Feeling a Little Sexy and Wonder Why?

By Dr. W. Gifford Jones

Tuesday, May 12, 2002

Are you feeling a little sexy lately and have no idea why it's happening? If that's the case you had better check your medicine cabinet. You may be taking a well-known product sildenafil (Viagra) approved for the treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED) without knowing it. How can this happen?

Health Canada recently issued an alert to health care professionals about the safety of a herbal product called Hua Fo. Manufacturers claimed it was the "natural" Viagra for men. The suggested dosage, two tablets twice a day.

What medical consumers don't know is that each tablet of Hua Fo contains 9.2 milligrams of sildenafil. That means a dosage of 36.8 milligrams of sildenafil a day.

The recommended dose of Viagra for ED is from 25 to 100 mg. So 9.2 mg of Hua Fo taken over a 24 hour period isn't going to send most men racing after Julia Roberts. But it may make them a trifle twitchy!

The company that markets Hua Fo has cooperated with Health Canada to get their product off the market. And are investigating how sildenafil found its way into their herbal medicine.

This is not the first instance when males wondered why they were starting to feel a little antsy. In December 1999 another herbal product, V-King, was removed from the market. It too was found to contain sildenafil.

Feeling sexy without knowing why isn't a serious problem. But if males are also taking cardiac medication containing nitrate, the combined use could trigger a life-threatening decrease in blood pressure.

Paracelus, the father of modern pharmacology five centuries ago, wrote that "all drugs are poisons, it is a question only of dosage". This applies to both herbal and prescription drugs.

Don't fall into this trap when consuming so-called "natural" herbal products. To many consumers the word "natural" implies a safe product. But some of the world's greatest poisons such as hemlock and strychnine are derived from plants.

One of the most tragic incidents involved 48 Belgian women who attended a weight loss clinic from 1990 to 1993. They developed various degrees of kidney failure from taking a Chinese herbal preparation containing Stephania tetranda and Magnolia officinalis.

Some reactions may not be easily diagnosed by doctors. For instance, unexpected severe bronchospasm may be due to yohimbine. And hepatitis can be triggered by jin bu huan, a traditional Chinese herb.

Large amounts of licorice over a long term can decrease blood calcium. This in turn can alter the action of drugs such as digitalis that depend on potassium levels. And Evening Primrose Oil may increase the risk of seizures when given with phenothiazines.

The old adage of "let the buyer beware" is never more true when so many people are taking several drugs at once. Sometimes the end result can be worse than the original sickness.

For example, a person may start out taking a pill for blood pressure and as a result develop a wheeze. So he is then prescribed a drug for asthma which upsets the stomach and prevents sleeping. To treat the upset stomach Tagamet is taken which causes mental confusion. Then because of jitteryness and insomnia valium is added. Tagamet, however, increases the blood level of Valium and makes it more toxic. What started as a hypertension problem then winds up being diagnosed as possible senile dementia.

J.B. Moliere wrote in "Le malade imaginaire" 300 years ago that "nearly all men die of their medicines, not of their diseases".

Things are not that bad today. There are many herbal and prescription drugs that add to the quality of our lives. It's simply a matter of not getting carried away by the epidemic of "pillitis" that has become so much a part of the North American culture.

Sir William Osler, one of this country's great physicians, aptly analyzed the present situation. He remarked that "A desire to take medicine is perhaps the great feature that distinguishes man from the other animals!"

This problem isn't going to go away. For instance in 1990 consumers spent 1.5 billion on herbal medicines. Today it has soared to over 15 billion. And just in case you're one of those eager herbal enthusiasts and getting a trifle romantic, I'd suggest you take a look at what's in the medicine cabinet.

W. Gifford-Jones M.D is the pen name of Dr. Ken Walker graduate of Harvard. Dr. Walker's website is: Docgiff.com

My book, �90 + How I Got There� can be obtained by sending $19.95 to:

Giff Holdings, 525 Balliol St, Unit # 6,Toronto, Ontario, M4S 1E1

Pre-2008 articles by Gifford Jones

Canada Free Press, CFP Editor Judi McLeod