Talk:Chamomile

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2021 and 1 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ReemFaraj.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:09, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Ambiguous images

The two images on this page are not helpful: this is a disambiguation page, but the images are labeled only with the ambiguous name.

I'd fix this myself but I don't know what the correct labels are (guessing German chamomile but I'd hate to inject a mistake).— Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.115.25.249 (talk • contribs) 12:18, 11 August 2005‎ (UTC)

Variety sold in stores

Which variety is most commonly the source of the chamomile tea you'd buy in a store? Or are the differences between the German and Roman varieties inconsequential as far as tea is concerned?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.254.232.125 (talk • contribs) 06:53, 12 January 2006‎ (UTC)

Effects

What are the properties and effects of this, as an oil, on the various body systems? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.14.163 (talk) 19:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added a number of external links to some U.S. Government sources that I think provide what you're looking for, and hopefully someone will incorporate here at a future date. My only real question, here, is the nature of this article. Is it a disambiguation (in which case it should be formally turned into one) or is it a general article about all kinds of chamomile, in which case it should be re-worked into a less disambiguatory form and lots of other info should be added. -Miskaton (talk) 21:19, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I broke down and added the very highest level review of some of those sources that I could to the article. I basically just listed the examples of conditions that have any promising data and known side-effects. It's only a start, but at least it's that. -Miskaton (talk) 22:10, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

In latin america, Chamomile (Manzinilla) is believed by many to cure ailments ranging from diaper rash to hangnails to HIV. Or at least thats what they'd have you think.... 70.197.110.116 (talk) 01:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Tea doesn't taste bad

I would just like to chime in and state that, brewed properly, is very sweet, not bitter. Any tea that is brewed improperly will taste bad. Someone should change that. 66.188.254.197 (talk) 06:56, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

NIH study - Chamomile's potential as an anti-anxiety medication

Information that perhaps should be incorporated into this article: http://nccih.nih.gov/news/newsletter/2010_may/chamomileanxiety.htm - "Study Shows Chamomile Capsules Ease Anxiety Symptoms" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/19593179 - "A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of oral Matricaria recutita (chamomile) extract therapy for generalized anxiety disorder." ClovisPt (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/chamomile Source #3 on main page is broken, this is a corrected link. 2601:540:8200:135:2B28:91AD:BE72:32B8 (talk) 17:39, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Medicinal/alternative therapy uses

I'm curious; is this section supposed to even pretend to be neutral? There could at least be a listing of what its' positive characteristics are supposed to be, even if it is acknowledged that research hasn't been done on all of them. Seriously; what sort of blatantly pro-Establishment shills write these articles?

Petrus4 (talk) 20:27, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It's main use is that it is a smooth muscle relaxant as well as having mild antiseptic properties, therefore it has uses in resolving digestion issues. This is common knowledge, however this article has been raped by the usual Wikipedia trolls and therefore no longer contains any useful information.

--89.212.75.6 (talk) 11:54, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Actual information regarding growing the plant?

This article reads like an ad for phony alternative herb therapies. Seriously; what sort of foolish hippie quack or Chinese herb witch doctor writes these articles?

It's a plant. Doesn't it have some objective properties? Where does it grow naturally? What temperature does it require? What light levels? Is it annual? Perennial? Does it bloom? When? What kind of soil does it thrive in? I'm not even a botanist and I can imagine these simple questions. Instead I get a bunch of hoodoo about alleged and unproven mood altering properties.

98.167.164.240 (talk) 21:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed! I came here looking for information on identifying the plant and it's growing range. Only found weak claims of it's medicinal value. 47.183.228.218 (talk) 10:52, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Very poor sources

I checked the sources that give the following claims:

It is known to reduce stress.

Chamomile is also useful as an antidiuretic.

