Extracts of Hypericum perforatum L. (St John’s wort) are now successfully Abstract competing for status as a standard antidepressant therapy. Because of this, great effort has been devoted to identifying the active antidepressant compounds in the extract. From a phytochemical point of view, St John’s wort is one of the best-investigated medicinal plants. A series of bioactive compounds has been...

Commercially available St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) preparations and some of their main constituents (hypericin, pseudohypericin, hyperforin, rutin, and quercetin) were examined for their potential to inhibit carcinogen activation by human cytochrome P450 1A1 (CYP1A1). We used a reconstituted system consisting of purified human CYP1A1, purified human NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductase, a...

OBJECTIVE To examine the association between access to conventional health care and the use of St. John's wort among adults who report depressive symptoms. STUDY DESIGN Logistic secondary analysis of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Supplement to the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). STUDY POPULATION Adults who report depressive symptoms and used St. John's wort (n = 2...

St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) is an herbal remedy used widely for the treatment of depression. Recent clinical studies demonstrate that hypericum extracts increase the metabolism of various drugs, including combined oral contraceptives, cyclosporin, and indinavir. In this report, we show that hyperforin, a constituent of St. John's wort with antidepressant activity, is a potent ligand ...

The aim of present work was to find out the optimum combination of extraction process variables of hypericin from St. John’s wort, by revealing the mathematical functional relation of extraction temperature, ethanol concentration for the extraction yield, and to develop a validated HPLC method to determine hypericin in St. John’s wort extracts prepared. The HPLC separation was performed on a Lu...

For Irish herbalists, the millennium celebrations were nothing short of a wake. The effective banning in Ireland of St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) and a number of other botanicals on January 1, 2000, came as a seismic shock to herbal manufacturers, practitioners, retailers, and the Irish public alike. As there are no licensed products available on the Irish market and Irish doctors have...

BACKGROUND A stressful stimulus is a crucial determinant of health and disease. Antidepressants are used to manage stress and their related effects. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) in restraint stress-induced behavioral and biochemical alterations in mice. METHODS Animals were immobilized for a period of 6 hr. St. John's Wort ...

Commercially available St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) preparations and some of their main constituents (hypericin, pseudohypericin, hyperforin, rutin, and quercetin) were examined for their potential to inhibit carcinogen activation by human cytochrome P450 1A1 (CYP1A1). We used a reconstituted system consisting of purified human CYP1A1, purified human NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductase, a...

The St. John Ambulance Service (Auckland Region) in New Zealand (St Johns) supplies ambulance services to the Crown Health Enterprises. Current and future contracts specify several minimum performance targets that St Johns must achieve. As the city of Auckland grows, roads become congested, and population demographics change. These changes mean that St. Johns faces a very difficult problem: how...