-3.
> Photooxidation of lens alpha-crystallin by hypericin (active ingredient in St. John's Wort).
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> Schey KL, Patat S, Chignell CF, Datillo M, Wang RH, Roberts JE.
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> Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, USA.
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> Hypericin is the active ingredient in the over the counter antidepressant medication St. John's Wort. Hypericin produces singlet oxygen and other excited state intermediates that indicate it should be a very efficient phototoxic agent in the eye. Furthermore it absorbs in the UV and visible range, which means it can potentially damage both the lens and the retina. Lens alpha-crystallin, isolated from calf lenses, was irradiated in the presence of hypericin (5 x 10(-5) M, 10 mM ammonium bicarbonate, pH 7.0) and in the presence and absence of light (> 300 nm, 24 mW/cm2). Hypericin-induced photosensitized photopolymerization as assessed by sodium dodecylsulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Further analysis of the oxidative changes occurring in alpha-crystallin using mass spectrometry showed specific oxidation of methionine, tryptophan and histidine residues, which increased with irradiation time. Hypericin did not damage the lens protein in the dark. Damage to alpha-crystallin could undermine the integrity of the lens directly by protein denaturation and indirectly by disturbing chaperone function. Therefore, in the presence of light, hypericin can induce changes in lens protein that could lead to the formation of cataracts. Appropriate precautions should be taken to protect the eye from intense sunlight while on this antidepressant medication.
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> PMID: 10946573 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
poster:bleauberry
thread:924178
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091029/msgs/924640.html