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Natural Medicine Warning

One morning in early October I woke up and turned on the TV to listen to Good Morning America, as I do every morning while getting ready for work. This particular morning I overheard Charlie Gibson announce if you thought those herbal remedies areharmless, stay tuned for some startling news. My ears perked up; I quickly took my shower and shaved so that I wouldn't miss whatever new revelation was going to be reported. Surprising as it may seem, Pharmacists as well as other health care professionals often learn of late breaking news regarding drugs through the same media that everyone else does. This is particularly true with regard to drug recalls or newly learned, harmful drug reactions. While I was eating breakfast the report finally began. To my amazement, this revelation was not news at all. But the fact that it was being reported at all was the news. The guest physician that Charlie Gibson was interviewing was a surgeon from Texas and the herbal products that he was reporting to have serious and dangerous affects were Ginko Biloba, Garlic, and Kava Kava. He noted that when he and his colleagues operated on patients who later declared to have taken Ginko or Garlic, they tended to bleed more than other patients did. For patients that had taken Kava Kava it was noted that they had a more difficult coming out of anesthesia. The surgeon reported that there are serious concerns that patients don't take herbal and natural remedies serious enough and often don't consider that these products should be report in pre-op interviews. My surprise with this report was two fold. First, I am surprised that the known use or action of these products was reported as startlingly new. The second surprise was that the generally conservative medical community publicly recognized that at least three herbal medications do exactly was they have been said to do.

     Ginko Biloba has long been used to enhance one's memory. It's mechanism of action has also been known for a long time. Memory is enhanced when more oxygen gets to the brain. More oxygen gets to the brain when red blood cells don't aggregate. Ginko helps prevent this occurrence and in doing so prolongs the clotting time of blood. This is similar to the affects of taking a baby aspirin a day that we have all heard of for preventing heart attacks. Whenever I recommend Ginko to a patient, and I do that often, I try to warn or advise them not to take a daily aspirin regimen if they elect to take the Ginko. The use of both items may cause unwanted bleeding. If a person is already taking the aspirin regimen from his or her doctor's recommendation, they should consult their doctor. Interestingly enough, in this report the surgeon did not mention a warning for the daily use of aspirin as a problem. I would suspect that this has to do with patients being asked specifically about aspirin in the pre-op interview and being told to stop taking it before the surgery. Similarly, the warning was issued for garlic for it's roll in prolonged coagulation time. This should not have been terribly surprising either. For many year garlic has been known to aid in maintaining a healthy heart and lowering blood pressure. Garlic became popular several years ago when it was determined that native Italians had significantly less incidents of heart disease and high blood pressure. It was further determine that the liberal use of olive oil and garlic in their traditional diet was the reason.

    Kava Kava has gained in popularity in recent years as an over-the-counter, natural calmative. If we used the term tranquilizer, we would expect Kava Kava to be available only on prescription. It is much safer than the traditional prescription sedatives and does not exhibit the lingering drowsiness and other side effects. However, it should not be surprising that it would add to the effects of anesthesia.

    I am pleased that this report was done. Natural medications are safe and effective, but should be used judiciously, especially when they are doing what they are expected to do. They should be treated as medications when a physician is asking you about the medications you are taking. In today's market, many people purchase their prescriptions and natural supplements from multiple sources. The danger exists that there are interactions that can occur without even considering natural supplements as medication. I recently posted a web page to address this problem. My web site is www.Rxcrosscheck.com and I take into consideration natural supplements. There are several other sites that address drug interaction but the only other one I have found that addresses natural or herbal medications is www.drkoop.com . Another interesting note from this report is that the recommendation given to people having surgery is that these natural medications be discontinued at least 2 week before the surgery. This seems to validate the opinion that natural medications don't act immediately and should be given a long trial period before giving up on them.