Fact or Myth: Can We Take Unani Medicine With English Medicine?

Partly true: often yes, but only when your doctor and pharmacist know every jar and tablet you take. The honest answer depends on the product, the medicine and the sugar, and only a full list lets a professional check all three.

Where does the “they are fine together” belief come from?

Someone who asks this may already have taken both and felt fine; a jam that settled a stomach, or a tablet that brought a reading down, can make a combination feel safe. Feeling fine, though, does not show what a product does to a medicine inside someone else’s body, and that is why the question deserves a written list rather than a yes or no from memory, especially once more than one product is in the picture. Feeling fine is not a test.

Which tablets need the closest check?

Blood thinners come first, because the serious risk with them is bleeding, and the review below describes reported cases of major bleeding linked to a herb. Blood pressure tablets and diabetes care also need checking. Thyroid medicines and seizure medicines belong on the list as well, so the list has to show which medicine is which. Your doctor should see every product you take. Keep the list current.

Why can a natural jam or herb still clash?

A 2014 review of herb and warfarin interactions rated nine herbs as having major-severity interactions with warfarin, and the list includes cranberry, garlic, ginkgo, grapefruit and St John’s wort, so any product containing one of them deserves a check before it is taken alongside a blood thinner. The authors also note that many supporting reports are case reports, which cannot prove cause, and that the intensity of these interactions may be overestimated. Careful checking, not panic. It means reading the product against the full medicine list, with the packet in hand, rather than relying on a general reputation for being gentle or traditional, which is a much weaker kind of reassurance.

Licorice is a second example. Read the label, always. That is the surprise. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) explains that licorice contains glycyrrhizin, which can cause serious effects such as irregular heartbeat and cardiac arrest, especially in large amounts or over the long term. It also notes that serious effects have been linked to small amounts of glycyrrhizin in people with hypertension, heart or kidney conditions, and in people who eat a lot of salt. Licorice may appear on the label of a traditional product, so read the label before you buy.

Myth: if it is natural, it cannot clash with a tablet

This is the belief most worth correcting. “Natural” describes where a substance comes from, not how it behaves alongside a prescribed tablet. The warfarin review and the licorice warning both involve ordinary plants, not lab chemicals. Neither proves that a particular jar is dangerous. Both do show why natural is not a safety word. If a product is described as traditional, pure or natural, that description tells you where it came from, and nothing at all about what it does when it meets a blood thinner, a blood pressure tablet or a sugar-lowering medicine inside your own body.

Why does sugar matter before the herb does?

Some Unani jams, sharbats and khameeras are sweetened. Sugar is the quiet one, and for a person with diabetes the sugar can be the first problem, before any herb is considered. A Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust patient page says that only carbohydrate-containing foods have a direct and instant effect on blood glucose, and that the more carbohydrate you eat, the higher your blood glucose rises. Its sugar group includes sugary fizzy drinks. Read the sugars line on the label if there is one. If there is no label, ask the seller and your diabetes team before you decide it is safe. Guessing is not a plan.

How do you combine them safely?

1. Write one list of everything you take: each tablet, jam, arq, sharbat, oil, tea or drink, with its name and where you got it.
2. Keep the packet, or photograph the front and the ingredient side, so the list can be checked against the real product.
3. Show the list to a pharmacist, then take the same list to your doctor, before you add anything new.
4. Do not stop or change a prescribed tablet on your own because a product seems to work better. Your doctor makes that decision.
5. If you take warfarin, ask whether your INR should be checked more often. The review notes that some of its authors call for closer INR monitoring whenever a herbal medicine is started.

When is it urgent?

If you take warfarin and notice bleeding, call NHS 111 rather than waiting for the next appointment. The NHS lists blood in your pee or poo, unexplained bruising or nosebleeds, and coughing up or vomiting blood as symptoms of serious bleeding. A racing or irregular heartbeat also needs urgent medical advice, as the licorice warning above explains. In an emergency, call your local emergency number. If you are unsure whether a symptom is serious, it is better to ask a doctor or an emergency service that day than to hope that a jam or a tablet will settle it on its own.

Related guides help here. Kitchen teas have their own clash list in our herbal tea and medicine guide, and the one-page list to bring to your doctor shows the format to use. For the finished jars, our guide to jawarish, majoon, khameera, arq and sharbat explains what those words mean. For choosing a system by condition, see the condition-by-condition decision guide.

See also the Unani & Herbal, Decoded series and the Fact or Myth series.

Questions about mixing Unani, English and Ayurvedic medicine

Sources

• Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Updates on the Clinical Evidenced Herb-Warfarin Interactions (2014)
• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health: Licorice Root: Usefulness and Safety
• Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: Carbohydrate awareness and glycaemic index: for people with diabetes
• NHS: Warfarin: medicine used to prevent and treat blood clots