State-of-the-Art Paper
Use of Herbal Products and Potential Interactions in Patients With Cardiovascular Diseases

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2009.07.074Get rights and content
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More than 15 million people in the U.S. consume herbal remedies or high-dose vitamins. The number of visits to providers of complementary and alternative medicine exceeds those to primary care physicians, for annual out-of-pocket costs of $30 billion. Use of herbal products forms the bulk of treatments, particularly by elderly people who also consume multiple prescription medications for comorbid conditions, which increases the risk of adverse herb-drug-disease interactions. Despite the paucity of scientific evidence supporting the safety or efficacy of herbal products, their widespread promotion in the popular media and the unsubstantiated health care claims about their efficacy drive consumer demand. In this review, we highlight commonly used herbs and their interactions with cardiovascular drugs. We also discuss health-related issues of herbal products and suggest ways to improve their safety to better protect the public from untoward effects.

Key Words

cardiovascular agents
complementary therapies
drug approval
herbal medicine
herb–drug interaction

Abbreviations and Acronyms

BPH
benign prostatic hypertrophy
CAM
complementary and alternative medicine
CHF
congestive heart failure
FDA
U.S. Food and Drug Administration

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Dr. Tachjian is a visiting physician at the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Jahangir is supported in part by grants from the National Institute on Aging(AG21201); the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute(HL089542); the Mayo Clinic Marriott Mitochondrial Medicine Award; and the Angel and Paul Harvey Cardiovascular Research Endowment.