In my 20s, I wasn’t much for traditional medicine. For one thing, navigating our labyrinthine health care system seemed like a lot of unnecessary work. For another, I was broke. Plus, I used henna to dye my hair. I wanted something natural. That meant that when I felt down in the winter and was quick to worry and anxiety, I didn’t go to the doctor. I went to the drug store and got myself a bottle of St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum). By the time I started taking St. John’s wort around 2003, the plant had been used to rid the environment of evil spirits in ancient Greece and medicinally to menstrual cramps, heal wounds, and treat kidney conditions in laterherb side centuries. Today, it’s primarily used to treat depression. What those early practitioners didn’t know and what I didn’t, either, was that St. John’s wort can interact with prescription medicines in ways that can be serious. With everything from hormonal contraception to organ-transplant drugs interacting with the supplement, the more you know about the interactions, the better off you are.