Chew On This - A pain-killing tea
If you're one of those who sniffs at the efficiency of natural painkillers, listen up. Scientists have now found that everything the Brazilians have believed for centuries about the analgesic properties of a mint tea they brew to relieve pain is entirely justified.
The mint herb is hyptis crenata and Brazilian healers have used it for millennia to cure pretty much every common ailment from headaches and stomach pain to fever and flu. Read all about it in your favorite journal, Acta Horticulturae. (Aren't you amazed at the publications out there you've never heard of?)
Apparently they boil dried leaves in water for 30 minutes then allow them to steep while the drink cools before drinking it like tea. But presumably without the lemon, milk or sugar.
It's as effective as the synthetic aspirin-style drug called Indometacin, researchers at the UK's Newcastle University found. Lead researcher Graciela Rocha (who as a Brazilian remembers being dosed with the tea as a child) says, however, that, “ The taste isn't what most people here in the UK would recognize as a mint.” It's more like sage, she warns, and not very nice. But then, nor is black tea drunk straight, in my view.
Next, clinical trials are planned to find out how effective the mint is as a pain relief for people instead of the mice who so far have been the guinea pigs. If you get my drift.
The herb is one of over 50,000 plants used worldwide for medicinal purposes. Before you scoff, more than half of all prescription drugs are based on a molecule that occurs naturally in a plant.
The mint herb is hyptis crenata and Brazilian healers have used it for millennia to cure pretty much every common ailment from headaches and stomach pain to fever and flu. Read all about it in your favorite journal, Acta Horticulturae. (Aren't you amazed at the publications out there you've never heard of?)
Apparently they boil dried leaves in water for 30 minutes then allow them to steep while the drink cools before drinking it like tea. But presumably without the lemon, milk or sugar.
It's as effective as the synthetic aspirin-style drug called Indometacin, researchers at the UK's Newcastle University found. Lead researcher Graciela Rocha (who as a Brazilian remembers being dosed with the tea as a child) says, however, that, “ The taste isn't what most people here in the UK would recognize as a mint.” It's more like sage, she warns, and not very nice. But then, nor is black tea drunk straight, in my view.
Next, clinical trials are planned to find out how effective the mint is as a pain relief for people instead of the mice who so far have been the guinea pigs. If you get my drift.
The herb is one of over 50,000 plants used worldwide for medicinal purposes. Before you scoff, more than half of all prescription drugs are based on a molecule that occurs naturally in a plant.
Posted on Wednesday 25th November 2009 in
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