Introduction
Over the last several decades, the use of vitamins, minerals, and herbs to treat a wide range of health concerns has become so widespread that many remedies are now familiar to the general public and have been adopted as part of many individuals’ regular self-care practices.
However, while people have come to enjoy and trust the benefits of natural medicine, the incorrect perception that a natural substance is always healthful and safe persists. Many users of vitamins and herbs take prescription and nonprescription medicines along with supplements, unaware of possible interactions.
Though relatively rare and less frequent than negative reactions to over-the-counter and prescription medications, those cases in which an herb or supplement causes a negative reaction become highly publicized by the media. Unfortunately, such coverage often warns people against the substance in question rather than educating them about specific risks and safe usage.
Furthermore, while people interested in natural remedies often don’t know to ask their healthcare providers about interactions, those who do may find that many practitioners themselves don’t know how to access reliable information.
Fortunately, the gap between natural and Western medicine is rapidly closing—evidenced by the explosion of research on natural treatments in recent years. As more doctors recognize the efficacy of natural protocols, there has also been greater interest in combining them with conventional treatments. Despite this increased attention, however, safety information on the interactions between drugs, herbs, and vitamins remains as difficult to find as it was when we published the first edition of the bestselling A–Z Guide to Drug–Herb–Vitamin Interactions.
We are therefore pleased to present this updated version, featuring a new format that makes it even easier to use.
The Healthnotes medical writing team—the group that created the Healthnotes electronic knowledge base and our original book The Natural Pharmacy—has compiled safety and interaction information from over 25,000 scientific articles drawn from more than 600 journals, to provide you with the essential information needed to determine whether you should take a vitamin or herb with your medicine.
This revised edition of the A–Z Guide to Drug–Herb–Vitamin Interactions is much expanded, with coverage of almost 200 additional drugs, including 31 new combination drugs. It also provides 167 new drug–nutrient interaction articles, and every article has been updated with the latest scientific research. We have also added an informative new article, “What Are Depletions and Interactions?”, along with entries on new, high-profile drugs.
Otherwise, this edition retains the same characteristics as the original:
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All statements that might be controversial have been documented with references from the scientific literature.
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Thousands of citations are referenced and available online, so serious readers can retrieve and review the materials we relied on.
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We have prioritized human studies wherever possible, although in some cases, animal or test-tube trials are the only available resources.
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Our expert scientific and evidence-based medical team consists of medical doctors, pharmacists, naturopaths, and doctors of chiropractic—all of whom have real-world clinical experience and are trained to distinguish between reliable and questionable scientific evidence.
In short, we have done our best to create the most useful, authoritative, and balanced book available on this topic—a resource you can trust for clear, evidence-based answers.
For more information on using vitamins and herbs to treat health conditions, see our companion volume, The Natural Pharmacy.
All of the Healthnotes team joins me in wishing you good health.
—Alan R. Gaby, M.D.
Chief Medical Editor, Healthnotes, Inc.
