Drugs and Vitamin Supplements, a Bad Mix?
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
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Sometimes, a "natural" cure ends up being worse than the sickness itself. When people randomly combine prescription remedies with herbal ones, they can make their malady worse.
A survey in a recent issue of the Annals of Pharmacotherapy exposes some eye-opening problems with drug interactions - not with other drugs, like you might think, but with seemingly "harmless" herbal or organic supplements. While no fewer than 47 percent of the pharmacists surveyed have seen a patient with a suspected side effect from mixing drugs and vitamins or herbal remedies, only 2 percent reported the event to a governmental authority.
Click here to read the NY Post story
Following, are some of the bad combos of prescription and "natural" medicines:
* Vitamin A helps the body boost its immunity, but in reaction with the anticoagulant warfarin, it can also increase bruising and bleeding.
* Vitamin B-6 helps keep your brain and nervous system healthy, but it can detract from the benefits of amiodarone, a heart drug. It also hampers the effectiveness of the Parkinson's disease medication Sinemet.
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