Sweet Flag
Botanical Description & Habitat
Acorus calamus
Family
Araceae
Common names
| Calamus | Grass myrtle |
| Myrtle flag | Sweet myrtle |
| Sweet rush | Sweetgrass |
Habitat
Indigenous plant found in wet, swampy places throughout the United States.
Description
A perennial, horizontal rootstock which may reach five feet in length. It produces sword-shaped leaves which grow from two to six feet in height. A flower stalk also arises from the rootstock, bearing a cylindrical spadix of green-yellow flowers.
Medicinal parts
Rootstock, dried, collected in autumn
Historical Properties & Uses
Sweet flag, or Calamus, has a long history of use (in biblical times) throughout Asia, northern Europe, and more recently, North America. It is employed primarily as a specific for stomach problems: in Europe, North America, India, and Pakistan it is used to relieve dyspepsia, flatulence, and anorexia, and as a carminative and gastrointestinal stimulant.
Sweet flag has an important secondary use in nervous conditions: in both North America and Asia, it is used as a sedative, nerve tonic, and treatment for epilepsy, neuralgia, and convulsions. Used in India as an analgesic for toothaches, hysteria, nominal pain and also as a febrifuge, and is common among native American Indians as well. These cultures use sweetflag as a treatment for asthma and coughs, and sometimes as an aphrodisiac. Most of sweet flag's uses (except as an aphrodisiac) find support in experimental research.
Method of Action
Sweet Flag Has Sedative And Hypotensive Properties
Sweet flag root contains volatile oil of 1.5 to 4.5%. The oil is a mixture of asarone and B-asarone (70-80-%); other components of the oil are eugenol, pinene, camphene and caryophylollene. The oil itself probably accounts for many of the properties and uses of the herb.
The major finding is that the oil has marked sedative properties. It potentiates barbiturate and ethanol hypnosis in mice, and has a sedative-tranquilizing effect on rats, mice, cats, dogs, monkeys and humans. Most investigators believe these properties depend on the presence of asarone. Intravenous injections of calamus oil (5-10 mg/kg) have increased respiratory volume and depressed blood pressure.
Possible CNS Effects Of Sweet Flag
Sweet flag has been popularized in recent years as a psychoactive plant, with definite CNS stimulant and hallucinogenic activity. However, the evidence to support this claim is not strong. There is a possibility asarone could be transformed in the body to hallucinogenic amphetamine derivatives (TMA--2,4,5-trimethoxyamphetamine), but studies along these lines have produce only equivocal evidence. In one routine screening study, sweet flag was found to exhibit what the researchers called "gross" effects on the central nervous system, but those effects are not further elucidated. And in yet another trial, a 5% emulsion of the essential oil of sweet flag at a dose of 50 mg/kg and found to produce general depression without ataraxia in mice.
Sweet Flag Has Spasmolytic Activity
In experiments with isolated rabbit and guinea pig intestine, isolated guinea pig lungs, cat lungs in situ, and whole animals - guinea pigs, under conditions of anaphylactic shock, the essential oil of sweet flag manifested a strong spasmolytic effect against a number of spatically acting substances, such as acetylcholine, histamine, serotonin, and anaphylatoxin.
In one study the essential oil of sweet flag caused anaplylactic shock in guinea pigs pre-sensitized with egg albumen. The spasmolytic effect is considered to be myotropic.
Drug Interactions & Precautions
Known Interactions
Diuretics such as sweetflag may potentiate the action of antihypertensive, ganglionic or peripheral adrenergic blocking drugs, tubocurarine and, to a lesser degree, norepinephrine.
Possible Interactions
The tannin in sweet flag may potentiate the antibiotic activity of echinacea. The tannin in a tea made from this herb may be inactivated by the addition of milk or cream.
Comments
To the extent sweet flag's action depends on the presence of cholinergic substances, it will be affected by the decrease in cholinergic-receptor stimulation produced by anticholinergics.
Due to the presence of eugenol, sweet flag may inhibit certain liver microsomal hydroxylating systems, thereby producing toxic effects from the drugs normally metabolized by those systems. In addition, the presence of azulenes in the herb may interfere with the actions of bradykinin, histamine, serotonin and acetylcholine.
There is evidence to show combined use of bactericidal and bacteriostatic agents will lower the effectiveness of the bacteriostatic agent. However, how this finding applies to herbal anti-infectives is still unknown.
Safety Factors & Toxicity
Aside from the fairly remote possibility of hallucinogenic effects, sweet flag appears to be completely nontoxic. There are some reports beta-asarone, a constituent of the herb, is carcinogenic, but cases of human cancer traceable to sweet flag ingestion have not been reported.
Sweetflag has received some attention from the counterculture as a possible hallucinogen, but research on this point is equivocal at best. Sweet flag is considered unsafe for human consumption by the FDA due to possible carcinogenicity.
Preparation & Administration
Three times a day
The oil is not recommended since it is reported to be carcinogenic
Dried rhizome
1-3 grams
Tea
made from 1/2 tsp of dried rhizome
Fluid extract
1:1 in 60% alcohol, 1-3 ml
Tincture
1:5 in 60% alcohol, 2-4 ml
Note: This Herbal Preparation information is a summary of data from books and articles by various authors. It is not intended to replace the advice or attention of health care professionals.
References
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Acorus calamus
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