If you use popular herbal supplements, such as Saint Johnswort, echinacea or even garlic, take note: Combining them with prescription medications may threaten your health, according to recent studies. Drug/herb interactions can interfere with the effectiveness of everything from birth-control pills to antibiotics, and can even cause uncontrolled bleeding, liver damage and death. "People think herbs are 'natural,' so they must be safe. But that isn't always true, especially when they are combined with other substances," says Brent A. Bauer, M.D., director of the Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
"We are just starting to learn about these interactions," Bauer says. "However, much of the information is theoretical, based on what we know about the actions of the drugs and the actions of the herbs."
The chart below details what we do know. For more information on herb-drug interactions, visit mayoclinic.com, herbmed.org and nccam.nih.gov.
Mary Jane Horton is a health writer in Pasadena, Calif., who avoids all supplements to ensure she won't mix the wrong ones.
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