Webinar Forum: How Do Herbal and Dietary Supplements Affect Traditional and Diagnostic Tests?

Natural Standard Associate Editor Ramon Iovin, PhD, provides a brief introduction to the Laboratory Interactions Checker, one of Natural Standard's interactive tools. The presentation includes several examples of herb and supplement interactions with laboratory diagnostic tests, sampled from the Natural Standard Interactions database.

Complimentary access is available until April 30, 2009. To log in, please visit www1.gotomeeting.com/register/338915605.

Natural Standard values the opinions and views of its readers and welcomes feedback and questions about the latest webinar. Individuals are invited to leave comments below and/or e-mail to questions@naturalstandard.com.

Comments

[Sue]

This Laboratory Interactions Checker is a fantastic tool! It's rare to find this amount of information in one place. It's easy to use and incredibly comprehensive. Thanks for creating it.

[Andy]

I think that the Laboratory Interactions Checker is great for someone who is looking for advice pertaining to herbal supplements or holistic options. Instead of driving to the local nutritional store to ask questions about certain products, you can just type the product into the database and receive all the information you need at home. There are even facts about vitamins and supplements for people that have allergies. I agree, the amount of information given is astronomical!!

[h g]

This is a good webinar for clinicians who may need to understand why a patient's potassium is low, albumin is low, blood sugar is low, thyroid is low, how their patient got maple sugar urine disease, had an INR increase, etc. Because so many patients are treating themselves or being treated with complementary and alternative medicines and because so many clinical decisions are made based on the lab results of patients, it is increasingly important that clinicians become familiar with the effects of CAM on lab values.

[PGB]

It's true what h g says about clinicians needing to know the effects of these medications on lab values. I hope the work Natural Standard does becomes a source for many of the comprehensive databases that monitor interactions as they increase inclusion of herbal medication monographs. With so much information available to consumers about ways to treat themselves with CAM, and with so many drugs on the market for so many diseases, the possibility for interactions continues to grow. It's good that Natural Standard is trying to get a handle on these problems.

[Jessie]

It's surprising how often clinicians do not ask patients about what supplements or herbs they are using. I think it's great that now there is a resource at Natural Standard for them to refer to, so they can learn about the different effects complementary therapies can have on diagnostic tests.

[natural herbal suppliment]

The herbal remedies provide long-term solutions to all common problems, but with the herbal supplement market flooding with products, it is really essential for the customers to make sure the herbal remedies they opt for are standard and generate the required results.