St. John's Wort - effect, application and studies
    The St. John's wort is golden-yellow flowers with black dots or strokes that are in apparent paniculate Umbel. The leaves are elliptic ovate and the red flowers stain when you rub it between your fingers.

    The stem is Double-edged, this is rare in the plant Kingdom. The plant is up to 60 cm tall and blooms from June to September. The plant grows on damp meadows, Woods, roadsides and shore bushes. It is widespread throughout Europe.

    St. John's wort contains inter alia, Hypericin, Hyperoside, essential oil, tannins. St. John's wort is a herbal anti-Depressivum. It has mood-elevating and calming effect and is often used in menopause and bed wetting can also be dealt with by the plant.
 
    St. John's wort oil works good for rheumatism and lumbago, promotes wound healing, having soothing effect on sprains, bruising and shingles. The pant is also used for insomnia and menstrual cramps.

    The active ingredient Hypericin causes inflammatory redness of the skin and ulcers in bright animals, such as white horses and sheep, which are then exposed to light (photo awareness). The animals are restless, rolling, have swollen lips and Chin.

    Severe poisoning deaths are possible. A poisoning for bright guinea pigs, rats and mice is possible. 1 mg of pure Hypericin was injected into animals and the animal died after 2 hours of sunlight. Because the plant flowers received the name,  "St. John's day" on (June 24).

    It is known as black or spotted black. The botanical genus name Hypericum is from the Greek. The Greek word hypertonic means big, eréike is called Heather. The meaning is, the Hypericum between the Heather grows and rises about it.

    St. John's wort oil is the best skin care oil that we know today for the capillaries in the skin and nerves.

External applications:
    As a Vulnerary, popular as a Nervine, in addition to cosmetic skin oils.
Burns and sunburn
    Rub it on swelling skin, gout, neuralgia, rheumatism, sciatica, muscle pain and hemorrhoids.

Against ulcers and eczema.
    It is used for the care of skin irritation, treatment of scars and stretch marks. It is also used to prevent bed sores (decubitus) on patients' bedspreads, baby care and if hands are chapped and red.

    Excessive flaking can be addressed successfully if St. John's wort oil on is rubbed on the scalp as long as possible; you can even soak (possibly overnight) and then wash. Then rub onion hair tonic.

    Cradle cap and Eczema of children.
Cold pain.
Mumps: You soak a cloth with hot black oil or touches a clay mash with St. John's wort oil and put in another very hot bed bottle. You can support the healing trend of the body by a good skin care. You brushe the body daily until a slight redness occurs, and oil up with St. John's wort oil.

Internal applications:
    St. John's Wort has proven to help in treating nervous anxiety and sleep disorders. In addition, it is used traditionally for Burns, blunt trauma, cramps and nervous stomach complaints. Beyond its traditional use, it's also used against mucous membrane inflammation, menstrual cramps, muscle cramps, nervous complaints.

    Also, St. John's Wort is also used against neuralgia, rheumatism, grief reaction, sleep States, depressive mood States, winter depression, wound care and worm infestation mental anxiety, nervous strain, bed-wetting, fatigue syndrome, depression, nervous stomach complaints, sleep, bile disorders, menopausal symptoms, varicose veins and liver disease.

    The tea is traditionally used for menopausal symptoms, painful menstrual cramps, psycho-vegetative syndrome, sleep States, anxiety and depressive mood States.

St. John's wort experiences
    Preparations of St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) in the traditional herbal medicinal products for the treatment of mild to moderate depressive mood States. The real St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) is a species that is widely used in Europe. St. John's wort is one of the most important medicinal plants grown in Germany.

    Depression have increased significantly in recent years in USA and also in
Germany but this can not be compared to the high level of depression in Africa continent due to poor governance and management of resources.

    About 10 percent of German citizens are affected by a treatment of depression. But only about a third of them is undergoing medical treatment. Studies have shown that St. John's wort extract can inhibit the neural recording of the neurotransmitters
norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine as other antidepressants.

    This mechanism of action of St. John's wort extract is mediated mainly by the large compound.

Dosage
    The daily dose should be between 600 to 900 mg of a standardized extract of St. John's wort. With an onset of action can be expected only after two to three weeks. Also, St. John's wort acts most effectively if it is taken regularly.

    St. John's wort-containing preparations with the indication "for moderate depression" are subordinate to the prescription, while preparations with the indication "mild depressive mood States" for self medication are also acceptable.

    Pack size and single dose have no effect on the status of the submission. As to the result, a prescription drug is 300 mg® Rx, while the significantly higher dosed product, Jarsin® 750 mg is only to an over-the-counter drug, without a prescription.

Studies on the effectiveness of St. John's wort
    Many studies of show the efficacy of St. John's wort in mild to moderate depression. At the same time, the adverse event rate with 1 to 3 percent in a low area. An overview of work ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18843608 ) came to the effectiveness of St. John's wort. Already in 2008, it was concluded that St. John's wort preparations have a favourable risk benefit profile.

   Total of 29 clinical trials using 5,489 patients were analyzed in this study. Some patients were administered placebo while some, St. John's wort administration of superior and the synthetic standard antidepressants. It was discovered that St. John's wort preparations in particular has positive impacts.

