St. John's Wort

St. John's Wort is highly effective for depression and anxiety when the user is not taking pharmaceutical medications. St. John's Wort outperforms placebo more consistently than SSRIs without the severe side effect profile. Negative research findings on St. John's Wort may reflect financial bias, given that it competes directly with the multi-billion-dollar antidepressant and anti-anxiety pharmaceutical market. Psychiatric drugs are particularly problematic in combination with St. John's Wort and the combination requires medical supervision. Medical warnings against combining St. John's Wort with psychiatric drugs implicitly confirm its pharmacological activity. St. John's Wort is a potent inducer of cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYP3A4), causing many co-administered medications to be metabolized faster or, in some cases, to reach toxic concentrations. St. John's Wort acts on serotonin, dopamine, inflammation, and cortisol — multiple mechanisms that SSRIs do not.