Depression afflicts more than 10% of the population at some point in their life. Throw a lot of upheaval into people’s lives, and there’s likely to be a whole lot more. We here at 3BY are all about helping people thrive; and depression most certainly is not thriving. But what’s a prepper to do? St. John’s Wort may help.
I did an article on this a while back:
PrepperPsych: Dealing With Depression – Three Prepper Options
As you can see from the pic, the star of the piece was a plant that grows wild in much of the northern hemisphere (including the US) called St. John’s Wort, Hypericum perforatum. Since this is one of the herbal remedies that essentially everyone agrees actually works, I wanted to share with you the evidence and offer some help understanding how it’s prepared and dosed. I am not myself a physician, so I’m not advising you what you should do … but it sure seems like a pretty good option.
Why bother?
There’s general agreement, including among hard-core science researchers, that for mild to moderate depression, St. John’s Wort works significantly better than placebos and about as well as most prescription anti-depressants. (1,2,3) It has a better safety profile than the prescription meds, so long as the known interactions described below are respected. (It also works about as well as exercise, one of the other remedies in the article noted above.)
Some people also recommend it for other conditions, most notably anxiety, pain, and inflammation. The evidence for the claims beyond depression is not nearly as strong. There are some indicators that it’s helpful against migraine (4), inflammatory exacerbations of multiple sclerosis (5), and psoriaisis, which is also an inflammatory disease (6). The studies on anxiety were rather small and unimpressive; they found ‘trends’ for the herb to be helpful but no significant difference (which often means that if there was an effect, it was slight).
It’s also available. It’s native to Europe and Asia, but now also grows widely in North America and Australia (and maybe other places). In fact, some consider it an invasive weed, it grows so well. One can plant it from seed harvested from wild, but it grows even better if you replant sections of rhizomes (runners that grow out from the plant off to the sides just under the ground). It’s even pretty; I thought it was one of the native prairie flowers out at The Place until a friend told me otherwise.
So much St. John’s Wort growing wild they consider it a weed. Thanks By John Tann* for the image
St. Johns’s Wort is pretty safe IF you avoid it’s interactions.
Let’s be clear here: Herbal remedies are just as much drugs as are things that come in pills. If they didn’t have biologically active chemicals in them, they’d be useless. Therefore, “natural” does not equate with “safe”. That said, St. John’s wort has an excellent safety profile in those that aren’t taking anything else that interacts with it. It does cause some gastrointestinal disturbance in some, especially at high doses. (7,8) There have been rare reports of anxiety; and when taken in high doses it can predispose you to getting sunburn. As side effect profiles go, none of these are very common or very serious.
There is one big problem to watch out for with St. John’s Wort (let’s call it SJW, I’m getting tired of typing it): Interactions. The active compounds in St. Johns Wort affect the function of one of the liver’s main sets of detoxification enzymes, so when one is taking SJW other drugs can get metabolized too fast or too slow.
St Johns Wort also interacts with the same neurochemicals that many prescription psychoactive drugs target, so you can get interferences there too. I’d recommend anybody contemplating SJW who is taking any other med or supplement read up on it carefully and/or talk to your doc ahead of time.
Rather than an exhaustive list, here are some particularly prepper-relevant interactions to watch out for: Birth control pills (women who take both SJW and oral contraceptives are commonly referred to as ‘mothers’). Prescription anti-depressives. Digoxin (heart). Metformin (Type II diabetes). Omeprazole (acid reflux). Narcotics (pain). Dilantin (seizures). Over the counter allergy and sleep meds. Statins (cholesterol; this is listed as a ‘moderate’ interaction).
It’s listed as ‘probably safe’ in adults, ‘possibly safe’ in children (meaning they don’t have much data one way or another), and is not recommended during pregnancy or breastfeeding (due to some birth defect observations from rat studies). (7, supported by other sources) I did find some hints that it might have some effect in promoting the development of Type II diabetes mellitus (9), but at this point it’s just a hint.
How do you find St. Johns Wort?
Look around when it’s flowering. It’s a midsummer flower; it was around the first week of July when my friend pointed it out here in north Missouri; and the blooms seemed to be around for several weeks. It likes a wide variety of conditions; I find it most in disturbed former prairie. Looking at a wide variety of photos (now while they’re available) is helpful in knowing what you’re looking for.
Once you think you’ve got it, there are a couple of tests: Hold the leaves up to a strong light and you should see what look like bright white dots shining through. There are little transparent dot-sized areas on the leaves (hence the species name, perforatum). Those little clear patches have one of the most active chemicals (hyperforin) in the plant. Also, squeeze one of the yellow flowers in your fingers. It should leave a noticeable red smear. One of the other really active chemicals, hypercidin, is red in color. In fact, this will give your infusions and tinctures of SJW a red hue. (10)
Infusions and tinctures of SJW get very red, as one of the active compounds is red in color. Thanks Holger Casselmann** for the image
What do you do with it once you’ve got it? (10)
Much of the value is in the flowers and the tips of the plant near the flowers, so you might want to just collect those. The bad news is, the active ingredients do degrade somewhat on air drying. I couldn’t find how much (probably because it depends on a million factors). Freeze drying preserves more of the value. One can make a tea of the fresh flowers by steeping a few teaspoons of flowers in hot water.
