Word: herbal
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...Look for standardized preparations so you know you're getting the same product with each new bottle you buy. As any baby boomer who ever smoked more than a single joint knows, potency of herbs can vary from batch to batch. German manufacturers, though, produce identical batches of herbal remedies, as required by their law. This week the U.S. Pharmacopeia, a nonprofit organization, published the first American standards for the potency of nine herbs, including chamomile, feverfew, St. John's wort and saw palmetto. Manufacturers that adhere to those standards can add the letters NF, for national formulary, to their...
...sure to tell your doctor what you're taking. According to last week's J.A.M.A., 15 million Americans take herbs at the same time as prescription medications. Yet 60% of patients don't tell their doctors that they are taking herbal remedies, which would at least allow the physicians to watch for potentially serious drug-herb interactions...
...herbal preparations lull you into ignoring serious problems. "A lot of my patients with hepatitis C take milk thistle," says Dr. Melissa Palmer, a liver specialist in Plainview, N.Y. "It seems to normalize their liver-function tests, but it doesn't affect the underlying disease...
...Varro Tyler has written some of the most comprehensive guides, including The Honest Herbal and Herbs of Choice (Haworth Press; $40-$50). For a more folksy but still informative survey, try James Duke's The Green Pharmacy (Rodale; $30). Hard-core herbalists can delve into the first English translation of The Complete German Commission E Monographs ($190), a 685-page scientific tome just published by the American Botanical Council. It will soon be joined by the American Pharmaceutical Association Practical Guide to Natural Medicines (William Morrow; $35) and a PDR for Herbal Medicines (Medical Economics...
...Center's Fact Sheets on Alternative Medicine at cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/rosenthal/factsheets.html the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at altmed.od.nih.gov/nccam/ and the University of Texas Center for Alternative Medicine Research at sph.uth.tmc.edu/utcam/default.htm Finally, the surest sign that alternative medicine has gone mainstream: Herbal Remedies for Dummies (IDG Books; $20) is just hitting the stores...