Word: wortly
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When you squeeze the bright star-shaped yellow buds of the hardy perennial 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"), as the shrub is commonly called, 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...
...John's wort came into its own in 1984, when the German government classified it as an MAO inhibitor, on the basis of in-vitro studies, and 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 U.S., 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, cardiac drugs...
...hope they're 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 yet 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, a psychiatrist at Vanderbilt University and the study's lead author, says flatly that he wouldn't recommend St. John's wort to any of his patients...
...those who see herbal medicine as a gentler, more natural route to healing. The nonprofit American Botanical Council issued a stinging press release criticizing the research 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...
...think for people who are feeling a bit down in the dumps it might be a good alternative to some of the heavy-duty psychotropic medications that are out there. But for more severe or even moderate depression, I think we're finding that St. John's Wort is probably not the answer...