Valerian Root
Valerian Root
Is valerian or valerian root dangerous to cats or is it like catnip?
My cats go crazy even with a closed bottle of valerian. They act like it is catnip.
[edit] Effect on Cats and Rats
An unusual feature of valerian is that the dried root affects the domestic cat in a similar way as that of catnip. If valerian root is left in a place to which cats have access, they will roll in it, salivate onto it and eat it. Burmese cats are attracted to the dried herb and will deliberately destroy containers to obtain it. However, some cats will not go near valerian root.
Valerian’s effect on cats is featured as a clue in two works by Agatha Christie.
Valerian is also very attractive to rats, so much so that it has been used to bait traps. Some versions of the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin have him using valerian, as well as his pipes, to attract the rats.
Valerian Root
Best Insomnia Herb: Valerian
The best insomnia herb for both chronic and occasional sufferers is natural and has been used successfully by people throughout history for this very common complaint. Valerian Root is a product of grinding the dried plant material from the Valerian plant into a fine powder. A perennial flowering plant, Valerian is abundant and inexpensive.
When a person can’t sleep, they may snap at their significant other, subordinate or insubordinate. Job performance suffers from a lack of sleep, as does your ability to handle basic tasks such as reading. Just one good night of sleep can prove to a person suffering from insomnia that Valerian Root Extract feels a miracle. The old adage that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone applies here as well: you literally don’t know how much better you will feel with proper rest until you’ve gone without.
There are other choices for insomnia herbs, mostly containing at least a bit of Valerian Root extract, mixed in so-called synergistic ratios. None of these have the record of safety and success that Valerian Root does, and most are considerably more expensive. Similar to Aspirin, Valerian is an over the counter remedy and is safe to take regularly. It would require much more of this herb than of Aspirin to produce any detrimental effects.
A very solid night of sleep, typically seven to eight hours, is what users can expect. Those interested in Valerian Root as an insomnia herb should devote a full night (eight hours) when getting used to the effects. Keeping in mind that everyone is different, it would be prudent to refrain from driving at least until you know how this affects you.
Not having to see your doctor when you can’t sleep and worrying about the effects of prescription sleeping aids is another good reason to consider Valerian. While prescription drugs are lab produced chemical compounds that can have side effects, Valerian is not. Because people have safely been ingesting Valerian for centuries, you can trust that it truly is safe.
Below is a summary of the reasons that Valerian is the best insomnia herb:
*Naturally Occurring
*Safe
*Inexpensive
*Works Like a Charm
If you would like to read more about my own experience with this herb, please visit my
Insomnia Herb Blog. To learn more about Valerian Root, you may find my Insomnia Herb Lens interesting. I’m Jim McClinsey and I writing helpful articles is my passion.
About the Author
Jim McClinsey is a tenured teacher who enjoys technology and writing. Jim likes to write articles that are helpful to others, and is the webmaster for several sites as well as an online affiliate to various independent websites.
Do high doses of Valerian root extract damage the liver?
I can’t get a straight answer anywhere. It seems that hepatoxicity has been reported after ingestion of high doses, but that this was probably attributable to other substances taken with the valerian as a mixture of anxiolytic herbs. On the other hand, I have read that valerian extract alone may cause hepatoxicity because valerian supplements may contains contaminants.
Can someone help me out? 10 points for a good answer.
First of all. Sunny is totally incorrect on all counts. Valium and Valerian have absolutely NOTHING in common other than a similar sounding name. They share no chemistry, no similar structure, no components in valerian are even similar looking to valium. Benzodiazepines are totally synthetic and occur nowhere in nature. And hepatotoxicity does refer to liver damage, not kidneys. Kidneys are the renal system, liver is the hepatic system.
Whew.
Okay. This is not clear at all. Part of it is that the current laws in the US for the manufacture and sale of anything labeled a supplement are pretty abysmal, inferior to the standards prison food is kept to really. So it is a distinct possibility that the cases of liver damage related to valerian are due to contaminants – companies are basically accepted on their word at quality control and some very nasty things have been found in these products, everything from rat poison to feces to human placenta.
On the other hand, some in-vivo data published in Xenobiotica last year done by the University of Riyadh shows valerian is capable of massively inhibiting an enzyme system in the liver called UGT. On paper, this is incredibly bad. UGT is responsible for something called glucuronic acid conjugation – and this is basically how your liver gets rid of a huge amount of metabolic waste, basically all the molecules your body wants to get rid of go through this system from aspirin to your thyroid hormones. You can see how this could conceivably be very bad. People born with genetic defects in this pathway have everything from chronic jaundice, metabolic abnormalities to recurrent developments of different kinds of cancer.
However, despite how bad that looks on paper, the real world is much brighter. The UGT system has hundreds of times the capacity it needs to handle your metabolic waste. So in the real world, we don’t really see any of this kind of horrible problem. But it -does- make it plausible for Valerian to be toxic to the liver. It’s not -definitely- toxic like say, Kava Kava, but it could be – there’s just no way to tell because there’s no large scale tracking of this sort of thing – the cases on record could be due to valerian being toxic, or could be due to the low standards of manufacture and frequent contamination. There could be a lot of cases of damage no one knows about, because again this isn’t kept track of.
Based on the widespread use, even with the poor study and tracking, Valerian in normal use doesn’t liver problems very frequently at all (that we can tell). In high doses – well it works on paper, but it’s not certain in the real world. Probably shouldn’t take the chance, because it can’t be said for certain that it doesn’t.
Feel free to email me privately if you need anything clarified
MF Doom – Valerian Root
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