St. Johns Wort

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes St. Johns Wort (SJW), a common herbal treatment. It offers an insight into how its constituents affect us neurologically with its primary ingredients of hypericin, hyperflorin and various flavanoids and describes how, although SJW can be used for various treatments, the main condition that it is used for is depression. It provides a comparative study of conventional anti-depressive agents and their relative side effects and shows how the demand for herbal medicines today is rising at exponential rates, with an obvious advantage such as reductions in the number of side effects. It evaluates whether herbal medicines all that they claim to be and if they contain any profound pharmacological constituents or whether they give just a placebo effect.

From the Paper:

"Herbal medicines are clearly mixtures of more than one active ingredient and in many instances, we are not sure which or how many constituents are pharmacologically important. Furthermore, in trying to acquire the mechanisms of action of plant extracts is often complicated even if we know the active ingredient because such extracts contain a wide range of pharmacologically active constituents that might work together to contribute to the pharmacological activity. [1] Our understanding is further dinted if the molecular basis of the disease under investigation is not well understood."

More papers on St. Johns Wort:

• Research Paper # 87273 : "The Effectiveness of St. Johns Wort"
• Essay # 74036 : "St. John's Wort"
• Research Paper # 95703 : "St. John's Wort"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: