The Journal of Phytopharmacology, 2016;5(3):128-130 DOI:10.31254/phyto.2016.5309

Research Article

Possibility of potential herbal-drug interactions in elderly population

Huda Kafeel¹

Huda Kafeel

1. Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Hamdard University, Karachi, Pakistan

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Abstract

Medicines are variable in composition and quality, which may have an impact on their interaction profile still as a result of the reliability of reports regarding them. As such, the potential for herb-drug interactions increases in elderly population. For this instance we conducted a survey based study in which 208 patients were surveyed belonging to different areas of Karachi. These people were of different age groups ranging from 40-60 years old. They were asked to answer a face to face questionnaire based on the concurrent use of the conventional medicine and herbal drugs and their possible interaction based side effects. Our results sho ws that out of 208, 124(59.6%) volunteers prefer treatment with herbal and allopathic medicines, 138 (66.3%) use medications on daily basis while 70 (33.7%) don’t use on daily basis. And 56 volunteers were at high risk of potential herb-drug interaction, among them 32.7% have dynamic interactions and 21.2% have kinetic interactions in their medication regime. Out of 208 volunteers 89% were experiencing adverse effects (self reported). Since a significant number of herb-drug interactions were detected in elderly patients, it is suggested that health care professionals and consumers should be aware of the potential herb-drug interactions and health care professionals should question and advice their patients on their use of herbal medicines.