Article
Drug interactions with complementary medicines
- Geraldine M Moses, Treasure M McGuire
- Aust Prescr 2010;33:181
- 1 December 2010
- DOI: 10.18773/austprescr.2010.084
Health professionals are expected to be familiar with common and clinically significant complementary medicine interactions or at least know where to look them up. Knowing the dynamic and kinetic interactions associated with commonly used complementary medicines helps to identify the risk of drug interactions. Although information on complementary medicine interactions is not readily provided by the manufacturers, evidence is available by way of case reports, independent research and web-based resources, which have increased in recent years. Collectively, these data make interactions with complementary medicines largely predictable and therefore preventable.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration refers to complementary medicines as 'medicinal products containing herbs, vitamins, minerals, nutritional supplements, homoeopathic medicines, traditional medicines and certain aromatherapy products'.1In Australia, complementary medicines are largely regulated as unscheduled medicines, and are usually self-selected.
Complementary medicines are very popular among Australians, with surveys indicating that up to 60% of people use at least one complementary medicine on a regular basis. However, about 50% of consumers also report using a conventional medicine on the same day as their complementary medicine.2,3It is not surprising, therefore, that healthcare professionals and consumers alike are concerned about the potential for drug interactions between these medicines.
As so many Australians use complementary medicines, including children, the elderly, patients with chronic disease, mental health disorders and cancer, it is important that prescribers always ask what complementary products their patients are taking in addition to any conventional medicines. Knowing this, and extrapolating reported pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic outcomes, can help predict potential drug interactions.
Complementary medicines are frequently used in the context of polypharmacy. A study of 3070 elderly people found that 74.2% took at least one prescription drug and one complementary medicine, with 32.5% of them using three or more prescription medicines with three or more complementary medicines.4This translates to an increased risk of drug interactions. In a study of 458 US Veterans' Administration patients, 197 of them reported taking complementary medicines combined with prescription medicines. Of these patients, 45% had potential for interactions, which was rated as serious in 6% of patients.5In another study which interviewed 3000 people (aged 57−85) about prescription, over-the-counter and complementary medicine use, 4% of them were potentially at risk of a major drug–drug interaction.6It has been suggested that once a patient is on eight or more medicines, regardless of origin, there is a 100% chance of a drug interaction occurring.7
As with other drugs, complementary medicine interactions can be broadly classified by their mechanism, that is, pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic. The former are due to overlap of pharmacological actions, while the latter result from changes in absorption, distribution, metabolism or excretion.
Risk factors for significant complementary medicine interactions are the same as for conventional medicines. These include patient characteristics (such as extremes of age, frailty, female gender, cognition, comorbities and genetic disposition) and medication factors (such as high medication burden, recent changes in medicines, drugs with a low therapeutic index and limited elimination pathways).
Due to their complex chemical structure, herbal medicines are prone to interactions via the oxidative cytochrome P450 system or the efflux drug transporter P-glycoprotein.8,9In vitroassays, using human tissue or cell lines, are frequently used to determine whether a herb affects these enzymes.10However,in vitrofindings do not necessarily correlate with what happens in the human body. As several herbal medicines and many prescription drugs are substrates, inducers or inhibitors of CYP isoenzymes or P-glycoprotein, interactions can ensue when they are used concomitantly.9A classic example is St John's wort, which has kinetic interactions with a wide range of drugs via the induction of CYP1A2, CYP3A4, CYP2C9 and P-glycoprotein.11This lowers the concentration of the concomitant drug.
Table 18,11,13,14 shows selected documented interactions which have been chosen based on a composite of:
Table 1 8,11,13,14 categorises interactions by their possible outcome, severity, supporting evidence and proposed mechanism. Generic guidance on interaction management is given in the key, within the definitions of severity (major, moderate, minor). Certain therapeutic drug classes appear repeatedly in the table such as antiplatelet drugs, anticoagulants, antidepressants, antihypertensives, hypoglycaemics, immunosuppressants, antiretrovirals and hormones. Health professionals should monitor patients closely when a complementary medicine is taken concomitantly with these drugs.
Table 18,11,13,14
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Most complementary medicines are listed (AUST L) medicines, which are not subjected to the same rigorous premarketing safety and efficacy trials as registered (AUST R) medicines. Thus evidence of their interaction potential is often not available. In addition, manufacturers are not obliged to provide a consumer medicine information leaflet with advice or warnings regarding complementary medicine interactions.
Despite the lack of hard data, health professionals still need to make reasonable recommendations to patients about potential interactions. With a view to helping Australians make more informed decisions about using complementary medicines, an independent consortium from Mater Health Services Brisbane, Bond University and University of Queensland, with funding from the National Prescribing Service, evaluated complementary medicines information resources in 2008.12Specific criteria were used to identify 52 resources – 26 of these were shortlisted and assessed for technical quality, content and clinical utility. The quality of drug interaction information was also assessed in the review, specifically whether mechanisms were outlined, degree of severity was stated, and whether the absence of known drug interactions was disclosed. While many resources (free or subscription) had technical strengths, few had comprehensive interaction coverage. Those with some detail are included for further reading. Two of the highest ranked resources were online subscription databases, both of which contained reasonably comprehensive complementary medicine–drug interaction checkers. These were:
Consumers frequently use complementary medicines in combination with conventional medicines. For this reason, health professionals should always consider the potential for pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic interactions between them. High quality evidence is increasingly available for identification and prevention of these interactions.
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Conflict of interest: none declared
Senior Clinical Pharmacist, Mater Health Services, Brisbane
Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Queensland
Conjoint Senior Lecturer, School of Pharmacy, University of Queensland, Brisbane
Assistant Director of Pharmacy, Mater Health Services, Brisbane