Lavender - Medicinal Plant of the Year 2020

The real lavender is one of the best known and most popular mint plants and has been used as a herbal medicine for calming and relaxation for centuries. Due to its diverse uses in history and newly available research results, the interdisciplinary study group Development History of Medicinal Herbology chooses real lavender as the Medicinal Plant of the Year 2020.

botany

The real lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is a gray-tomentose hairy, aromatic-smelling subshrub with a height of 30 to 80 cm. The upright, heavily branched branches contain oil glands, as do the opposite leaves and calyxes. The flowers are purple to amethyst in color. They are arranged in pseudo whorls and form an up to 8 cm long, spiked inflorescence. The flowers are primarily used as a spice and in medicine, and the entire flowering herb is used in the distillation process.

History

The medicinal use of lavender in Europe goes back far into Greco-Roman antiquity, but back then the poppy lavender (Lavandula stoechas) was still in the foreground. The name goes back to the Latin verb 'lavare' for 'to wash', as lavender was used early on for washing water and baths. The real lavender can be described as the discovery of monastery medicine. Hildegard von Bingen emphasizes the strong fragrance and recommended it in the middle of the 12th century for external use and against vermin. In addition, the Speik lavender (Lavandula latifolia) was also important in the Middle Ages. Starting in the 16th century, lavender developed into a popular garden plant, starting in England. In Leonhart Fuchs' famous herbal books 1542/43, all three types of lavender are presented side by side.

Modern

Today's medicinal use of real lavender solidified in the late 19th century. Since then it has been described as a remedy for nervous conditions and insomnia. Despite the indications from medical history and folk medicine, however, an ambitious research program was only launched after the turn of the millennium to clarify the areas of application of a high-dose and defined lavender oil in capsules.

"Right from the start there was a nice improvement in sleep disorders in connection with psychological stress after 6 weeks of treatment. In the following, the research focused on the subject of restlessness and anxiety, and here a significant effectiveness could be shown in many placebo-controlled clinical studies "says Prof. Dr. Dr. Bernhard Uehleke from Berlin, who was involved in the research himself (Uehleke et al. 2012).

Two current reviews (Kasper et al. 2017, Donelli et al. 2019) were able to impressively confirm the effectiveness in the claimed indications. Another impulse came from basic research, where a mechanism for a calming, anxiolytic effect via calcium channels was identified (Schuwald et al. 2013).

"Lavender oil is also the most widely used essential oil in aromatherapy and, along with rose oil, is a therapeutic agent with a wide range of possible uses," adds the biologist and aromatherapist Dr. Elke Puchtler from Erlangen.

The most important areas of application of the essential lavender oil today are in the psychological area. The calming, stress-reducing, anxiety-relieving, relaxing effects of lavender oil are in the foreground here. Lavender essential oil is an important therapeutic agent for stress, anxiety, insomnia, neurasthenia, post-traumatic disorders and panic attacks. Taking the essential lavender oil in the form of capsules is particularly suitable here, but also the external use of therapeutically dosed body oils.

The interdisciplinary study group Development History of Herbal Medicine was founded in 1999 at the University of Würzburg. The initiator was the then professor for pharmaceutical biology, Prof. Franz-Christian Czygan (d. 2012). Another formative personality was the medical historian Dr. Johannes Gottfried Mayer, to whom the suggestion for the lavender goes back. After his unexpected death, the study group was expanded beyond Würzburg and is now also supported by scientists from other institutions such as the German Museum of Medical History in Ingolstadt, the German Pharmacy Museum in Heidelberg and the Chair for Aroma and Smell Research at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. The primary goal remains to emphasize the history of plants in medicine and their pharmaceutical use.

References

1. Bernhard Uehleke et al.: Phase II trial on the effects of Silexan in patients with neurasthenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or somatization disorder. Phytomedicine (2012).
doi: 10.1016/j.phymed.2012.02.020

2. Siegfried Kasper et al.: Silexan in anxiety disorders: Clinical data and pharmacological background. The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry (2017).
doi: 10.1080/15622975.2017.1331046

3. Davide Donelli et al.: Effects of lavender on anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Phytomedicine (2019).
doi: 10.1016/j.phymed.2019.153099

4. Anita M. Schuwald et al.: Lavender Oil-Potent Anxiolytic Properties via Modulating Voltage Dependent Calcium Channels. PLOS ONE (2013).
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059998