    Under treatment with serotonin-Wiederaufnahmehemmern (e.g., fluoxetine, citalopram), for example, the dropout of the therapy in clinical trials was twice as high as in the St. John's wort application. Under older antidepressants (tricyclic
antidepressants) this figure was even four times as high.

    The largest study in the work overview comprises 388 patients, comparing St. John's wort Laid 900 preparation with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor citalopram (20 mg) and placebo. In this study, Laif® showed an efficacy comparable
with citalopram, but significantly less drug-related adverse effect (St. John's Wort: 10, citalopram: 50, placebo: 21).

    The study on the effectiveness of St. John's wort extracts is not uniform. There are numerous studies that attest an inadequate efficacy of Perforate St John's-wort in the treatment of depression.
( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19909690 )

    As the composition of St. John's wort extracts varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, the positive study results for St. John's wort can not be attributed to all St. John's wort preparations.

Side effects of St. John's wort
    In fair-skinned individuals, St. John's wort may increase the sensitivity of the skin to sunlight (photo awareness) and this can cause sunburn like reactions of the skin. Skin that is exposed to strong radiation from Sun or solarium is particularly vulnerable.

   Still, allergic rashes (exanthems), indigestion, fatigue or restlessness can occur. Children under 12 years of age, pregnant women and nursing mothers should not take St. John's wort.

Interactions
    Due to the numerous interactions with medicines, taking St. John's wort extract should be discussed extensively with your medical doctor. Explanation on how it interacts with medicines are as follow.

    St. John's wort extract enabled systems in the body, which are responsible, to protect the organism from the toxins ingested with the food. These include the enzyme systems in liver and intestine (cytochrome P450 isozymes) and the P glycoproteins (drug transporters) poisons and medicines.

    St. John's wort reduces the concentrations of the following medicines in the blood due to interaction and therefore weakens their effectiveness:
Drugs for Suppression of rejection to transplanted organs (Immunsupressiva): Cyclosporin, Tacrolimus for internal use and Sirolimus
Medicines used to treat HIV infection or AIDS: protease inhibitors such as indinavir, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors such as nevirapine.
Medium for the treatment of cancer (chemotherapy) such as Imatinib, irinotecan, exception are monoclonal antibodies.
Medicinal products for the inhibition of blood clotting (anticoagulants): Phenprocoumon, warfarin.
Heart medication: theophylline, digoxin, Verapamil
Lipid-lowering drugs: simvastatin
Sedative: Midazolam
Contraception (hormonal contraceptives)
Tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline and nortriptyline.

    Antidepressants increase the concentration of serotonin in the central nervous system through interaction with St. John's wort and may lead to a life-threatening serotonin syndrome:
-Paroxetine
-Sertraline
-Trazodone
    Still, a reinforcement of the toxicity by light can occur when there is concurrent treatment with other medicines that increase the light sensitivity.

St. John's Wort for depression
    You can hardly see antidepressant herbal that is spectacular like the St. John's wort in recent years. It has antidepressant substances and the harshest critics don't even question its effectiveness. On the contrary: the herbal antidepressant St. John's Wort has now more than 40 clinical therapeutic studies showing that its treatment success for lighter (up to medium) depression with the synthetic antidepressants is
similar.

    It is also used for some conditions such as depression, body-related errors, grief reaction, Burnout Syndrome, premenstrual disorders, menopause, tinnitus (ringing), chronic pain. There may not be side but that's only when small amount is used. However, you should consult your doctor to know if there's possibility of side effect.

    In the interactions with other drugs, there are however clinical findings, which are to check in each case. Overall, St. John's wort - applies at least to a large part of
the (easy-medium) depressive States, as a treatment alternative because depression can not be only stressful, but also dangerous; your doctor should solely decide the therapy, control everything and determines the conclusion of treatment.

Dosage of St. John's wort
    St. John's wort is effective against depression and depressive moods, the herb in the form of capsule is taken orally or as a tea but tea preparations from St. John's wort are no longer recommended for medical purposes today because of the fluctuating in concentration of active ingredients in the yellow flowering plants.

    The effect would only occur after some time. Often, it occurs over 2 to 3 weeks. There is sometimes a sustainable effect after three or even only after six months. However, the St. John's wort must be administered in the correct dose and how reliable St. John's Wort for depression actually works and whether it can replace conventional antidepressants, is still always the subject of the research.

    However, for the preparations in powder form, as they are available without prescription in drugstores, have much too low doses to show real efficacy. For example, Mario Wurglics of the Institute of pharmaceutical chemistry in Frankfurt (according to Stern.de) is of this opinion.

    According to Wurglics, an effective daily dose starts with about 900 mg. The St. John's wort powder are so high and not dosed capsules he you can find in drug store. Whether it's such an 'ordinary' dose for depression or it can actually act as a replacement for tricyclic antidepressants or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, patients should always check with their physician.

Conclusion
    St. John's wort is a real miracle cure. The effectiveness is more than just sufficiently proven and supported by a variety of studies. However, it is important that you clarify high doses and combining with other substances and drugs with your physician or family doctor.