Spearmint
(Mentha Spicata)
Evidence: Reasonable
Possible Benefits: Reasonable
Safety: High
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What is spearmint?
Mentha spicata, commonly known as spearmint, is an adaptogenic herb with a long history of use as a traditional medicine. This herb is often used as a supplement for reducing tension headaches but can also have various other beneficial effects. This article is about the main benefits of spearmint, its potential side effects, the best time to take it, and more.
Possible benefits
All of the potential benefits mentioned below are dose-dependent. As with other adaptogenic herbs, there is a sweet-spot dose that allows you to get most of the benefits without causing meaningful side effects or tolerance buildup in the body. We will discuss the best dosing protocol later in this article.
Major benefits
Minor benefits
Possible side effects
The side effects below are dose-dependent. The risk for them increases (often linearly but sometimes exponentially) as you increase the dose. Some of the side effects only apply to very high doses.
Who should not take spearmint?
You should probably avoid taking spearmint if you:
Who will benefit the most?
You should consider taking the supplement if you:
How much spearmint should you take?
Because spearmint is an adaptogenic herb, it acts as a mild hormetic stressor on the body, which allows your body to adapt and become more resilient to certain kinds of stressors in the long term.
A higher dose does not necessarily lead to more pronounced benefits. Instead, there appears to be an inverted U-shaped dose-response pattern. In other words, you want to find a sweet-spot dose that allows you to get the benefits of spearmint without putting too much pressure on the body or quickly causing the body to develop tolerance to the herb.
The sweet-spot dose typically ranges anywhere between 4-8 grams of dry herb powder daily. If you buy an x:1 extract, divide the dry herb powder dosage by x. If you buy an extract standardized for menthol, try to get 200-300 mg of menthol.
The higher end of this range usually provides slightly more benefits in the short term. If you plan to take this herb for a longer time (multiple months or years), the lower end is probably a better way to go since you would develop tolerance faster if you were to take higher doses.
Additionally, very high doses can put too much pressure on your system and cause health problems if you take the supplement for a prolonged period.
While this herb could theoretically cause acute toxicity, you’d need to take an extremely high dose that would be way beyond what even the most potent supplements contain.
Like most other adaptogens, it is best to cycle spearmint and take about two days off weekly to reset your tolerance. That will allow you to keep getting the benefits in the long term.
Keep in mind that the effects of this herb are cumulative. Therefore, you must take it for at least 2-4 weeks to notice most of the benefits. But again, cycling the herb and not taking it at least twice a week is necessary to prevent tolerance in the long term.
Best time to take spearmint
You can take this herb with or without food. Each of these options has its benefits. The main bioactive compounds in the herb should absorb well either way.
If you experience nausea or stomach discomfort when you take this herb, taking it with food should prevent these unpleasant effects or at least make them less intense.
If you take this herb on an empty stomach, the short-term effects will kick in faster, and they will be more pronounced but will not last as long.
Whether you take this herb in the morning or the evening typically does not make much difference. Both options are fine so feel free to experiment.
Interactions
Where to buy spearmint?
In most countries, Amazon is the best option for ordering spearmint and other herbs and herbal supplements. They offer some very affordable products backed by many positive reviews. Also, you can choose from a wide range of brands without having to search through other markets on the internet.
Some brands display the dosage per serving instead of per pill or capsule. Therefore, you may accidentally buy something less potent than you intended. Do not fall for this marketing trick.
FAQ
References
Most of the information in this guide is based on scientific research that can be found and verified in the PubMed medical library. We highly encourage you to use the library to verify anything you read in this article. We excluded from consideration studies that are either confounded or have a high conflict of interest.
We hope this guide has helped you determine if you should add spearmint to your supplement stack and how to do it right.
If you have any further questions or want to share your feedback, feel free to send us an email!
We may receive commissions for purchases made through the links in this post.