Weighing Alternatives

No, these remedies are not currently under regulation by the Food and Drug Administration. Prescription drugs are tightly regulated. So are over-the-counter remedies, such as Tylenol and aspirin. But anything sold as a nutritional supplement--whether it's vitamin C, magnesium or melatonin--is treated as a foodstuff, not a medicine.

How can you improve your chances of buying a high-quality herbal product?

I prefer to look to those products that have been prepared under some form of careful standardization. Some of the larger pharmaceutical companies have started to make these herbal preparations. They can afford to refine the herbal extracts and safely standardize them so that you get exactly the same amount and quality of herbals in every pill. Also, groups like the United States Pharmacopoeia are in the process of developing an approval process to identify the best herbal products.

So what should consumers be aware of?

People need to understand that herbals must be honored and respected as medicines. You can't just assume that because it comes from a green plant, it's free of side effects. In fact, more than 25 percent of conventional medicines in the Physicians' Desk Reference are derived from plant sources. The cancer drug Taxol comes from the yew bush. Aspirin is derived from willow bark. These are very potent plants. And they have side effects.