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Peppermint oil reduces blood pressure by 8.48 mmHg in small study
- yumraj 1mo agoThere are two types of peppermint supplements being sold: mentha pipereta that this study looked at, and mentha arvensis. I wonder if mentha arvensis has the same effect. Supplements vs mint tea would be another interesting thing to study in future.
- kzrdude 1mo agoBased on your new information, I think it would be good to test the effect of supplemenths vs supplemints.
- tclancy 1mo agoPlease consider the fact there may be children reading before you do something like this again.
- trueno 1mo agoim bored and want to buy some peppermint sups. someone drop a brand and sell me on it in the marketplace of ideas
- overtone1000 1mo agoThat is very accurate sphygmomanometry!
- I_dream_of_Geni 1mo agoI'm guessing that this number is the result of the average of "x" people in the study, and not an individual measurement. But, yeah, I see what that looks like.
- jeffnv 1mo agoNoticing that the waist circumference on average went down on the peppermint group (85.17 -> 84.61) while the placebo group it went up (88.33 -> 88.65)? Also the resting heart rate dropped for the peppermint group. My initial suspicion is that the peppermint group coincidentally was also the 'got in better shape' group. Maybe the peppermint helped, but for relatively small groups that also seem to be improving waist circumference and heart rates likely due to good diet and exercise, I'm not convinced the peppermint did jack shit. More investigation needed! Would be awesome if it helped though!
- rolisz 1mo agoMaybe it helps with weight loss (I wish)
- yumraj 1mo agoIt seems to aid in digestion, soothe upset stomach, so maybe it does.
- leni536 1mo agoIt did help Mr Creosote.
- ThePowerOfFuet 1mo agoBut it was just wafer-thin!
- potatoking 1mo agoI'd think weight could be causal for hypertension result or sentiment over health measurement could have been causal for weight or the study could just be too small.
- criddell 1mo agoWhen you say weight, do you really mean obesity? And if you are talking about weight, is it likely that people who live in low gravity environments will have fewer hypertension problems?
- DonHopkins 1mo agoDoctor Bronner was right! Peppermint - Pure-Castile Magic Soap: Cool, Refresh, and Awaken with Invigorating Peppermint https://www.drbronner.com/products/peppermint-pure-castile-liquid-soap https://www.drbronner.com/products/peppermint-pure-castile-l... Dr. Bronner invented the peppermint oil soap for soiled diapers https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1978/nov/02/cover-look-for-the-soap-with-the-peace-plan-on-the https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1978/nov/02/cover-look-f... Created in California: How Dr. Bronner’s became the soap for every subculture https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-07-12/dr-bronners https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-07-12/dr-bronner... >Perhaps inspired by that experimental ethos, customers have discovered their own unusual uses in the years since Emanuel started mixing gallons of peppermint castile soap out of his Pershing Square tenement apartment in 1948. [...] >David, Mike and Lisa Bronner grew up in Glendale, not giving much thought to the prospect of one day taking over the family business and generally regarding their grandfather as a bewildering figure. >“My granddad was always talking about uniting ‘Spaceship Earth,’ and it was kind of sailing over our heads,” David said. >“He’d be talking to us as if we were all PhD students in religious studies,” Mike said of visits to Emanuel’s home when the siblings were in elementary school. “He was blind, and every once in a while he would say, ‘Are you there?’ and we’d be like, “All-one, Grandpa!’ And he’d be like, ‘Very good. OK, I want you to recite the peppermint bottle.’” Lisa Bronner: The Poetry of the Lavender Label https://www.lisabronner.com/the-poetry-of-the-lavender-label https://www.lisabronner.com/the-poetry-of-the-lavender-label >The label on the quart size of the Lavender Pure-Castile Magic Soap holds the greatest insight for me into his motivations and goals. The Peppermint label records the tenets of his Moral ABC, his guidelines for humanity to find unity and a path forward. But it is the Lavender quart that hosts his poetry, and in that I see his heart. [...] >"To keep my health! To do my work! To love, to live!" >"Great peace is found in little busyness." >"Work well yourself and work for all." >"Til we rally, raise, unite!" >"All-One-God-Faith, All-One! Unite!" >"Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime." >"Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal." >"Let us then be up and doing ... still achieving, still pursuing" >"In all we do, let us be generous, fair & loving to Spaceship Earth and all its inhabitants." >"We're ALL-ONE OR NONE! ALL-ONE!"
