Seeing as STW is the fount of all knowledge:

Been using this for a while and it seems to help with winter blues, but the stuff from Holland and Barrett is really expensive. Been looking at other sources – the H&B one says it has 1422mg-1991mg of the active ingredient, whereas another one I found says it is ‘standardised to provide a guaranteed 1000ug of hypericin’.

According to a convertor I just tried 1000 ug (micrograms) is equivalent to 1 mg – surely the H&B one can’t be hundreds/thousands of times stronger can it? I’m just slightly wary of buying stuff like this from random internet places as I don’t think herbal medicine is regulated like conventional medicine.

Soooooo….. anyone know of a reputable source/brand of St John’s Wort other than H&B, or shall I just suck it up and buy the expensive stuff? Cheers.

I don’t think you’ll find any “cheap” St John’s Wort pills. High manufacturing cost, restricted market.

I get mine from Boots and they’re just as expensive.

Try getting high-dosage ones and taking one every two days, instead of every day?

as I don’t think herbal medicine is regulated like conventional medicine

No specific regulation at all. Certainly no safety testing, no rigorous production controls, no traceability / quality control for ingredients.

I don’t think herbal medicine is regulated like conventional medicine

Correct.

Short of buying the St John’s Wort available on prescription in Germany (it’s the most common prescribed antidepressant there) which will have inter-batch consistency and efficacy and safety research behind it, I would suggest sticking with what you believe works for you.

Short of buying the St John’s Wort available on prescription in Germany

Boots…

sticking with what you believe works for you

this.

if you think a different dose of placebo isn’t going to work then it won’t.

Going to try the Boots stuff, seems to work out better value with their 3 for 2 offer. Thanks MrWoppit

if you think a different dose of placebo isn’t going to work then it won’t.

Oh dear, I knew we’d get some of this. 🙄

An interesting fact about placebos:

If you take 300 people with an illness (e.g. a cold), give 100 nothing, 100 a placebo tablet, and 100 a placebo injection, those given a tablet will have a higher recovery rate than those given nothing, and those given the injection will have the highest recovery rate of all.

So, concrete proof that ‘hope’ and/or ‘belief’ really does reap tangible physical benefits.

The human mind is can be a wonderful thing.

I’m not knocking placebo’s at all – as TuckerUK says, it’s the power of the human mind at work.

So. I suppose cannabis is a placebo, then…

I suppose cannabis is a placebo

no, it’s definitely linked to mental illness in some people so it has a proven active ingredient.

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2008/10October/Pages/StJohn%27swortanddepression.aspx

Compared with placebo, people taking St. John’s wort were 28% more likely to ‘respond’ to treatment. This analysis included the highest quality studies. There were no significant differences in depression response rates between St. John’s wort and standard antidepressants (SSRIs or tricyclics). Patients taking St. John’s wort were less likely to drop out of trials due to adverse effects than those taking standard antidepressants.

In summary, by adding the large studies that have recently been conducted to the existing body of research, the evidence suggests that St. John’s wort is a viable treatment for mild to moderate major depression. Importantly, there is considerable variation in the preparations of St. John’s wort available over the counter. The researchers say that their findings apply only to the extracts that were used in the studies in this review, or possibly to very similar preparations. People who want to take St. John’s wort should speak to their doctors about the best preparation for them, and the risks and benefits compared to standard antidepressants.

Oh. So it’s not a placebo, then…

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/stjohnswort/ataglance.htm

What the Science Says

Although some studies of St. John’s wort have reported benefits for depression, others have not. For example, a large study sponsored by NCCAM found that the herb was no more effective than placebo in treating major depression of moderate severity, and a study co-funded by NCCAM and the National Institute of Mental Health found that neither St. John’s wort nor a standard antidepressant medication relieved symptoms of minor depression better than a placebo.

I think that’s probably the end of my contribution to the cut and paste war that’ll follow.

Bottom line for me with this is that if it works for the OP (or anyone) else then I’m all in favour of it. If the symptoms are relieved and it works for you then just stick with what you currently use – any change in dosage or supplier may mean it no longer does (for whatever reason)

Depression is a tricky one to do tests for as pretty much all mild to moderate cases will resolve themselves over time.

Severe cases are also tricky as many of them cannot / are not resolved no matter what they try….

Placebo works, true

however St-Johns Wort has consistently shown up as better than placebo, its proper backed up sciencey stuff with plenty of meta analyses in the BMJ

however St-Johns Wort has consistently shown up as better than placebo, its proper backed up sciencey stuff with double blind and meta analyses

Whilst I agree, there are plenty of ways of friggin the results eg run 20 trials and the one where your drug does show a slight improvement you publish and bury the other 19. Big pharma has been doing this for decades….

I’m not dismissing the power of placebo either but I’m fairly confident St John’s Wort is more than just placebo. I might not get the same placebo boost if I’m buying a product I suspect might not be genuine though. 🙂

I might not get the same placebo boost if I’m buying a product I suspect might not be genuine though.

