More herbal remedies disproven

Filed in archive Studies on July 30, 2005

The data just isn't there for many "alternative" remedies. Kava and valeran root are two of the latest that were found to be useless:

New research is casting doubt on the effectiveness of kava and valerian root, two popular herbal remedies, with investigators finding they provided users with no more symptom relief than a placebo.

Kava, commonly used for anxiety, and valerian, used for insomnia, both worked as well as an inactive placebo when administered to 391 participants recruited via the Internet from 45 states.

According to the University of California, San Francisco team, anxiety scores decreased by 25 percent for patients taking a placebo, versus 21 percent for people taking either kava or valerian.

Effects on insomnia were about the same, with both the placebo and the herbal remedies decreasing scores by about 50 percent.

(Thompson, "Study: Kava, Valerian Don't Work", Forbes, Jul.29)