Beebe Medical Center offers a link to a Web site about herb and supplement safety as a service of the Integrative Health Department. The Web site, linked through www.beebemed.org, will take visitors to the Natural Medicine database, where they can view information that is updated every 24 hours and includes vital information on herb and supplement safety, uses and interactions.
“It’s especially important now,” said Cheyenne Luzader of Beebe’s Integrative Health Department. “Books are already old by the time you read them because things are changing all the time, so this Web site is updated every 24 hours.”
Luzader also mentioned the growing importance of this kind of information, since the “typical” herb user is changing too. “Before, the people who took herbs didn’t take traditional medicines, too, so nobody worried about the interactions,” she said.
Visitors to the Web site can find information about what a particular herb really is, what other names it might be known by, its effectiveness, how it works, safety concerns and any potential interactions with medicines, as well as information on who should not be using it.
For more information, go to www.beebemed.org, select “quick jump to services,” select integrative health, scroll down, and double click on www.naturaldatabase.com.
Luzader advises that visitors print out the information to discuss with their physicians, and especially to do so long before any surgeries so they can discuss when and how to gradually stop any herbal supplements they might be taking.