Renaissance DIY science: People tested, tweaked home remedy recipes

Multispectral imaging, proteomics, historical texts yield new insights into 16th-century medical manuals.

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[Albino_Boo]

It's also a CYP3A4 inducer, with potentially strong drug interactions. Which is always the danger with herbal medicines, plenty of them might have serious interactions with normal medicines.

Stockley's Herbal Medicines Interactions is the go‑to reference guide to them, albeit quite pricey. Then again, some interactions might not even be known.

Grapefruit is a real danger too. I found that out the hard way when it doubled the effectiveness of the blood thinner.

 

[hark]

To add to others, Symphytum officinale. Especially extract processed to gel works pretty nicely. Longest used combination is with Camphor. Good for light to medium muscle and joint aches. Good for high volume treatment after exercise and training. For Manga/Light novel readers, this combination was used in Spice and Wolf to treat Holo's back and Kraft's face injury.

It's great, it works both for muscle and joint aches and for healing broken bones too.
Apart from other effects, it positively triggers accelerated cell division for faster healing.
However, it's known to be toxic during prolonged usage. Wikipedia lists liver damage.
Increased cell division also means higher risk of cancer when taken regularly in high volumes.
One time exposure for max 4-5 days are ok, then there should be pause at least 2-4 week without exposure.

 

[azazel1024]

It's also a CYP3A4 inducer, with potentially strong drug interactions. Which is always the danger with herbal medicines, plenty of them might have serious interactions with normal medicines.

Stockley's Herbal Medicines Interactions is the go‑to reference guide to them, albeit quite pricey. Then again, some interactions might not even be known.

Very true. Then again, many prescription drugs derived from chemical synthesis have strong interactions with common foods.

Such as grape fruit…

The lesson is, dont take things with a lot of research, or rely on someone who has already done that research (IE a doctor or pharmacist)

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

Grapefruit is a real danger too. I found that out the hard way when it doubled the effectiveness of the blood thinner.

Don't forget licorice. The glycyrrhizin which gives it that unique flavor also reduces blood potassium levels and can increase blood pressure, in addition to drug interactions. At the same time there's also strong evidence it acts as an anti-inflammatory.

Things like this are why I won't touch herbalist/"alternative" medicine. The lack of rigor in understanding the mechanism of action, cataloguing various effects, and especially controlling the dosage of active components (plants are highly variable in the amounts of these compounds, even under the same conditions) make it a complete crapshoot. The fact that so much of it is codified and perpetuated as "woo" means it's being promoted irresponsibly and that good, science-based information is hard to come by in a sea of bullshit.