In addition to the reviews here on Amazon, a dozen more have appeared in professional journals and health publications. Some are accessible through http://www.medicineworks.com/inter_book.html . An online forum providing recent research and others news concerning drug-herb and drug-nutrient interactions, drug-induced nutrient depletions and related issues can be found at http://forums.medicineworks.com/index.php?c=5. The content of this text will soon also be available through online subscription.
Rating: 5 / 5

Since the late 1990s, when conventional medicine discovered the magnitude of the public use of herbs and supplements, a series of books on herbal safety, including drug-herb interactions, has appeared. This body of literature has been seriously flawed. Most of the authors were not themselves clinicians experienced with the traditional or contemporary literature on the agents being discussed and were equally unfamiliar with their actual clinical or commercial use of the items. Several texts written by alternative practitioners or herbalists either completely avoided the topic of drug-herb interactions, or tended to understate safety concerns. And ultimately, all these books failed to comprehensively evaluate the evidence for interactions or accurately distinguish between purely theoretical concerns and those based on clinical evidence.

Herb, Nutrient, and Drug Interactions corrects each of these problems, and is the first complete text on the subject, its predecessors being false starts or partial contributions in the field. The authors are all experienced practitioners. Stargrove is a licensed naturopathic physician and acupuncturist; Treasure is a professional herbalist, and McKee is a medical doctor board certified in integrative medicine and also certified in clinical nutrition. A board of 18 interdisciplinary reviewers, the great majority of them clinicians, adds further depth of practical and scholarly expertise.

The authors offer 1-3 page monographs on 70 therapeutic agents, including 30 herbs, 12 vitamins, 9 minerals, 6 amino acids, and 13 neutraceuticals. The monographs are extensive, and most are accompanies by summaries, so the book may be used for in-depth study or for quick reference.

The monographs first review the clinical and historical use of the item and its potential benefit and safety profile. They then review the potential interactions, and here is where the authors present their unique contribution in the field. The potential interactions are evaluated for probability on a six point scale ranging from certain to improbable, to unknown. More than 20 possible types of interactions are also evaluated, and finally, the strength of evidence is rated.

This is currently the best standard reference on drug-herb interactions, useful for clinicians whether they practice in herbalism, complementary medicine, or conventional medicine.
Rating: 5 / 5