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Does St. John's wort actually work?

macdoc said:
I don't think you quite realize that without a patent to protect their interest - Big Pharma wants nothing to do with readily available biologicals.
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No.

'Big Pharma' :rolleyes:, first of all would have to research which particular molecule, or combination of molecules, achieved the desired result. Then they would have to find an easy way to manufacture that\them consistently to produce a tablet that conforms to the necessary purity and quality that is required of them by law.
Then they look at their already cheap generics which achieve the same thing and go "Meh. Not worth it"

Chopping up plants is unreliable pharmacology. Which bit contains the needed ingredient? Leaves, stem, flowers, bud, roots? Is the ingredient concentrated more before blooming or after?Why do two samples have varying degrees of the ingredient?
 
The mian problem with SJW is consistent dosing. Many doctors (psychs) I knew felt it had amild efficacy.
I took it and it calmed me down a lot for two weeks then it gave me really bad headaches.

But my response was what a psychiatrist used to decide to treat me with Zoloft. (I am now tapering off treatment, in six moths I hope to be symptom and medication free.)
 
My anecdotal experience: when I was heading downhill fast into a depressive episode someone suggested I take SJW. From memory it just made me feel very clouded and dull and also made my skin sensitive and brought me out in rashes.

Luckily Zoloft worked for me. Though eventually that produced migraines, so I came off it too when I stopped needing it.
 
macdoc said:
I don't think you quite realize that without a patent to protect their interest - Big Pharma wants nothing to do with readily available biologicals.
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That explains why no one sells Sodium Acetylsalicylate, Acetyldigoxin, Codeine Suphate, or Rescinnamine anymore*.


*Sodium Acetylsalicylate, aka aspirin, is derived from White Willow bark, and is widely available as an over-the-counter analgesic from a huge number of different manufacturers. Acetyldigoxin is derived from Foxglove, and is common prescription Cardiac medication available under several different brand names. Codeine Suphate is a well-known derivative of the Opium Poppy; and is widely available as a prescription analgesic from a large number of manufacturers. Rescinnamine is derived from Indian Snakeroot, and is a prescription antihypertensive available under several brand names.

On top of that, it is still very much possible for "Big Pharma" to patent a plant-derived drug. It happens all the time. In fact, it's not even necessary for a drug to be unique to get granted a patent, patents are just as often granted for novel formulations and uses (eg, bupropion is patented under the name Wellbutrin as an antidepressant; and under Zyban in a different formulation, as an anti-smoking aid).
 
macdoc said:
If you look at artemisinin you'll see an interesting history.
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Let's see...

Supressed by the Chinese government, because they did not want to have to deal with the WHO and foreign researches and inspectors, due to it's (at the time) indirect ties to the American military...

A very low-bioavailability, making it a difficult to use and often ineffective drug; although showing greater efficacy as part of a combination treatment with several other anti-malarials...

Difficult and expensive to produce since the plants it's derived from do not produce it consistently; although there is a synthetic which has recently been created using Saccharomyces cerevisiae engineer to produce precursors, and is proving more effective than the plant-derived variant...

There is a major privately funded project underway to make the drug more cheaply and in larger volume by developing a process using the aforementioned synthesis pathway, and a major pharmaceutical manufacturer has already been signed to produce it, with the target of increasing the availability to meet current demand...

Several strains of malaria in parts of Southeast Asia have already developed a resistance to it...

I'm really not seeing how any of this is relevant.
 
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luchog said:
{snip} *Sodium Acetylsalicylate, aka aspirin, is derived from White Willow bark, {snip}
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That is a common misconception. In short, the main analgesic in the bark is salicinin. Somebody, I don't recall offhand, discovered that salicylic acid (SA, found in meadowsweet) was an effective analgesic; but it was highly irritating to the stomach. Aspirin is a laboratory product (ca. 1898) that was developed in the search for a more tolerable form of SA.

