St John's wort is effective for moderate to severe depression

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7490.0

BMJ 2005;330 (5 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7490.0

St John's wort is effective for moderate to severe depression

Hypericum extract WS 5570 (St John's wort) is at least as effectiveas paroxetine and is better tolerated as a treatment for moderateto severe depression. In a double blind, double dummy, referencecontrolled, multicentre non-inferiority trial, Szegedi and colleagues(p 503) randomised 251 adults to 900 mg/day of hypericum extractWS 5570 or to 20 mg/day paroxetine. The decrease in depressionscore 42 days later was more than 55% for patients taking StJohn's wort and less than 45% in the group taking paroxetine.

Credit: JENNIFER ANDERSON@USDA-NRCS

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Relevant Article

Acute treatment of moderate to severe depression with hypericum extract WS 5570 (St John's wort): randomised controlled double blind non-inferiority trial versus paroxetine: A Szegedi, R Kohnen, A Dienel, and M Kieser
BMJ 2005 330: 503. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]