They certainly don't pass as reliable medical sources, as they appear to be advocacy pieces/articles from questionable organizations/web sites which contain claims and speculation without citing reliable medical sources (studies, reviews) and therefore impossible to verify. I will look for reliable sources supporting (or refuting) the claims regarding stress reduction and alledged antidiuretic effects and remove the sentences. I would also like to expand or entirely rewrite (as it's really messy, incomplete, missing prose) the section 'Medicinal use' and the lede, but I'm not accustomed with the manual of style for medical articles yet. Any suggestions how to improve the article? --Semilanceata (talk) 06:59, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

References

Ambiguity of common name

Even though the article describes several species, and notably, species in different genera, the article defaults to simply 'Chamomile' even though it is clear that there are many distinct plant types. Can contributors please elaborate which species are used for what purposes and what differences there are between them, if any, and most importantly define which species are being referred to. This is particularly important when citing research, and may even clear up some issues described above. This is exactly why the vernacular or common names is not sufficient - please help to improve this article by simply being precise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.246.181 (talk) 07:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I had the same reaction. One of two things ought to be done. Either, every claim about usage and effects should be made species specific, or this article should be changed to be about the most common variety, Matricaria recutita, with secondary notes about the other varieties also being called chamomile. I checked the references of the two claims in the Medical uses section and all of the studies referenced used Matricaria recutita, so I've edited those claims to specify German chamomile. I don't have time at the moment to check and edit all of the other claims in other sections. --Ericjs (talk) 03:41, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Reading the Species section again, I realize there are really only two species being called chamomile, the others merely have the word chamomile in their name. There might be chemical analysis data to show whether they both contain the same active compounds, and if they do it would be reasonable to simply cite that let the rest of the article talk generally about chamomile. --Ericjs (talk) 03:51, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

"Etymology" section is technically wrong.

Anthemis nobilis is the classical Latin and scientific name. The word chamomile is directly from Greek as milo is not the Latin name for apple. It is later medievil Latin that adopts / copies the Greek which is an untranslated directly imitated word. "By way of Latin" is an intellectually fraudulent way of repeatedly denying credit to something that has already been documented as completely Greek. e.g. Venus de Milo ; not a Venus and not Roman. Latin only had 20,000 until the end of the ancient period (Justinian), assertions that Greek must defer is a joke. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.6.135 (talk) 07:17, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Recently added medical claims

The are couple problems still with the added medical claims. All the source says about smooth muscle spasms is "Chamomile is believed to be helpful in reducing smooth muscle spasms". That's not a claim of efficacy, but the article now says "is helpful in reducing smooth muscle spasms". The article also has "lowered gastric acidity as effectively as a commercial antacid", while the source is referring to "a commercial preparation (STW5, Iberogast), containing the extracts of bitter candy tuft, lemon balm leaf, chamomile flower, caraway fruit, peppermint leaf, liquorice root, Angelica root, milk thistle fruit and greater celandine herb" as having antacid effects. There's no telling how much of the antacid effect is due to chamomile. Then we've got the source with "Chamomile is often used to treat mild skin irritations, including sunburn, rashes, sores and even eye inflammations (62–65) but its value in treating these conditions has not been shown with evidence-based research." That's repeated in the article without the bit about lack of research demonstrating value. While there's nothing technically false about "Chamomile is often used...", that's a pretty dodgy construction that won't fly under WP:MEDRS (and believe me, I am sympathetic in some cases to wanting to make claims of use that aren't accompanied by claims of efficacy; I shouldn't have to find a WP:MEDRS compliant source to claim that wormwood is so named because it was used as a vermifuge) Plantdrew (talk) 22:47, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Oops, and I assumed the skin irritation bit was copy pasted from the source and didn't pay close attention to the language in the article. The article was claiming "chamomile tea" was used for skin irritation and sunburns. It's most likely that chamomile is applied topically for these conditions, not ingested as a tea. Plantdrew (talk) 22:52, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: I hope you're not suggesting pouring camomile tea on our skins as a test! Hehe, j/k. I agree some sources are weak in their points, so there should be something we can find to back up our claims. Most of the sources might have references to other pages, which we can use. If they are backed by good study and scientific findings, then there's no reason to not put them on the article. I noticed that the section Tea is now under Research, is that intentional? Vormeph (talk) 21:56, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