Around 1990, researchers reported that salicin (from bark) is digested to release salicyl alcohol, which is absorbed and metabolized to SA. So, salicin and aspirin are related to that extent; but willow bark was not the basis for the discovery of aspirin.
 
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luchog said:
Let's see...

Supressed by the Chinese government, because they did not want to have to deal with the WHO and foreign researches and inspectors, due to it's (at the time) indirect ties to the American military...

A very low-bioavailability, making it a difficult to use and often ineffective drug; although showing greater efficacy as part of a combination treatment with several other anti-malarials...

Difficult and expensive to produce since the plants it's derived from do not produce it consistently; although there is a synthetic which has recently been created using Saccharomyces cerevisiae engineer to produce precursors, and is proving more effective than the plant-derived variant...

There is a major privately funded project underway to make the drug more cheaply and in larger volume by developing a process using the aforementioned synthesis pathway, and a major pharmaceutical manufacturer has already been signed to produce it, with the target of increasing the availability to meet current demand...

Several strains of malaria in parts of Southeast Asia have already developed a resistance to it...

I'm really not seeing how any of this is relevant.
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I did the Google on this too and actually found it had an "interesting history" as advertised but, like you, pretty irrelevant. :D
 
macdoc said:
I don't think you quite realize that without a patent to protect their interest - Big Pharma wants nothing to do with readily available biologicals.
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I'm sure we're all aware of that. Considering that natural substances can be - and are routinely - patented, why do you bring this up?




macdoc said:
It's becoming gov labs task to sort out the valuable from the dross to come up with cost effective treatments for population without being under the patent hammer.
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I think the role of gvt labs is more to find treatments for rare conditions whose markets are not large enough to justify private investment.



macdoc said:
If you look at artemisinin you'll see an interesting history.
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A veritable soap opera. A lot of it is probably true.

Ultimately, it sounds like the take-away lesson is yet another argument against racist xenophobia, Chinese or otherwise.
 
cj.23 said:
What database are you using? I have just looked through the studies I can access and seems to be effective. The biochemistry looks right too?
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There is no clear understanding of the biochemistry - only theory. The main theory for quite some time was that hypercin was the active ingredient because it has features that resemble functional groups in SSRIs. However, studies with hypercin do not show effect greater than placebo, so this is probably not the active ingredient after all.




cj.23 said:
However, bear in mind it does interact with a lot of medicines, and in particular will negate the contraceptive pill. A lot of lasses seem to get pregnant through not knowing this. Also "avoid bright lights" is plastered all over the NHS warning literature - sensitizes optic nerve I think.
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This is the main motivator for identifying the active ingredients - the ability to isolate the beneficial components from the harmful ones in order to make the treatment more effective, more tolerable, and less dangerous.

Research continues.
 
JJM said:
That is a common misconception. In short, the main analgesic in the bark is salicinin. Somebody, I don't recall offhand, discovered that salicylic acid (SA, found in meadowsweet) was an effective analgesic; but it was highly irritating to the stomach. Aspirin is a laboratory product (ca. 1898) that was developed in the search for a more tolerable form of SA.
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Aside from the error in the origin, (meadowsweet, rather than willow), nothing else you've written invalidates anything I wrote, nor does it support macdoc's erroneous assertion. Analogues of plant-derived drugs are still patentable, and still saleable despite the fact that the plant still exists. As evidenced by the fact that they have been and are, as so many others have pointed out.
 
luchog said:
Aside from the error in the origin, (meadowsweet, rather than willow),
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It is a trivial matter, I just wanted to correct the record.
luchog said:
nothing else you've written invalidates anything I wrote, nor does it support macdoc's erroneous assertion.
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Of course! That is why I specifically (and only) quoted your statement about aspirin. Sorry if that was not clear.

I suspect that artemisinin is not patentable because it was described long ago. As I understand it, a paptent application must precede public disclosure. A search of PubMed yielded some articles in Chinese dating from 1980, and and an announcement in BMJ in 1982.
 
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