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St John's wort can cut the effectiveness of the contraceptive pill by around a third. If you take both, that is worth knowing today rather than finding out later.
It speeds up the way the liver clears certain drugs, so the pill is not the only thing affected. Warfarin, some HIV medicines, ciclosporin and a number of antidepressants are on the same list, and combining it with an SSRI carries a risk of its own. None of that makes it useless. It does mean it is a medicine in every sense that counts and needs treating as one.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Store all that you reap, left in the ear, apart from the little you eat (Quran 12:47). Yusuf's answer to a problem he could see coming was to know about it early and plan, which is what this piece of information lets you do.
قَالَ تَزۡرَعُونَ سَبۡعَ سِنِينَ دَأَبࣰ ا فَمَا حَصَدتُّمۡ فَذَرُوهُ فِي سُنۢبُلِهِۦٓ إِلَّا قَلِيلࣰ ا مِّمَّا تَأۡكُلُونَ
then I can return to the people to inform them.’ Joseph said, ‘You will sow for seven consecutive years as usual. Store all that you reap, left in the ear, apart from the little you eat
Qur’an 12:47read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
There are international taskforce guidelines grading which nutrients and plant compounds have adequate evidence for use in psychiatric conditions, written as a corrective to marketing claims. Guidance of that kind is where a plant preparation gets treated with the seriousness given to a drug, including what it should not be combined with. It is the right place to look before adding something on top of what you already take.
Sarris J, Ravindran A, Yatham LN, Marx W, Rucklidge JJ, McIntyre RS, Akhondzadeh S, Benedetti F, Caneo C, Cramer H, Cribb L, de Manincor M, Dean O, Deslandes AC, Freeman MP, Gangadhar B, Harvey BH, Kasper S, Lake J, Lopresti A, Lu L, Metri NJ, Mischoulon D, Ng CH, Nishi D, Rahimi R, Seedat S, Sinclair J, Su KP, Zhang ZJ, Berk M. (2022). Clinician guidelines for the treatment of psychiatric disorders with nutraceuticals and phytoceuticals: The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) and Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT) Taskforce.. The world journal of biological psychiatry : the official journal of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
It speeds up the system that clears certain drugs from the body, so less of them reaches you than the dose suggests.
When not to
If you rely on hormonal contraception, do not start or stop St John's wort without speaking to your prescriber or pharmacist first.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
You cannot patent a plant, so there is little commercial reason to fund expensive trials of one. When you read that a herb has no evidence, that often means nobody paid to look rather than that somebody looked and found nothing.
Gluten free and dairy free eating is essential in coeliac disease and in a genuine milk allergy. Neither one treats ADHD, and putting a child on them without a reason carries costs of its own.
Stimulants sharpen focus in almost anyone, so responding well to one does not confirm you have ADHD. The diagnosis comes from your history and how you function, not from a trial of tablets.