- NDizzle 1mo agoThis is my favorite soap, by far, for what it’s worth. The peppermint one, in fact. ALL ONE!
- alastairr 1mo agoPeppermint group N=20. Mkay. 2 of those lost to followup, one because they didn't like the taste (control group got peppermint cordial). The result might be real but needs followup before we all starting gulping down peppermint oil.
- bryceacc 1mo ago>50 µL of supplement diluted into 100 mL of water pretty tiny amount of peppermint was consumed
- jeffbee 1mo agoThat's enough to turn a whole barrel of water detectably minty.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1mo agoI was surprised by this too. From a background in writing code to control precision pumps, I have a good idea of what 50 µL looks like and it seemed like an awfully small amount. But I don't know how concentrated the oil is. FWIW, I had an Indian co-worker who took peppermint oil frequently and said that it was very good for his upset stomach.
- cogman10 1mo ago> The result might be real How could they be? The peppermint cordial almost certainly contains peppermint oil! The authors chose it because it wasn't explicitly listed on the ingredients list, but what was listed was "flavorings". I highly doubt coca cola used anything other than peppermint oil to flavor a peppermint drink. That would be bizarre to say the least.
- Palomides 1mo agoHN really upvotes some dumb medical articles, come on, n=20 about peppermint?
- rozap 1mo agoSilence, we have disruptive direct to consumer peptide startups that need to pump.
- red-iron-pine 1mo agodo the peptides have n < 20? cuz if so they may have more reason to sell than the bloody mint oil
- binarymax 1mo agoI've got an n=65 about hibiscus and blood pressure, which has been better well known for awhile. https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2008/study-shows-consuming-hibiscus-tea-lowers-blood-pressure/ https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2008...
- spathi_fwiffo 1mo agonow we need a study of adding Peppermint oil into hybiscus tea.
- ChickeNES 1mo agoFrom PLOS One as well! I remember in college, I was taking a bio class that taught how to read journal articles...and a psych class that was assigning them. Psych class assigned almost solely PLOS One articles...which didn't survive the criticism I was being taught in the bio class lmao
- liveoneggs 1mo agoherbal tea is good for you, it seems
- SwellJoe 1mo agoThis study did not involve tea. Do you have links to studies showing herbal tea has similar effect? (Sincere question, I drink a lot of peppermint tea for its mild decongestant effects.)
- techteach00 1mo agoAlso works well for IBS. Popular brand name green box. Bit pricey.
- catigula 1mo agoThe funny thing is, I've read countless meta-analyses on various mainstream drugs, where total n=hundreds of thousands, and I still don't know if they work at all or not.
- reilly3000 1mo agoAren’t people generally getting some via toothpaste?
- simondotau 1mo agoBut do you spit or swallow?
- garbageman 1mo agoWhatever you want baby
- Havoc 1mo agoI need my porch painted and tradesmen are expensive
- jrflo 1mo agoWhenever I see a study like this I assume that the researchers won the p<0.05 lottery
- justonceokay 1mo agoClassic xkcd on this topic https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
- colechristensen 1mo agoIf you've tried 20 things, you've probably won that lottery. It's an easy lottery to win.
- Otterly99 1mo agoVery likely. If they really wanted to make the results a bit stronger, they could at least have switched the two groups after 20 days.
- cogman10 1mo agoI think that's more than likely here as "placebo" was literally this peppermint cordial [1]. They say it doesn't have peppermint oil in it... but it does list "flavorings" and I don't know how you make something taste like peppermint without using peppermint (or why you wouldn't). The other possible explanation is 1 group is basically drinking an extra 200ml of water with a microscopic amount of peppermint oil, and the other group is drinking an extra 200ml of sugar water. The researchers may have literally just stumbled on the fact that more water and less soda has positive health impacts. [1] https://www.tesco.com/shop/en-GB/products/254854798 https://www.tesco.com/shop/en-GB/products/254854798
- Lu2025 1mo agoWell, mint tea does make me sleepy
- profsummergig 1mo agoSo does it therefore reduce stress? Anyone?
- Finnucane 1mo agoThose old York's Peppermint Patty ads were on to something.