@Vormeph:. It wasn't me that put Tea under Research. One of the people who work on medicine related articles came through and made a bunch of other changes (mostly aimed at cleaning up sourcing). WP:MEDRS sets a high bar, and wants more than just a good study and scientific findings. But I don't usually get involved with MEDRS related stuff. The first link you had added [1] doesn't pass RS, let alone MEDRS. You eventually added a decent source, but with the string of reversions and readditions I was giving your edits more scrutiny than usual, and was getting a little deletionist. As far as I'm concerned, topical use for eczema could be mentioned, but it didn't belong in the tea section. Sorry, I should have been less trigger happy and moved it rather than deleted it. Plantdrew (talk) 01:41, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: I think we should list any sources we want to include in the article under this discussion and see if each are worth using. It will be easier than parsing through the entire article for bad sources. Here's an article pertaining to a scientific study on camomile tea:

• http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/04/29/geront.gnv051.abstract

I'll look for other sources too thare are backed with scientific findings. Vormeph (talk) 13:25, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

As I understand MEDRS, that article wouldn't pass (at least for the main claim that chamomile reduces mortality). MEDRS wants secondary sources (review articles), not primary sources (single studies), no matter how well the single studies are designed. Plantdrew (talk) 17:35, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: I got that article from the Telegraph. Here is the news article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/11622994/Could-camomile-tea-help-women-live-longer.html Vormeph (talk) 18:08, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Removed some of the health claims stuff - including all mention of anti-cancer - and changed the section name from Pharmacology to Research, but much of this is still too weakly supported by the science evidence to be included. Needs to be MEDRS. David notMD (talk) 11:34, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

also i would like to say, as someone who take blood thinners, and the medication i take says nothing about avoiding chamomile tea. and i happen to drink this tea everyday and have not had an affect on my health. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.221.142.230 (talk) 06:03, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Plant info please

Where are these plants native? What types of climate do they prefer? Etc. Please add information about these plants to this article.-73.61.15.193 (talk) 03:29, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

No verified clinical effects

Kevingweinberg disputes the statement of inadequate clinical evidence for using chamomile as an anti-disease therapy or to promote health. The two general sources used - MedlinePlus and NCCIH - and one other by Drugs.com state that there is insufficient evidence for its use in treating diseases or promoting health, mainly because high-quality clinical research is difficult to design, finance, and conduct on herbal products like chamomile, and so have not been done, especially in rigorous randomized controlled trials. A PubMed search for reviews on clinical studies of chamomile yields no high-quality studies or convincing evidence that mainstream medicine uses chamomile for any purpose. Chamomile also has potential for adverse interactions with prescribed drugs, shown here. --Zefr (talk) 13:29, 6 August 2019 (UTC)/

@Zefr: Thanks for posting this & for your patience with me being relatively new to the mechanics of this world of editing. The last sentence of the lede still reads to me as basically "Chamomile is traditionally considered to be medicinal, but it doesn't really do anything as far as we can tell." I still think this isn't quite right. For example, one of the commonly cited qualities of many aromatic herbs (herbs containing volatile oils, which distilled become essential oils) is that their aromatic quality has an "antispasmodic" effect on the smooth musculature (blood vessels, stomach lining, intestinal lining, etc.). Both roman chamomile and german chamomile (Matricaria) contain volatile oils as a constituent which has been investigated. Volatile oils are what herbalists typically cite as the physiological basis for much of chamomile's effect, especially as tea upon inhalation (and ingestion). Here are a couple sources that mention the smooth muscle relaxant mechanism of inhaling the volatile oils of chamomile, as one does when drinking a hot tea.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580871/ (german)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6539827/ (german)

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2018.00323/full (roman)

At the least, we should be using language from RS -- the study I cited states that there is "insufficient" evidence, not none. What do you think about editing the last sentence of the lede to read something more like below?

