Caution regarding mixing herbal remedies if you are on heart medication
posted in - CAM watch, - Health tips, - Palmdoc |A recent medical review advises that Herbal remedies, heart drugs don’t mix
Some herbal remedies may increase the potency of prescription drugs for heart disease or make them less effective, a team of experts concluded.
Mixing herbs and drugs also could cause serious heart rhythm problems and bleeding, according to the review published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Use of herbal supplements among elderly patients is especially concerning because they typically have more than one disease, take multiple medications and already are at greater risk of bleeding, the report said.
Previous studies have sounded alarms about use of herbal supplements which are not regulated like traditional medicines. This review examined how supplements and cardiovascular drugs may interact.
“We can see the effect of some of these herb-drug interactions — some of which can be life-threatening — on tests for blood clotting, liver enzymes and, with some medications, on electrocardiogram,” Dr. Arshad Jahangir of the Mayo Clinic in Arizona said in a telephone interview.
Many patients fail to disclose their use of herbal remedies so healthcare providers should be more probing, Jahangir said in a telephone interview.
This applies especially to herbal drugs like Ginkgo which also “thin the blood” so be warned.
Last 5 posts by Palmdoc
- Doctors gone wild again - September 1st, 2010
- Tools of the trade XIX - September 1st, 2010
- Feedback: Housemanship - August 31st, 2010
- Merdeka!! - August 31st, 2010
- The things lawyers say - August 18th, 2010
