Chamomile Tea May Fight Colds, Menstrual Cramps

January 20, 2005

By Kelli Miller Stacy

WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD

on Friday, January 07, 2005

Jan. 7, 2005 -- Things you need in your medical cabinet: aspirin, Band-Aids,

antacids, and ... chamomile tea?

For thousands of years, the herbal tea has been heralded as a natural cure

for many conditions. The fragrant tea has been used as a sedative to calm

nerves and has been touted to have anti-inflammatory properties.

Now new research adds credence to the theory that this herbal tea has

medicinal benefits. A study published in the Jan. 26 issue of the Journal of

Agricultural and Food Chemistry has found that chamomile tea contains

compounds that may help fight infections due to colds and relieve menstrual

cramps.

" This is one of a growing number of studies that provide evidence that

commonly used natural products really do contain chemicals that may be of

medicinal value, " study author Elaine Holmes, PhD, a chemist with the

Imperial College of London, says in a news release.

For the small study, 14 volunteers drank five cups of tea made from the

German chamomile (Matricaria recutita) plant daily for two weeks. Daily

urine samples were collected from each participant at the start of the

study, during the tea-drinking phase, and then for two weeks after the

tea-drinking phase ended.

Drinking chamomile tea resulted in significantly higher levels of two

compounds in the urine, hippurate and glycine.

Hippurate, a breakdown product of tea flavonoids, has been linked to

antibacterial activity. Researchers say elevated hippurate levels after tea

drinking may explain tea's infection-fighting ability.

Glycine is a chemical that relieves muscle spasms and can act as a nerve

relaxant. Holmes and colleagues say higher glycine levels may relax the

uterus, explaining why the tea appears to relieve menstrual cramps.

Hippurate and glycine levels remained elevated for up to two weeks after the

volunteers stopped drinking the tea, suggesting that drinking chamomile tea

leads to prolonged medicinal effects.

Oxford Natural Products help fund the study.

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