"Two of the species (Matricaria recutita and Chamaemelum nobile) are commonly used to make herbal infusions for traditional medicine. There is insufficient evidence that chamomile has an effect on health or disease." Kevingweinberg (talk) 20:48, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Conflicting info re tea versus medicine

The Tea section says using it as a tea would have no medical effects. But the section on drug interactions claims that it can interfere with certain drugs.

The article barely mentions the most common uses of chamomile, as a relaxing tea. It should be possible for Wikipedia to describe herbal products and how they are actually used and marketed in the world, even on a planet where the medical world insists on double-blind randomized clinical trials. When the medical sources say there is "not enough evidence" (i.e. nobody has done studies to their standards) then that is not a reason to wipe out all mentions of traditional herbal uses (such as taking chamomile tea before going to bed, to aid sleep). A lack of evidence is not the same as proof of irrelevance. I would argue that if there are reputable medical sources that say that it DOES NOTHING, then eliminating claims from extremely common sources that it does something would make sense under WP:MEDRS. But if there are no reputable medical sources that say that it DOES NOTHING, then eliminating claims from extremely common sources that it does something, would put undue weight on the medical sources that say there is not enough evidence. Gnuish (talk) 00:24, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Fake and not fake

Germany chamomile is not actually chamomile soo why is it here? 2A04:241E:202:6900:919C:2172:D448:71C9 (talk) 23:47, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Mechanism of Action

On Medscape

• Tiglic acid esters: antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory
• Chamazulene: antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, antibacterial
• Apigenin: anti-inflammatory (comparable to NSAIDs)
• Azulene: anti-inflammatory
• Umbelliferone: fungicidal
• Bisabolols: antimicrobial, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic

Jamplevia (talk) 16:37, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

References

That's an unusable source which likely reflects findings from in vitro or other lab research, and therefore is too preliminary to mention in an encyclopedia. Any of those effects would have to be confirmed by a WP:MEDRS review (which doesn't exist). Zefr (talk) 20:31, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

If the article contained the phrase "chamomile is perceived as having antispasmodic effects" how would that not be true and supportable? Jamplevia (talk) 19:11, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

That's a vague statement ("is perceived"), is not scientifically established as true, and has no MEDRS source. It has no value in an encyclopedia. Zefr (talk) 19:20, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Well you better go look for it and fix it because it's out there. Jamplevia (talk) 00:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

There's misinformation "out there" on many topics. The role of good editing is to screen out the nonsense like this one and adhere to reliable sources. Zefr (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

RE: Medicinal Effects

I actually came here to use Wikipedia as a starting point for looking into whether chamomile tea actually did anything sleep-related, but this article has some really weird inherent contradictions that led to me making an account instead!

The lead talks about "insufficient evidence", the tea section says "may improve sleep quality", and the research section says "There is no high-quality clinical evidence that it is useful for treating insomnia or any disease" - it reads rather like the article is arguing with itself. I did a little looking around of my own and found this meta review:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31006899/

Before making my own edit, since I've basically never touched Wikipedia, I thought I'd post here in case someone else had thoughts about how to bring the article into harmony with itself. If it were up to me I might trim the research section entirely and just put in the lead:

"Chamomile is widely believed to have a variety of medicinal effects; most of these have insufficient supporting evidence, but there is some evidence that consuming it in food or drink can improve sleep quality and mitigate generalized anxiety disorder."

Using the study that I linked above as the relevant cite. I did some digging on Phytotherapy Research, the journal this was published in; near as I can tell it seems like a perfectly reasonable publication.

Please let me know what you think. Vylraz (talk) 21:07, 9 October 2022 (UTC)