St. John's wort

Today I wish to share some information on St. John's wort. It isn't a native in the Americas; like my ancestors, it came from Europe. It is my feeling that if something is important enough to bring with you when you move to another place, there must be something special about it, and there is.

It was used as a nervine to assist in healing injured nerves, even sciatica. It is very helpful when in excessive pain. What we think is that it is just used for depression.

In the last few years St. John's wort has gotten a bad name for itself but it wasn't the plant's fault. As an antidepressant in popular use, it was standardized for its hypericin.

When pharmacists standardized this plant, they try to find out what of the 60+ constituents is helpful for…let's say depression. They came up with hypericin and decide to make sure that the product they are selling you is loaded with this one compound. Now that sounds good except this is now a chemical composition and not an herbal product. They did this same thing with aspirin and the salicylic acid from plants. Man always thinks they can do a better job. In an herbal product all the compounds are in balance with each other so that none will create "side effect" for the most part. The St. John's wort that has been sold in the last few years are made in a chemical factory and are sold under the name of St. John's wort. They are drugs and are harmful to the body.

We have a wonderful plant that has small green leaves and grows wild. In July it bursts into flower with wonderful small yellow flowers. It is so wonderful that the American Indian would dry it and grind it up like corn meal to make food. They also knew about its healing effects on the nerves. One book that I read even mentioned that a lot of early cooks would put some of this dried plant into their homemade bread and found that the bread was even better that way.

St. John's wort was found to be so mild that it could be used for people of all ages from small children to adults. With children it has been said to help with bed wetting, with adults it has been credited with cleaning up bronchitis. A tea of St. John's wort was can be used to heal the mouth and teeth area.

I decided to head into Dr. James Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases for some answers as to just what wonderful things this plant is capable of helping me with. I decided to pick out only the constituents where more than one of the 60+ did the same things. Here is what St. John's wort is able to do: it is an antialzheimeran, antibacterial, anticataract, antidementia, antidiabetic, antiflu, anti-inflammatory, antioxident, antispasmodic, antiulcer, antiviral , and fungicide. Along with those talents it is a cancer preventive, is capillariprotective, also a pesticide and a vasodilator.

Hey, if only three of these compounds have the ability to keep me from having cataracts, I think it is wonderful.

I found that many of the compounds in this herb are sedative and a few are photosensitizers. I mention this last one because I have read about how eating or using this product will affect ones skin regarding the sun. The funny thing is that I also found compounds that act as sunscreens built right into the same plant. It is amazing how these plants were designed without the help of man to balance themselves out?

St John's wort has been called many names: Goatweed, Hypericum, Klamath weed, and St Johnswort. In some places, predators have been imported to get rid of it because some animals have developed skin problems after eating a lot of it. The same report that gave me this information said that "We are pleased to say our skin type is not sensitive in this way."


I should mention that if you are taking some form of drug, you might not want to add St. John's wort to your list but that is a given. Why would you be mixing drugs with herbal remedies?

I see a product that is helpful in many ways in my life and it will remain in my medicine chest as a tincture to be used as needed for any of the above. Sometime we need to look at the big picture before we make a judgment about things.

It is also a good thing to learn to make your own medicine, that way you know just what is in the product.