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As an avid researcher of scientific literature on herbs (especially German research) since 1984, I knew about the St. John’s wort-depression connection early in the 1990s and subsequently wrote a book on the herb, as well as Stress and Natural Healing, which talks about the clinical use of herbs for depression.

After writing these books, more patients began to come into my clinic for mood disorders, which was an excellent opportunity for me to learn firsthand what did and didn’t work from the patients themselves. After working with patients diagnosed with depression, I learned that depression is more common than I knew. In a given one-year period, up to 9.5 percent of the U.S. population (nearly 19 million people) may suffer from depression. Women are twice as likely as men to have depression. It’s likely that some individuals are more susceptible to depression based on genetic predisposition, but teenagers, the elderly, women overall, and people with chronic illnesses are most likely to suffer.

Depression is complex

Depression affects every facet of life—sleep, the enjoyment of activities, health, work, relationships, and it increases the chance of dying of a chronic or acute illness. The three most common types of depression include major depression, dysthymia (you simply don’t feel happy for extended periods of time), and bipolar disorder (mania alternating with periods of depression).

More than anything else, I learned that depression is a complex illness that involves personal, family, and societal issues, as well as the level of one’s overall state of health. In major clinical trials, depression is an illness that responds very well to placebos. This means that the simple act of participating in a research group and taking a pill that’s said to be effective for reducing depression—even if the pill contains simple sugar—can work as well as any medication or herb now available, including Prozac and St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum). Recent published analyses of all controlled studies on medications for depression have shown this to be true. A large, recent study supported by the National Institutes of Health showed that St. John’s wort, Zoloft, and a placebo pill had similar beneficial effects in groups of severely depressed patients. Many argue that these remedies would show higher effectiveness for people with mild to moderate depression, as a number of other clinical trials have shown.

Because depression involves the state of health of all the internal organs and is directly related to the health and vitality of the whole individual, I follow the guidance of my first health teacher, Paul Bragg, who said many times, “There are no specific medications for most diseases, rather a total program for health is the only sure way to cure disease.”