Ranunculaceae
Hydrastis canadensis
Goldenseal · Orangeroot
- Part used
- rootrhizome
- Native range
- Eastern North America
- Morphology
- A woodland perennial to about forty centimetres with a single flower and broad palmate leaves above a knotted bright yellow rhizome that stains everything it touches.
What is in it
Evidence
Almost no controlled trials of the herb. Berberine, one of its alkaloids, has been studied separately with some evidence in glycaemic control and lipids — that is a compound, from other sources, and not a finding about goldenseal.
Safety
Berberine and hydrastine are not benign. Contraindicated in pregnancy, where berberine can cause uterine stimulation, and in newborns, in whom berberine displaces bilirubin and can cause kernicterus. High doses cause gastrointestinal upset and, historically, more serious effects.
Interactions: Strong inhibitor of CYP3A4 and CYP2D6, raising levels of many drugs; Additive with antidiabetic drugs through berberine
Regulatory: CITES Appendix II. Permitted as a listed medicine ingredient in Australia with restrictions.
Historical use
Used by the Cherokee and other eastern peoples as a dye and a medicine, principally as a wash for inflamed eyes and skin and for digestive complaints. Adopted enthusiastically by the Eclectic physicians, who made it one of their signature remedies.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. Long use establishes that a plant was widely used, not that it worked, and not that it was safe.
Worth knowing
Goldenseal is heavily over-harvested, slow to reproduce, and sustains a market partly built on a myth: that it masks drug tests. It does not, and the belief appears to originate in a nineteenth-century novel by the pharmacist John Uri Lloyd, in which a character uses it to adulterate a sample. A piece of fiction has been driving demand on a CITES-listed plant for over a century.
Its real pharmacology is the interaction profile. Goldenseal is among the most potent herbal inhibitors of the liver enzymes that clear other drugs — the mirror image of St John's wort, raising blood levels instead of lowering them, and just as silent.
Nomenclature verified against GBIF backbone taxonomy.