The Potential Danger Behind Medicine and Herbal Remedies

When Ann Nicole Smith was found death in February of 2007 in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida, everybody's attention was focused on the celebrity and her latest tribulations. What pretty much everyone else missed was a clue we should have taken from Dr. Joshua Perper, the coroner that performed Nicole's autopsy. A clue he stated in his report.

We learned from news accounts that Nicole had died of an accidental overdose medication. She had combined a sedative - chloral hydrate - with other prescription medicine, all of them within normal prescribed levels. No narcotics were found in her system.

Dangerous Medicine

What doctors are learning now from actual data is that adverse drug reaction (ADR) or medicine combination - what actually killed Nicole - is much more prevalent that they had suspected. Buying dietary supplements and over the counter (OTC) medicine at the store, and very often combining those with prescribed medication, has become part of our daily diets and a quick solution to minor ailments. But recent studies are pointing to drug interactions as one of the leading causes of death in the US, and much more dangerous than we have suspected.

What Nicole did that fatal day of February 8 is not different from what many people might be doing at home, hospitals, and other health settings around the country. She took a sleeping medication to fight her insomnia. Earlier, she had taken nine other prescribed medications, including Valium, Klonopin, and Ativan; and once their toxic ingredients combined in her system, Nicole's heart stopped.

Fatal Medicine Combination

Now, recent studies are revealing ADRs as a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the healthcare system, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A study made back in 2000, had estimated that ADRs were killing about 7000 people every year. Not an insignificant number, since 6000 people die of injuries in their workplace every year. Then, a later study of patients throughout hospitals in the country estimated that ADRs were killing 106 thousand people annually; yet, the study did not include nursing homes and other healthcare relating settings.

The latest studies now place ADRs as the 4^th leading cause of death in the US, greater than diabetes, AIDS, and automobile accidents. Those and other studies have sparked interest around the world too, and researchers in Norwegian are expanding their own investigation to include the effect of medical drugs and herbal medicine, something they say could be just as fatal.

Medicine and Herbal Remedies - How Fatal They Are?

"It is important to remember that drugs and herbal remedies that are said to have identical effects not necessarily reinforce one another, but could actually have the opposite effect," says Odd Georg Nilsen, the Project Manager and Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Researches at the University say that some people that have taken Viagra, for example, along with grapefruit juice had suffered from angina and cardiac infarction, and that St John's Wort, a dietary supplement, kills a lot of medication. But there is very little information about the effect of herbal remedies and medical drugs, they say. The study will be financed by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Cancer Society.

What Can You Do?

The purpose of the study is to establish methods doctors can use to see what combination of herbal remedies and prescription medicines have on people's bodies.

Online, you will find an array of drug interaction checkers to see the potential effect of two or more drugs; on some you can even test their possible effect in combination with certain foods.

But remember that Nicole Smith did not know how lethal was the combination of pills she took that day; neither do thousands of people taking dietary supplements and prescription drugs or OTC medication everyday. If in doubt, the best advice is to use your common sense, check with your doctor, and take your own precautions.

Dan Brizel "Anna Nicole Smith Autopsy Released" The Smoking Gun
"Preventable Adverse Drug Reactions" Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
"Dangerous Combinations" Medical News Today