- paimapi 1mo agoa single RCT of 40 people is about middle-of-the-range when it comes the hierarchy of evidence and is at best a 'that's neat, I'll wait a few years for there to be more studies' if you don't want to do any more thinking about it, a 'I need to see it in context of other studies' if you want a lot of work, or a 'I sure hope there's a meta/review' if you don't have the time but still want to remain skeptical that said, there is a GRADE-assessed systematic review and meta on mint (PMC11587584) and this linked study's results are 7x the pooled effect size (SBP -8.5mmHg vs -1.2mmHg) of the other RCTs. the review also concludes that more high quality RCTs are needed before anything approaching clinical significance the wildly disproportionate effect size indicates to me that this is one going to be one of those outlier studies that future reviewers will either likely omit or clearly state that it is an outlier result and if they're super duper honest they'll provide the new pooled results with and without this outlier study
- t1234s 1mo agoCeylon cinnamon also helps lower blood pressure https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-ceylon-cinnamon https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-ceylon-cinnamon
- panda_fan 1mo agoit's 2026, better sources than webmd exist: https://www.supplementdex.com/ https://www.supplementdex.com/ or examine.com
- 1337h4xx 1mo agoEssential oils are quite versatile for self-experimentation; maybe one day the world will rediscover oilahuasca.
- _heimdall 1mo agoPeppermint is also very helpful for headaches and nausea in my experience. I'll smell some peppermint oil or put a drop on my upper lip, headaches and nausea go away pretty soon after.
- DennisP 1mo agoI grew up sailing on the Chesapeake, and we used it for seasickness.
- saulpw 1mo agoMaybe we can add some licorice root to balance the effect.
- drakonka 1mo agoI wonder if the benefits could be seen to some extent with peppermint tea as well. I generally drink a cup daily because aside from just being relaxing I find it helps acne or other skin inflammation calm down faster.
- amelius 1mo agoMaybe because it suppresses/modulates certain hormones? I'd be careful ... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0090429504004182 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009042950... > We performed this study because of major complaints in our area from men about the adverse effects of these herbs on male reproductive function.
- drakonka 1mo agoI'm not personally concerned with male reproductive function, but have looked into the hormonal effects in women as well. Some have been beneficial when peppermint is ingested in appropriate amounts. Everything in moderation.
- Zylokloto 1mo agoAnother thing you should do. How do people even become like 60-70 or 80 around me without all this magic? tztztzt
- killerstorm 1mo agoFun fact: in Soviet Union a common drug which people believe might reduce chance of a heart attack or stroke in high-stress/panic situation was Validol. What people don't know is that it was just peppermint oil + glucose. I.e. a mint candy in a pill form. Perhaps it actually did help people just acting as a placebo / distracting from their panic. "I did something now I should get better". But a concept of a panic attack was not widely known. I guess doctors believed it's easier to prescribe Validol which "prevents heart attack" than to explain people that their panic attack symptoms are caused by their brain
- perks_12 1mo agoN=40. No idea why one would release such bullshit. The worst part will be the idiotic news outlets publishing the stupid headline followed by the pseudoscience peddlers pushing peppermint oil supplements onto an ever-increasing boomer population by AI-generated Instagram ads. Lovely times we live in.
- padjo 1mo agoPublish or perish mentality + difficulty funding a larger study is why this gets published. There's nothing particularly wrong with it as an exploratory study, the big problem is the lack of incentive to try to reproduce the results and publish the inevitable null result.
- cogman10 1mo agoEven worse, the placebo group drank peppermint cordial. The researchers are arguing there is no peppermint oil in it because it's not a listed ingredient, but the listed ingredients have "flavorings". Which, I'd be shocked if it weren't peppermint oil. This is the "placebo" they used [1] [1] https://www.tesco.com/shop/en-GB/products/254854798 https://www.tesco.com/shop/en-GB/products/254854798
- bell-cot 1mo agoA small, traumatized little part of me is envisioning a whole new aisle of "Heart Healthy" peppermint ice cream products appearing in every store, holiday decorations going up, and speakers blaring Christmas carols a week before Labor Day. /s?
- cogman10 1mo agoGarbage study. The placebo was literally peppermint oil (they say what it is in the study). [1] They claim it didn't have peppermint oil in it because it's not listed in the ingredients... but the ingredients have a catch all "flavorings" listed. I highly doubt Coca Cola is getting a peppermint flavor by using anything other than peppermint oil. It's an incredibly cheap and easy oil to extract. So you had 2 groups drinking roughly the same thing and one did better than the other. The only real difference is one got sugar water and the test group got unsweetened water. [1] https://www.tesco.com/shop/en-GB/products/254854798 https://www.tesco.com/shop/en-GB/products/254854798