Mixing Natural Products with Medicines: Is It Safe?
Based on the common misconception that "natural" means "safe", patients are turning increasingly to natural products, including botanicals and everyday foods, to supplement or even replace their prescribed pharmacotherapy. Despite the well-known drug interaction risks of the now textbook example natural products grapefruit juice and St. John's wort – discovered more than 20 years ago– harmonized approaches about how best to study natural product-drug interactions remain lacking. A center composed of clinical pharmacologists, natural products chemists, bioinformaticists, and health communications experts was established by the United States National Institutes of Health to address these critical knowledge gaps. Results from a series of interaction projects examining methodically selected, widely used natural products as precipitants of potential clinically relevant pharmacokinetic drug interactions led to a set of recommended approaches to help guide the design of future studies. Such efforts are expected to provide evidenced-based information for health care providers, educators, and patients about the safe use of certain natural products when taken concomitantly with medications.
Session Schedule
8:15 AM - 8:20 AM ET Introduction Erica Woodahl, PhD
8:20 AM - 8:45 AM ET Mixing Natural Products with Medicines: Is It Safe? Mary Paine, PhD, RPh
8:45 AM - 9:00 AM ET Q&A and Closing Remarks
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.jpg "Mary Paine, PhD, RPh photo")
