A Wildflower’s Limited Medical Use Has Been Hijacked By Pseudomedicine

Got bruises? Recently popularized, centuries-old folk remedies include gels, teas, or capsules of arnica, a yellow flower that grows across mainland Europe. Searches for “arnica tea” have <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2013-08-07+2023-08-07&geo=US&q=arnica+tea" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">more than tripled</a> over the last five years. That’s bad news for indulgers, because all parts of arnica are poisonous! From Spain to the Ukraine, this flower, Arnica montana, thrives in nutrient-poor clay soil. Topical gels and creams made with extracts from the flowers are <a href="https://www.herbalgram.org/resources/herbalgram/issues/107/table-of-contents/hg107-herbpro-arnica/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">marketed to help</a> with pain relief, boils, bruises, inflammation, and even baldness. The flowers are dried and sold, incredibly diluted to minimize the poisonous effects, for use in teas and pills that also claim to treat the aforementioned maladies. <a href="https://medium.com/wise-well/a-wildflowers-limited-medical-use-has-been-hijacked-by-pseudomedicine-d425d30096f6">Learn More</a>