Talk:List of medicinal plants

	This Alternative medicine related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.
Editorial notes It contains unsourced statements Tagged since July 2013

Formatting (sticky)

Suggested sections (not all may apply):

• Also called: List alternate names for the plant.
• Claimed to: List what the plant is supposed to do.
• Preparation: Describe how the plant is prepared and used.
• Used in: Describe what fields of medicine/altmed the plant is used in.
• Safety ratings: List government/health organization ratings of safety.
• Research: If insufficient research has been done to note beneficial/harmful effects, list it here.
• Beneficial effects: List what the plant does to humans that's (usually) good.
• Harmful effects: List what the plant does to humans that's (usually) bad.

Stubs

We have a lot of stubs for various plant products that might work better as a single list. I'm sorry if this page should be in a different space while i see if it's worth doing. please move if you feel so inclined.--En attendant Godot 18:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

The pics might be better in a "gallery" if & when there's more? Pippa (talk) 18:53, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Hey! "Vile" and "foul" are very subjective opinions!--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 18:57, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Pippa, i'm not sure what you mean. (Ignorant to many of the facets of wikis... I just add words, grins)--En attendant Godot 19:01, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

This a gallery is. Thinking about it, probably not a good idea. Pippa (talk) 19:06, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Ohhhh, and what a cute gallery it is. My dulci was in there. She's since left us.--En attendant Godot 19:09, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

And now, i'm getting hungry

Damn yummy herbs. --En attendant Godot 20:01, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the title alone made my ass go to Kentucky Fried Chicken to enjoy choke down some of the 11 herbs and spices goodness. Aboriginal Noise ^{Oh, you want to hit people with garbage cans?} 00:21, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Merge?

Duplicates a lot of this. Would be more efficient to have it all under one roof. When Roosevelt came to the land of the hummingbird, shouts of welcome were heard!. 15:18, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Funny, I was thinking the same thing. Must be psychic telepathy. Anyway, +1--Krej^talk 15:24, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I would do it myself, but I'm in a less-than affluent neighbourhood in a less-than-developed-to-Manhattan-standards country for the next week or so, so internet access is dicey and big edits are a pain in the ass. When Roosevelt came to the land of the hummingbird, shouts of welcome were heard!. 23:45, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Done. Now it's not as useful for shocking alties (that's what I was going to use it for), but this version is better, I guess.--Krej^talk

Echinacea

Cancer.org says: "Although echinacea is relatively safe, some natural medicine practitioners caution that it may cause liver damage or suppress the immune system if used for more than 8 weeks. They urge people taking medications known to cause liver toxicity, such as anabolic steroids, amiodarone (a drug for heart rhythm problems), and the chemotherapy drugs methotrexate and ketoconazole, to avoid echinacea use."

Does this mean echinacea may actually cause liver damage, or is the liver damage claim just from unsubstantiated CAM anecdotes?--Krej^talk 17:40, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Useful list

Here's a PDF listing harmful herbs. I'm putting it here for future reference (mostly for me), since it can't be cited.--Krej^talk 03:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

That's a 404 for me. Sophie^Wilder 11:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I somehow managed to add a period to the end of the URL. It's fixed now.--Krej^talk 15:32, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Good page, but a little short. There's a lot there well worth pinchciting. Sophie^Wilder 17:38, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion of TCM

There are TCM remedies which consist of multiple plants, and (as you can see in the PDF above) they have side effects. Could they be added to the list, or is it only for individual herbs?--Krej^talk 15:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Separate section for such mixtures? If individual herbs are risky they can go in the main list, but if a mixture contains contra-indicated ingredients then that needs a new list to avoid confusion. Sophie^Wilder 17:42, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Or maybe:

Herb A

Tastes nice. May cause flatulence. Deadly if used with Herb B

Herb B

Used in Peruvian winemaking; may cause boils. Deasdly if used with herb A.

etc.

Sophie^Wilder 11:59, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Good idea, but for mixtures which have over five herbs, that would take up quite a bit of space. Maybe the multi-herb section could only be for large mixtures?--Krej^talk 15:15, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

More than two, I think. Sophie^Wilder 15:16, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

OK.--Krej^talk 15:32, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Lily-of-the-valley

"Leprosy is very big these days". I guess lily-of-the-valley is the "cure" he was talking about.--Krej^talk 15:24, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I nominate this for a Bronze-level article

I followed the advice on the Bronze-level articles page, and used the HotArticleRate gadget to rate this article with a Bronze Brainstar. I didn't realize that by doing so the article would automatically get a {bronze} tag added to the top, rather than put it in some kind of "nominating queue" -- so I said "eek!" and quickly rolled back my change.

This Talk page here still seems to have a Bronze rating for some reason, though.

Nevertheless, I think this article is on-mission enough to draw the kind of attention to that other Bronze-brain articles have. Should I call it to a vote or something? --Tracer (talk) 18:31, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

St. John's Wort

I'm a bit skeptical of the "debunkings" - two specific trials of what appears to be a fairly widely-studied subject already smells a bit of (inadvertent) cherrypicking, especially when one of the papers reports equally little effect from citalopram. This seems to call for a meta-review, and Wikipedia leads me to one here that suggests some effect, although it looks like the authors suspect some of the stronger studies have been falsified, and I'm not sure how trustworthy they themselves are. I can't find any dirt, but sometimes I'm surprised who turns out to be a quack. 24.34.112.26 (talk) 07:44, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Basil

WP suggests some pretty good health effects, with a little cancer on the side. Is basil truly almost all good? ʇυzzγɔɒтqoтɒтo (talk/stalk) 05:52, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Probably fine for foods (yum!). The citations in WP are primarily cellular studies (in vitro) so not very convincing either way. The estragole cancer study is high dose, so not very relevant for the levels that humans get. Bongolian (talk) 08:01, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

If anyone's up for it

Adding all of the plants listed here would help improve that article (and this one). I've added a few, feel free to remove them from the list once added. Sir ℱ℧ℤℤϒℂᗩℑᑭƠℑᗩℑƠ (talk/stalk) 00:11, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Silver?

Fairly decent article. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 23:56, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Animal Testing

I don't see why you would test certain things like aloe on animals, it might not harm humans but it can affect animals differently. It's like testing grapes on cats or dogs, it wont harm us but it sure will end up with them dead.--Řïmũŗû Ţèmpéŝţ 18:02, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

OK, why would you test anything on animals, then? You could argue [[animal rights], but then you're left with the medical ethics not being able to test most things on humans, and of not having any animal models. Bongolian (talk) 19:48, 11 September 2017 (UTC)