GREEN PHARMACY FOR INDIGESTION

Image Gallery A teaspoon of ginger is good medicine to calm a stomach that doth protest too much.

by James A. Duke

Many years ago, my family and I spent a good deal of time in Panama. The late, great anthropologist Reina Torres de Araus invited our family out to her Los Cumbres residence for wonderful meals. After dinner she never served coffee, just chamomile tea. Back then I didn't appreciate how much sense it made to end an evening meal with this wonderful beverage. Now I know better.

Chamomile is what herbalists call a carminative, that is, a stomach soother, and it's especially good for indigestion. It's also a sedative. Many people drink chamomile tea before bed time to help them sleep.

GREEN PHARMACY FOR INDIGESTION

Hundreds of herbs can help soothe a troubled tummy. Here are several I recommend.

Chamomile (Matricaria recutita). Commission E, the German group of scientists that makes recommendations on herbal safety and effectiveness, considers chamomile effective for relieving many gastrointestinal complaints, including indigestion. Dr. Andrew Weil, author of Natural Health, Natural Medicine, says the best home remedies for an upset stomach are chamomile and peppermint tea. I prefer peppermint, but both are effective and easy to grow in your garden.

Peppermint (Mentha piperita). Most herbalists, myself included, have a special regard for peppermints ability to relieve indigestion. I've needed peppermint more often since 1990, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave me a bad case of indigestion by ruling that peppermint is ineffective for stomach distress. This does not mean peppermint is useless: It means the FDA's evaluation was.

Commission E endorses peppermint tea for treating indigestion. Given a choice between an FDA pronouncement and a Commission E endorsement, I'd go for the German decision. Those folks did some research and seem to know what they're talking about.

Peppermint tea works well, but being a native son of Alabama, I'm also partial to mint juleps (bourbon, spring water, sugar and mint), which, it turns out, work even better. Varro Tyler, dean and professor emeritus of pharmacognosy (natural product pharmacy) at Purdue University, notes that most of the carminative oils in peppermint and other mints are relatively insoluble in water. As a result, mint tea doesn't contain much of the plant's stomach-soothing constituents. It does contain enough to make it effective, but a peppermint tincture, which is made with alcohol, contains more. So if you don't want to drink a julep, you can use a tincture instead. Angelic (Angelica archangelica). Angelica root is good for treating indigestion, mild stomach cramps and lack of appetite, according to Commission E. The suggested daily dose is a tea made with 2 to 3 teaspoons of dried herb per cup of boiling water, or up to 1 teaspoon of tincture.