2/14/2023 0 Comments Symphytum officinale banned![]() Aspirin is a synthesized chemical, acetylsalicylic acid, based on a real life plant constituent found in meadowsweet & willow. A chemical in isolation will cause different reactions from a group of chemical constituents containing that one as well. Also baby rats are smaller than humans they do not have the same metabolism as humans and an isolated chemical injected outside the rat's stomach wall is not the same as a human eating leaves with many chemical constituents and digesting them normally. In other words far more comfrey than a human would eat to get such a toxic level of. Secondly, when the toxicity tests were done in the late 70s, a chemical constituent called pyrrolizidine alkaloid was isolated, extracted from leaves & injected into baby rats at what many medical herbalists consider an "unrealistic level". Medical herbalists in the UK, from whose written reports I am extrapolating, point out that Russian comfrey was probably the herb used in the toxicity trials yet regular comfrey is also restricted or banned. Russian comfrey, the great compost heap maker, is Symphytum x uplandicum. ![]() Regular, common, medicinal comfrey is Symphytum officinale. ![]() The problem is two-fold: firstly there are two "comfreys" and reference to them is often casual. Governments in the UK & Australia have restricted the uses of comfrey root or banned the plant respectively. Comfrey is the victim of a bad press, inaccurate reports, and four true cases of toxicity which in themselves are not straightforward, but suggest overdosing on comfrey.
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