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Is It Safe To Use Herbal Medicine For Heart Disease Prevention?
 

Herbal medicine refers to using a plant's seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark, or flowers for medicinal purposes. In fact, plants have been used by Chinese and Egyptian for medical purposes as early as 3,000 BC. People in different countries tend to use the same or similar plants for the same purposes using their traditional medical systems, like Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). With the advances in clinical research, and improvements in analysis and quality control, herbal medicine has become more mainstream in treating and preventing disease.

Estimation by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that 80 percent of people worldwide rely on herbal medicines for some part of their primary health care. In Germany, about 70 percent of physicians prescribe between 600 and 700 plant based medicines that are available. Use of herbal medicines has been increased in the past 20 years in the United States because of public dissatisfaction with the cost of prescription drugs and growing interest in returning to natural or organic remedies.

One thing to note is that herbal medicines do not need clinic studies before being sold to consumers or formal approval from regulatory agencies. And their efficacy and safety are seldom proven. In the United States, herbal medicines are regulated in the dietary supplements category, meaning they can be sold without being tested in clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can determine that an herbal medicine is unsafe only after it has caused hurt. Similar regulation also found in the European Union.

Many people believe that products labelled as natural are always safe and good for them. A recent paper published online February 27, 2017 in the ‘Journal of the American College of Cardiology’ suggested that 1 in every 5 American adults have used an herbal or dietary supplement in their lifetime, and 70 percent of patients do not tell their doctors about the supplement use.

Investigators from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, Italy reviewed 42 herbal medications that have been identified as a possible treatment for one or more heart conditions, including high blood pressure, heart failure and hardening of the arteries. Due to a lack of evidence on these herbal medications, it is not always possible to clearly establish a cause-effect link between exposure to herbal medications and potential side effects. Anyway, they selected 10 of the most commonly used in cardiovascular medicine to discuss possible indications, biological and clinical data, and potential relevant side effects that include increased risk of drug interactions. The 10 herbs selected are Asian ginseng, astragalus, flaxseed oil, garlic, ginkgo, grape seed, green tea, hawthorn, milk thistle, and soy.

Their findings indicated that use of these medications for treatment of cardiovascular diseases is often not supported by scientific evidence. While most of these herbs do show an effect on biological mechanisms related to cardiovascular system, there is a lack of their clinical effects. They also raise their concerns that many patients do not tell their doctor that they are taking herbal medications, probably because they do not view these as treatments that could cause serious side effects. Moreover, many people taking herbal medications do not follow through on their treatment plan and fail to take the medications prescribed by their doctor properly.

Some possible risks related to the use of herbal medications, as revealed in the findings, are:

- Ginkgo and garlic might reduce platelet function, possibly leading to a higher risk of bleeding if taken together with aspirin or anticoagulants.
- Asian ginseng might inhibit the enzymes involved in the metabolism of warfarin, causing INR elevation and increased risk of bleeding.
- Green tea contains small amounts of Vitamin-K that might antagonize the effect of warfarin.

Hence, physicians are advised to improve their knowledge of herbal medications and start discussing with their patients regarding the use of herbal medications and the possible benefits as well as side effects of using these medications.

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