The activity of the International Network
„Interactions between herbal and synthetic drugs –advantages and risks”.

Research Institute of Medicinal Plants in Poznań has been coordinating an international cooperation of the scientific network: „Interactions between herbal and synthetic drugs – advantages and risks” since 2004. The activity of the network is founded by State Committee for Scientific Research (decision no 594/E-175/SPB/MSN/P-05DWM3/2004-2006).

The cooperation has been established by Polish and foreign scientific units related with herbal medicine and synthetic drugs in order to provide a possibility to exchange the experiences and opinions between the centres interested in the herbal and synthetic drugs interactions.

Herbal therapy has a long tradition in European societies. The use of herbals augmented in the recent years. Herbal medicines are gaining significance in prevention of civilization diseases as well as an additive co-medication during therapy with synthetic drugs.

However, the market situation is complicated as typical herbal medicinal products are replaced by dietary supplements. The issue of safety of their use is evenly stressed since dietary supplements including herbals, such as sports nutrition supplements, weight management products, specialty supplements etc., are not regulated like conventional prescription or over-the-counter medications or as food additives. All these preparations are a combination of potentially biologically active compounds that exist in these marketed products in unknown quantities. Marketed herbal products contain structurally diverse chemicals and several of them possess inherent pharmacological activity and some may even be toxic.

A strong belief among the public that herbal preparations are completely safe and a very little knowledge about the safety of active compounds of herbal products contribute to the increase of the danger of self medication. Consumers are mainly given the information about the beneficial effect of medication and supplementary products and the lack of complex data concerning the potential risk arising from the contemporary use of synthetic and herbal drugs is observed. The analysis of bibliographic data have showed that the population is at risk of possible interactions and that 10-20% of patients utilise herbal medicines, herbal dietary supplements and synthetic drugs simultaneously. Therefore, an investigation of an ability of herbals to induce the interactions with synthetic drugs is very important for the safety evaluation of pharmacotherapy with its use.

The aim of instituting the international network is the identification of potential synthetic and herbal drugs interactions and the systematic development of research in the field in order to inform both healthcare providers and consumers whether problems might arise from using herbal preparations in the combination with synthetic drugs. The scientific results will be published in Herba Polonica and a monograph comprising the interactions between herbal and synthetic drugs depending on diseases.

The aim of the cooperation is also to enhance the consumers’ safety by exclusion of drugs interactions potentially negative in nature, safer use of drugs and minimizing adverse drug events. The beneficent of the network activity  are not only scientists interested in the field of medicine, herbal and synthetic products and dietary supplements but also pharmacists, physicians and consumers.