There is also the preparation method e.g. is the active ingredient even in the bit of the plant they used and did it survive the manufacture process and what concentration is it at, etc etc

As in my OP though I’m not just looking at doses in mg I’m looking at what claimed quantity of the active ingredient is in the product. Of course they could be making it up…..

St John’s Wort also reduces the effectiveness of the contraceptive pill, so it definitely has some physical effect on the body…

My local independent health food shop usually has supplements cheaper (or higher quality at similar price) compared to H&B or Boots. Supermarket and Boots own brands are normally very low quality IME. Personally I didn’t find SJW had any notice effect when I tried it.

This one (it’s the German-sourced version).

Zipvit

These are high strength, and a good price for 360.

Can I suggest that you get your Vit D level checked? Believe it or not, my level was extremely low despite riding around 3 times a week in daylight.

Many people are finding that supplementing with Vit D has made a huge difference. I take 5,000iu daily, have been retested and my level is now adequate.

Also, this place is highly recommended for supplements provided you keep order below £15:

http://www.iherb.com

Placebo or not 🙄 I found prescibed (regulated) St. John’s Wort worked much better for me than over the counter products. My doctor didn’t think much of the OTC ones either – they don’t provide a consistent dosage, he said.
Far as I’m aware SJW is never normally prescribed for major depression.

I’m not dismissing the power of placebo either but I’m fairly confident St John’s Wort is more than just placebo.

Isn’t one of the ingredients basically Prozac under a different name?

and +1 for vitD

This may be useful with regard to calculated vit D:

http://nadir.nilu.no/~olaeng/fastrt/VitD-ez_quartMED.html

St johns wort certainly doesn’t contain Prozac! (fluoxetine)..

Also, as had been stated, it’s more than just a homeopathic medicine – its a natural substance with evidence for benefit over placebo.

However, if you would like to buy some placebo, send me £30 PP gift and I’ll put some in your drinking water….

DrP

Thanks CG – I’ll check that out.

DrP – any opinion on prescribed vs over the counter St John’s Wort?

grum – Member
Seeing as STW is the fount of all knowledge:

Been using this for a while and it seems to help with winter blues, but the stuff from Holland and Barrett is really expensive. Been looking at other sources – the H&B one says it has 1422mg-1991mg of the active ingredient, whereas another one I found says it is ‘standardised to provide a guaranteed 1000ug of hypericin’.

In response to the original question, this will not have almost 2g of the active ingredient, it will be an extract which is equivalent to 2g of the fresh active containing parts of the plant in question. The extract will contain the active ingredient at a specific concentration, 0.3% seems possible, therefore if you had 300mg of extract you would end up with approx. 1ug of the active ingredient.

Matt

Look at;-

http://www.zipvit.co.uk/cgi-bin/popupprod3a1.pl?prodcode=A29b&cartnumber=9960z&currency=&vouchercode=&swords=st%20joh

the info states that the active ingredient does (in micrograms) has an equivalent in milligrams of the herb.

Zipvit seem good products to me, not sure how price compares?

There seems to be some confusion here as to what homeopathic “medicine” consists of…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy

St John’s Wort tablets are not homeopathic. They have an active ingredient in them., not something diluted into non-existence.

St johns wort certainly doesn’t contain Prozac!

No, that’s not what I was asking.

I’ve found it now with Google…

But St John’s Wort contains a drug that is very similar to Prozac, which can interact dangerously with many antidepressants and numerous other medications.

In response to the original question, this will not have almost 2g of the active ingredient, it will be an extract which is equivalent to 2g of the fresh active containing parts of the plant in question. The extract will contain the active ingredient at a specific concentration, 0.3% seems possible, therefore if you had 300mg of extract you would end up with approx. 1ug of the active ingredient.

This bit answers the OP.

It’s like taking any tablet/pill, the actual pill proabbly weigh anywhere between double and hundreds of times more than the amount of the drug in it.

So H&B are saying their tables have between 1.4 and 1.9g of St Johns Wart (and that was probably mostly water pre drying it out) and the other source is saying it has 1mg of the actual ‘drug’.

Determining the actual dose needed would be the difficult part, as different compnies will either:
a) be selling you huge doses to maximise their sales (they’ll compare their products by the gram)
b) be selling the least then can get away with (selling by the tablet, 360day supply but it only costs them for 120), hopefully they’ve evidence this dose is the minimum effective dose.

Actually answering the question? New here? 🙂

Cheers folks.

DrP – any opinion on prescribed vs over the counter St John’s Wort?

One exists, one doesn’t…… (as in, I’m 99% sure it’s not prescribed here in the UK… Will look in bnf / computer system to make sure I’m not appearing daft…)

DrP

Edit – I remain un-daft. BNF states it should NOT be prescribed by the likes of moi….