For out of season use, the best answer I could find that works without a freeze dryer is to make a tincture. Cover fresh-picked flowers and buds (or top couple inches of each plant) in vodka or 95% grain alcohol, about 1 part plant:2 parts alcohol. Shake daily for 4 weeks. Strain out plants and seal up the tincture.
Oil infusions are also possible. The sources I saw recommended these for topical use as an anti-inflammatory, but I suspect it could be ingested as well. It’s made by letting flowers dry a day in the air, then submerging them in olive oil completely. Put somewhere warm. Every day, take off the lid and wipe out condensed water (if there is any), close and shake. Strain out the plant parts after a month.
Whatever method of preparation you favor, please keep in mind that SJW active compounds are light sensitive. Keep them in dark containers. In the lab, we would simply wrap aluminum foil around whatever needed a light block. It’s a better light blocker than dark glass or plastic.
While I didn’t read this anywhere, the general rule is that complex organic molecules such as the hypercidin and hyperforin are not infinitely stable even in good storage conditions. I’d plan to rotate through the stores every third year at the least, with every year being preferable.
What’s the usual St. Johns Wort dosing?
Well… the usual recommendations and studies are based on enough herb to provide 300 mg of hypercidin, taken two or three times a day. The big downside of herbal preparations is (being treated as a “food” and less regulated than “drugs”), you’re not sure what you’re getting.
In fact, a group who did chemical analysis of SJW capsules from a variety of suppliers found a lot of ingredients that were not from H. perforatum. (11) That convinces me that if I’m buying it, I’m buying it from a company I expect provides quality — not a good time for unknown house brands.
Plants will vary in their concentrations by time of year, strain, and growing conditions. For the tincture, 15-20 drops, 2-3x/day is a good guess. (10) I suspect the oil infusion would be similar. If gastrointestinal distress pops up, or sunburn starts occurring more easily than it seems like it should, the dose may be too high. Fortunately, the herb does have a good safety profile without reports of common negative events even with higher doses, so there seems to be some leeway there.
1) Tester, J. (2016). St john’s wort in major depressive disorder–a review. Australian Journal of Herbal Medicine, 28(4), 126.
2) Linde, K. et al. 1996. St John’s wort for depression—an overview and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials. BMJ 313:7052.
3) Cui, Y., & Zheng, Y. (2016). A meta-analysis on the efficacy and safety of st john’s wort extract in depression therapy in comparison with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in adults. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 12, 1715-1723. 10.2147/NDT.S106752.
4) Galeotti, N., & Ghelardini, C. (2013). St. john’s wort reversal of meningeal nociception: A natural therapeutic perspective for migraine pain. Phytomedicine : International Journal of Phytotherapy and Phytopharmacology, 20(10), 930.
5) Nosratabadi, R., Rastin, M., Sankian, M., Haghmorad, D., Tabasi, N., Zamani, S., . . . Mahmoudi, M. (2016). St. john’s wort and its component hyperforin alleviate experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis through expansion of regulatory T-cells. Journal of Immunotoxicology, 13(3), 364.
7) https://www.rxlist.com/st_johns_wort/supplements.htm
8) “Hypericum perforatum.” Alternative Medicine Review, Sept. 2004, p. 318+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A122865316/ITOF?u=north1010&sid=ITOF&xid=8a70debc. Accessed 21 Mar. 2018.
9) Stage, T. B., Pedersen, R. S., Damkier, P., Christensen, M. M. H., Feddersen, S., Larsen, J. T., . . . Brøsen, K. (2015). Intake of st john’s wort improves the glucose tolerance in healthy subjects who ingest metformin compared with metformin alone: St john’s wort and metformin.British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 79(2), 298-306. 10.1111/bcp.12510
10) Eclectic Institute. (2016) Making home remedies with fresh St. John’s Wort. https://www.eclecticherb.com/blog//harvesting-and-using-st-johns-wort
11) Frommenwiler, D. A., Reich, E., Sudberg, S., Sharaf, M. H. M., Bzhelyansky, A., & Lucas, B. (2016). St. john’s wort versus counterfeit st. john’s wort: An HPTLC study. Journal of AOAC International, 99(5), 1204-1212. 10.5740/jaoacint.16-0170
* By John Tann from Sydney, Australia (St John’s Wort to the horizon) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
** Holger Casselmann via Creative Commons St. John’s Wort Infused Oil