Comfrey again.
The myth that comfrey is completely benign just won't die.
It's popped up again on a mailing list I'm on. A list member lamented the fact that the FDA (or suchlike) has banned the plant ... here's my reply.
That's because comfrey contains livertoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
Which directly cause veno-occlusive liver disease.
Which is silent, until your liver is fried.
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale and other species) had been considered safe because the onset of liver problems is so slow that you couldn't really connect the disease to the plant. Also, they didn't do liver autopsies all that often, half a century and more ago. Nowadays, liver autopsies are a tad more common; in addition, there's the possibility of doing a liver biopsy - same as an autopsy, but on live people. Autopsies and biopsies do prove that yep, comfrey is toxic.
Comfrey has necessitated a handful of liver transplants over the last two or three decades. Those are the ones where comfrey was known to cause liver failure. There might be more, and of course, there might be a few deaths due to liver failure due to comfrey livertoxicity.
This toxicity of comfrey has been known since the mid 1980s. Any herbal people who still insist that it's completely benign don't know what they're talking about.
Another herb which contains livertoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids is coltsfoot (Petasites hybridus and other species, and Tussilago farfara). Of these, Petasites has killed a baby, cos mom drank the tea for her cough ...
Stay away from all and any of the plants which contain livertoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids, especially if you're pregnant or nursing.
The Germans are perhaps sanest about these toxic alkaloids, and suggest that you might drink Tussilago (but not Petasites) tea for a few weeks every year. You'll find their suggestions for European herbs here.
Note, there are also nontoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Echinacea is an example of a plant which contains completely benign pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
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Instead of comfrey, try calendula or plantago - both of these are extremely good tissue healers. Add one or the other high-silica mineral herb like horsetail or the green parts of oats to that, and you've pretty much emulated comfrey's healer + minerals qualities.
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Related entries: Livertoxic PAs - Coltsfoot toxicity
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You'll find them in both.
You'll find them in both.
That's very nice. Now, how
That's very nice. Now, how much PAs were in that comfrey in spring? Full summer? Fall? How much in the young leaf? Old leaf?
Until you've tested it in a lot of circumstances, you can't say that it's free of livertoxic PAs.
(And I don't really believe Symphytum x uplandicum to be PA free -- it's a hybrid of garden comfrey (Symphytum officinale) and prickly comfrey (Symphytum asperum), both of which contain livertoxic PAs.
Neither does Professor Roeder, who tested the plant: "4.1.12. Symphytum x uplandicum ... A total alkaloid content of ca. 0.2% was found in the dried aerial parts [90, 91, 139, 140]. Russian comfrey should no longer be used for medicinal purposes.")
Next, garden comfrey comes in two colors ... light yellow and purple.
Then, about those "handful of stories of long term use with no problems": when did these people have their last liver biopsy? Because if they haven't had that done, they have no idea if comfrey is damaging them or not ... until their liver is fried.
And go read the PA article, it's fairly substantial.
Anybody who distinguishes
Anybody who distinguishes comfreys by flower color has no idea what comfrey they're actually looking at. Most of them are purple, garden comfrey (and creeping comfrey) can also be light yellow (or even striped light/dark pink), only one of them is bright blue, and so on.
What counts, with comfreys, is the form of the flower (and how the leaf attaches to the stem, and height, and so on). Botany. It's likely useful on a number of fronts, if you're into plants. Of course, it's muddled quite a lot by the various comfrey hybrid swarms ...
No, I don't use comfrey
No, I don't use comfrey externally either. The pyrrolizidine alkaloids don't get in through whole skin (so it's good for sprains and things), dunno about broken skin though.
Joy: that's nice. Now 1) go
Joy: that's nice. Now 1) go re-read the bit about liver damage (which isn't cancer), 2) re-read the bit where it says that yep, the plant itself (not a single constituent) causes liver damage in people (which aren't mice), and 3) fix your caps-lock key. Thanks.
Comfrey is INSIDIOUS. You
Comfrey is INSIDIOUS. You don't even know that it has severely damaged your liver... and then you die.
So, how many liver autopsies have been done on your 9 generations of family? And how many liver biopsies?
Because you cannot say that it hasn't killed anybody (by destroying their liver) UNLESS you have checked the liver. Before or after death -- it doesn't really matter which you chose.
1) congratulations on
1) congratulations on knowing a) what your family has eaten for 9 generations back, and 2) what they died of for 9 generations back. That's quite a feat, and I expect you're really really old...
2) I've seen lots of people with severe liver damage, with NO jaundice, at all. Try pretty much anybody with chronic Hep B for starters. Hep B is a killer ... Hep C didn't show jaundice, either, in the ones I've seen.
Oooh. A full-out flame,
Oooh. A full-out flame, complete with a personal attack!
1) Yes, people have in fact had liver transplants because of comfrey. There's nothing inconclusive about it.
2) while I applaud your attack on the medical mainstream, you're unfortunately not helping herbs any - because comfery is livertoxic, not "withheld by the medical mafia".
3) You'll have to shout louder if you want people to actually believe that I don't understand herbs. Really. You're so far off the mark that your remark makes me smirk, not frown.
4) Do read up on hepatitis B -- and its incurability -- there's a good Lana. Yes, I've seen one (1) confirmed hep B completely disappear on a liver biopsy, after decades of disease. That is, however, extraordinary, and nothing you can count on for your general run-of-the-mill hep B. It's still, for all practical purposes, incurable.