Pharmacognosy and herbal medicine

William Charles Evans (1924–2018)

Author of Trease and Evans’ Pharmacognosy, a seminal text on the chemistry and uses of medicinal plants, William Charles Evans was a prolific researcher and educator throughout his 60-year career.…

Taking herbal medicines alongside prescription drugs may cause adverse drug interactions

Herbal remedies, such as St John’s wort, green tea and ginseng, may affect the properties of prescription drugs, according to research published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.…

Medicinal plants: Britain’s home-grown wartime allies

Briony Hudson summarises a lecture about how medicinal plants were used during the wartime in Great Britain.…

Drug interactions with dietary or herbal supplements could be cause of hospital stays

Around 1 in 55 hospital admissions may have been caused by an adverse event triggered by a reaction between a dietary or herbal supplement and another medicine or supplement, according to Israeli research. As a result, the researchers say their findings suggest that medical staff need further …

How plants can heal or kill

‘Plants: healers and killers’, by Michael Radcliffe Lee.…

St John’s Wort has similar side effect profile to fluoxetine

Research into toxicity associated with St John’s Wort shows that the profile of adverse drug reactions is similar to that of fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.…

Enzyme discovery completes morphine biosynthesis pathway

The enzyme that is responsible for converting (S)-reticuline into (R)-reticuline — the final stage in the morphine biosynthesis pathway – has been discovered.…

Modified yeasts could be used to produce alkaloid drugs

Yeast has been genetically modified to make (S)-reticuline, a precursor to a wide range of therapeutic alkaloids. The work marks an important step towards producing such pharmaceuticals by fermentation.…

OTC and dietary products are the most common cause of drug-induced liver injury

Drug-induced acute liver failure is uncommon, but over-the-counter products and dietary/herbal supplements are its most common causes, find researchers.…

Resource to help you learn about self-care

‘Handbook of non-prescription drugs: an interactive approach to self-care 18th edition’, editor in chief Daniel L. Krinsky.…