Wormwood is a nutrient-rich herb with proven results for treating Crohn’s disease or arthritis patients. It may additionally purge undesired parasites from one’s body, inclusively of pinworm or malaria, while helping with smooth digestion.

Use

Wormwood was formerly employed for treating worm infestations, while no clinical data support this treatment. Anti-inflammatory, chemotherapeutic activity, or antipyretic were documented from animal research. Beginning research shows that wormwood might alleviate Crohn’s disease symptoms, but data about the plant’s uses with immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy are restricted. Within Germany, woodworm gets employed for treating loss of appetite, biliary dyskinesia, or dyspepsia. Wormwood is alternatively used as a flavoring chemical.

Dosing

Wormwood is retailed widely as an essential oil, capsule, tincture, tablet, or aqueous extract dosage form. None of the recent clinical evidence confirms dosing suggestions. Conventional usage of the herb to treat dyspepsia was dosed in the infusion of 2 to 3 g daily.

Pregnancy/Lactation

Avoid usage. Documented abortifacient or emmenagogue triggers.

Interactions

One prevailing case report recommends that wormwood raises the international normalized ratio (INR) using warfarin.

Adverse Reactions

Volatile oil thujone from wormwood creates a mood of ecstasy or works as a powerful convulsant. Frequent ingestion of wormwood results in absinthium, the syndrome manifesting with digestive disorders, restlessness, thirst, vertigo, trembling of limb parts, numbness in the extremes, loss of rationality, paralysis, psychosis, or mortality.

Toxicology

Wormwood is categorized as a lethal herb by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) owing to the neurotoxic potential of thujone or its derivatives; it is often considered safe when it is thujone free. The safety of wormwood is underdocumented despite its extended history as a meal additive. Convulsions, renal failure, and dermatitis have been documented.

 

Chemistry

Wormwood’s therapeutic or active portions are essential oils, anabsinthin, absinthin, resins, or organic acids. The bitter taste gets caused by the glucosides absinthin and absinthian, or more linked compounds.

Lactones are Arabs in, certain, ketopelenolide, or more linked to santonin. A major isolated flavonoid is 5,6,3′,5′-tetra methoxy 7,4′-hydroxy flavone (p7F).

Essential Oils

Many Artemisia species have monoterpenoid thujone derivatives holding toxic CNS results. Wormwood usually has tiny volumes of thujone derivatives, like 0.2% (Z)-thujone and 0.5% (E)-thujone. Still, the thujone content broadly ranges.

The central portions of wormwood oil are chamazulene (18%) and caryophyllene oxide (4%). nuciferol butanoate (8%), or nuciferol propionate (5%). The essential oils may have a considerable volume of aromatic compounds (41%) or a low level of oxygenated monoterpenes (24%). The plant has a pleasant-smelling volatile oil (about 1% to 2% by weight), including phellandrene, pinene, azulene, or more than six more minor portions. Flowers can have oil made of up to 35% thujones. Cis- and trans-epoxycymenes account for reaching 57% of the volatile oil taken from Italian absinthium. The herb is standardized along with absinthian.

Wormwood has trace volumes of thymol and carvacrol, including more phenolic compounds with potent antioxidant or accessible radical-scavenging functions.

Uses and Pharmacology

Scientific literature has mostly phytochemical, ethnopharmacological, or ethnobotanical investigations, with a less clinical examination of wormwood.

Anthelmintic Activity

The plant’s anthelmintic activity is caused by lactones linked to santonin, found in wormseed and more species of Artemisia.

Clinical Data

An ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological study has documented the usage of wormwood to treat intestinal worms in Dominica, West Indies.

In Vitro Data

The essential oils of wormwood hold antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli, Salmonella enteritidis, Klebsiella pneumonia, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, C. Albicans, or Aspergillus Niger.