Benefits Of Evening Primrose

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

However, other double-blind, ­placebo-controlled studies have shown that evening primrose oil significantly reduces irritability, breast pain and tenderness, and mood changes associated with PMS. Several clinical trials have found that its relief of breast pain and tenderness is comparable to that of conventional drugs with only mild adverse effects.

Although taking two 500-mg capsules of evening primrose oil three times a day with meals has been shown to correct essential fatty-acid imbalances associated with PMS, you may need to take them for as many as six menstrual cycles before relief of symptoms starts. For dosage information, see the box below.

Traditional Uses For Evening Primrose

Several North American Indian groups have used evening primrose for healing. The Iroquois boiled a sturdy taproot of evening primrose with a root of either field mint (Mentha canadensis) or self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) in a quart of water until the liquid was reduced by half. Hemorrhoid sufferers drank a cup of this decoction twice daily and also used it as an external wash. The Cherokee poulticed the root on hemorrhoids and drank a root tea to reduce weight. The Ojibwa soaked the entire plant in water, which they then applied to bruises.

Europeans began using the plant as a medicine during the eighteenth century. Johann David Schöpf, a German-born physician and author of a 1787 book on American medicinal plants, mentioned poulticing the fresh herb on wounds. The Shakers, who established the first commercial herb business in the United States, listed evening primrose in many of their catalogs, recommending applications of the leaves or roots to heal wounds and a tea of the leaf and root to settle an upset stomach.

In his classic Medical Botany (1847), Dr. R. Eglesfeld Griffith described a different application of the plant that hints of one modern use.

Some years since, hearing of the ­efficacy of a decoction of the plant in infantile eruptions, I made a trial with it in several cases of an obstinate character, which had resisted other modes of treatment, and became satisfied that it was highly beneficial; and this opinion has been confirmed by subsequent experience with it. The plant is to be gathered about the flowering season, and the small twigs with the bark of the large branches and stem, retaining the leaves with them, to be dried in the shade. Of these a strong decoction is to be made, with which the eruption is to be bathed several times a day.

Gamma-linolenic acid is a component of human breast milk. Sometimes, infants who are switched from breast milk to artificial milk formulas or cow’s milk lack a by-product of gamma-linolenic acid. This deficiency can lead to atopic eczema (dermatitis), which could be the “infantile eruption” Griffith referred to and treated with evening primrose. Recent clinical studies showed that evening primrose seed oil, when taken as a dietary supplement, produced a significant 20 to 25 percent improvement over controls in treating atopic eczema.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print