Essiac side effects

Essiac tea is an herbal mixture believed to be useful in the treatments of different cancers. Essiac tea was named after a Canadian nurse, who was familiar to Canadian native tribal medicine and who started using this medicinal tea in the 1920s in a hospital she worked in.

What is in Essiac Tea

There are several different recipes for the tea, but it usually contains roots of greater burdock, Indian or Turkish rhubarb, sheep sorrel, and also the inner bark of slippery elm. Additional ingredients might include: blessed thistle, chamomile, fenugreek, blood or red root, watercress, red clover, ginseng and many more herbs.

This tea is considered to be an excellent energy and immune booster. Essiac tea could also detoxify your body and purify your blood. The tea is believed to be able to reduce the size of many tumors and to stimulate cell repair as well.

Cancer Treatment with Essiac Tea

There is no scientific proof that the tea actually works for patients suffering from cancer. However, many people claim that this tea was very helpful in their cancer treatments and recommend it for this purpose.

For cancer patients, it is recommended to use essiac tea on an empty stomach, some 90 minutes before meals and also before going to bed. It is also advisable to drink more than 2 liters of water every day, during the treatment with essiac tea.

Essiac tea adverse effects are said to be very rare and only people using the tea for a long time may experience some unwanted effects. The tea is commonly used as complementing therapy during the radiation and/or chemotherapy, and the patients often complained about: nausea, vomiting, frequent urination, diarrhea or constipation. Some of the people using essiac tea experienced symptoms similar to cold, including some coughing and swollen glands. There were also reports about different skin problems associated with the use of essiac tea, such as skin blemishes and inflammation. Decreases levels of blood sugar and potassium might also be caused by drinking this tea.

Be Careful with Essiac Tea

Essiac tea can also provoke allergies. Anyone allergic to some herb used in the essiac tea mixture shouldn’t use the tea.

Patients with liver or kidney problems should stay away from this tea, because it can cause further damage to their organs.

Pregnant women and breastfeeding moms are advised not to use essiac tea, since there are no evidences about the potential risks for the unborn child or nursing baby. Some of the herbs might cause premature contractions while some other, also present in the tea, are sometimes even blamed for miscarriage. Because of that, these groups of women should avoid essiac tea.