Студопедия — Article 1. 1. Why is the plant dealt with in the article called St
Студопедия Главная Случайная страница Обратная связь

Разделы: Автомобили Астрономия Биология География Дом и сад Другие языки Другое Информатика История Культура Литература Логика Математика Медицина Металлургия Механика Образование Охрана труда Педагогика Политика Право Психология Религия Риторика Социология Спорт Строительство Технология Туризм Физика Философия Финансы Химия Черчение Экология Экономика Электроника

Article 1. 1. Why is the plant dealt with in the article called St






1. Why is the plant dealt with in the article called St. John’s wort?

2. What has this plant been used for since times immemorial and what is it used for now?

3. Why do doctors have doubts about the efficacy of St. John’s wort in treating depression?

4. What clinical trial was held to test the effectiveness of St. John’s wort?

5. What argument could you present to demonstrate that Shelton’s study was basically wrong?

6. How can you comment on the title of the article “St. John’s What?”

St. John’s What?

When you squeeze the bright star-shaped yellow buds of the plant Hypericum perforatum, they yield a red juice that reminded medieval Europeans of the blood of John the Baptist. Valued for its magical healing powers, St. John’s wort (a Middle English word for “plant”) has been used since the time of ancient Greece for treating any number of ailments, from liver and bowel disorders to hysteria, obesity and insomnia.

But St. John’s wort came into its own in 1984, when the German government, on the basis of in-vitro studies, approved its use as a mild, natural antidepressant. Sales took off both in Germany, where St. John’s wort easily outsells prescription drugs like Prozac, and in the US, where concoctions of the herb, sold under such labels as Mood Support and Brighten Up, became flagships of the booming alternative-medicine industry. Before last year’s warnings that St. John’s wort could interfere with other medications – notably AIDS treatments, antibiotics and cardiac drugs – yearly sales reached $310 million. Even today, some 1.5 million Americans take the extract regularly to treat their psychic pain.

Let’s hope they are doing something else to make themselves feel better, because the bloom may just have come off this flower. In what is by far the most definitive study of the efficacy of St. John’s wort in treating major depression, doctors last week concluded that the extract is essentially useless. On the basis of these findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr Richard Shelton, the study’s lead author, says flatly that he wouldn’t recommend St. John’s wort to any of his patients. As for the 30 or so earlier trials showing that the herb had some therapeutic value, he – like many other scientists – dismisses them as badly designed, inadequate or otherwise flawed.

Coming as it did amid reports that federal regulations about to call for tighter controls on dietary supplements, including the memory pill Ginko biloba (which has been found to cause excessive bleeding and, in rare cases, stroke), the study’s conclusions touched a raw nerve among those who see herbal medicine as a gentler, more natural route to healing. The nonprofit American Botanical Council issued a press release criticizing the report as inconclusive, and the supplement industry’s Council for Responsible Nutrition said there was nothing in the study that showed St. John’s wort wouldn’t work in cases of mild to moderate depression. Says the group’s president, John Cordaro: “Consumers wouldn’t use a throat lozenge for strep throat, but that same lozenge might be just right for a scratchy throat.”

Shelton, however, stood his ground. He organized the study after seriously depressed patients, who had taken St. John’s wort but hadn’t been helped by it, began turning up en masse at his office. Learning that other psychiatrists were encountering the same influx, he recruited doctors at nearly a dozen medical centers to join him in a clinical trial of the effectiveness of St. John’s wort in combating depression. With unrestricted funding from Pfizer, which makes both the prescription antidepressant Zoloft and an extract of St. John’s wort, the doctors recruited 200 subjects, nearly two thirds of them women in their 40s. All had suffered from major depression for at least four weeks. Some found it difficult for them to get out of bed or care for their children.

Blindly assigned to one of two groups, they were given either a placebo or St. John’s wort. The initial dose: three standard 300-mg tablets a day, which was uppered to four tablets if there was no improvement after four weeks. Although the St. John’s wort group showed slightly more improvement than the placebo group (27% v. 19%) at the end of the eight-week trial, the doctors regarded the difference as statistically insignificant. When taking prescription antidepressants, two-thirds of patients improved.

Shelton and his colleagues acknowledged that theirs is not the final word. That could come before the end of the year when the National Institute of Health completes a larger three-year study. Instead of simply dividing the patients into two groups – one on St. John’s wort, the other on placebo – the NIH study has a third group taking a prescription antidepressant. What should people who are using St. John’s wort or thinking about it do until then? “Hold off,” says Shelton, and consider one of the nearly two dozen prescription medications whose effectiveness has been proved.

(From ‘Time’)

 







Дата добавления: 2015-09-15; просмотров: 550. Нарушение авторских прав; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!



Кардиналистский и ординалистский подходы Кардиналистский (количественный подход) к анализу полезности основан на представлении о возможности измерения различных благ в условных единицах полезности...

Обзор компонентов Multisim Компоненты – это основа любой схемы, это все элементы, из которых она состоит. Multisim оперирует с двумя категориями...

Композиция из абстрактных геометрических фигур Данная композиция состоит из линий, штриховки, абстрактных геометрических форм...

Важнейшие способы обработки и анализа рядов динамики Не во всех случаях эмпирические данные рядов динамики позволяют определить тенденцию изменения явления во времени...

Законы Генри, Дальтона, Сеченова. Применение этих законов при лечении кессонной болезни, лечении в барокамере и исследовании электролитного состава крови Закон Генри: Количество газа, растворенного при данной температуре в определенном объеме жидкости, при равновесии прямо пропорциональны давлению газа...

Ганглиоблокаторы. Классификация. Механизм действия. Фармакодинамика. Применение.Побочные эфффекты Никотинчувствительные холинорецепторы (н-холинорецепторы) в основном локализованы на постсинаптических мембранах в синапсах скелетной мускулатуры...

Шов первичный, первично отсроченный, вторичный (показания) В зависимости от времени и условий наложения выделяют швы: 1) первичные...

Классификация холодных блюд и закусок. Урок №2 Тема: Холодные блюда и закуски. Значение холодных блюд и закусок. Классификация холодных блюд и закусок. Кулинарная обработка продуктов...

ТЕРМОДИНАМИКА БИОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ СИСТЕМ. 1. Особенности термодинамического метода изучения биологических систем. Основные понятия термодинамики. Термодинамикой называется раздел физики...

Травматическая окклюзия и ее клинические признаки При пародонтите и парадонтозе резистентность тканей пародонта падает...

Studopedia.info - Студопедия - 2014-2024 год . (0.01 сек.) русская версия | украинская версия