Feverfew: Herbal Medications, What Works

Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier - The Best Alternative Medicine

Corporate Health Improvement Program (C H I P)

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A member of the daisy family, feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) originated in the Mediterranean area and was used in Greco-Roman times, primarily for menstrual difficulties. In the seventeenth century, it was used for headaches.

Feverfew's current popularity as a remedy for preventing and treating migraine is a result of the publication of a number of clinical studies in British medical journals.

Based on a 1983 article by Johnson and associates, 70 percent of migraineurs reported reduction in the frequency or pain of migraine.
Reporting a small 1985 study by Johnson, feverfew reduced migraine pain and duration by about half.
From a well-designed follow-up study of fifty-nine migraine patients by Murphy and associates, patients using feverfew showed a 24 percent reduction in the number of migraines, and a significant reduction in nausea and vomiting.
A 1996 study in the Netherlands by De Weerdt and associates produced negative results. In this study, a dried alcohol extract of feverfew leaf was used. It was speculated that perhaps the alcohol extract did not deliver the most active constituent of feverfew, parthenolide.
In an Israeli study by Palevitch, which used dried feverfew leaves, the herb did not perform significantly better than a placebo.

Feverfew has been proposed for adoption by the European Union as a prophylactic treatment of migraine. Despite the somewhat equivocal research findings, feverfew appears to have won acceptance for this application.

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From THE BEST ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: WHAT WORKS? WHAT DOES NOT? by Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier.
Copyright © 2000 by Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier, Inc.
Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, New York.

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