St. John's Wort

It is estimated that depressive illnesses afflict about 17.6 million adult Americans each year. In this country, depression is 1 of the top 10 most-likely reasons for someone to consult a family physician and costs our economy more than ulcers, diabetes, arthritis or hypertension.

Depression is characterized by a number of subjective symptoms, ranging from despondency and loss of interest to irritability and disturbances of eating and sleeping patterns. There are different degrees of depression (mild, moderate and severe) categorized by the frequency and severity of symptoms. Severe depression is often successfully treated with prescription drugs, all of which are synthetic. They may produce more-or-less unpleasant side effects, but can produce dramatic relief from depressive symptoms. Mild depression, in which symptoms don't interfere with normal daily activities, is more prevalent. In Germany, the most popular prescription drug of any type, natural or synthetic, for the treatment of mild depression is a concentrated extract of the flowers and leaves of St. John's Wort, often simply called hypericum. There, just under 200,000 prescriptio