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Your weekly dose of drug facts while dispelling fiction
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You're listening to locally produced programming created in KUNV Studios on Public Radio. KUNV 91.5. Welcome to another episode of The Chemical Collective.
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The Chemical Collective offers you your weekly dose of drug facts while dispelling fiction. Today we'll be diving into ashwagandha and discussing its effects on the brain and its role throughout history.
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I'm Kendra McLaughlin. I'm April Contreras. And I am Dr. Hines. OK, so just to start off at the top, where does ashwagandha come from?
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And when did we as humans first start consuming it?
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Yeah, so ashwagandha has been a herb that is native to many dry regions, mostly India, northern Africa, the Middle East. Also known by its scientific name, withenia somnifera, and also by many other common names, such as Indian ginseng, winter cherry, and poison gooseberry. The use of Ashiaron dates back to thousands of years, we'll get into that more in a second, in Ayurvedic medicine in India and also for a variety of ailments. I'm always a little leery when I hear something cures everything, but we'll get into that also. But it treats things like stress, anxiety, fatigue and joint pain. Also been used as an adaptogen, something that really helps your body to cope with physical and emotional stress. In the Ayurvedic medicine that we talked about, ashwagandha is considered to be a rasayana, which is a type of herb that promotes living longer, living a higher quality of life, feeling better about everything, and it's believed to have a calming effect on both the mind and body to help improve cognitive function. So ashwagandha, it's a
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berry. It makes me question, are there variations or strains of ashwagandha? Yes, there are several strains or variations of ashwagandha, each with slightly different characteristics and potential health benefits. The most commonly used strains of ashwagandha are Withania somnifera and Withania ashwagandha, although there are several other related species as well. And one of the main differences between the various strains of ashwagandha is their chemical composition. Different strains contain varying amounts of active compounds such as with with with with with with with while others are higher in with aferin A, which has been shown to have anti-cancer and immune boosting effects. Earlier it was mentioned that ashwagandha is available in many forms. Can you guys expand a little bit on how ashwagandha is prepared? Yeah, I guess at some level it depends on where you are. I mean if it's growing outside your door, then it's prepared by just kind of like eating it.
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But typically it comes in four different forms. So remember this is a herb, there's different parts of the herb that can be used. So the most common form is probably a powder where the ashwagandha root is ground up into a fine powder, desiccated or dried, added to fruits, drinks, supplemented, put in capsules, put in smoothies I saw online, people are eating it with their oatmeal and tea and all kinds of things like that. Also just as a tea itself, so although I just said the powder in a tea, you can just take the roots, put them in hot water like you'd steep a tea for about 15-20 minutes, and then add other herbs and spices, probably to get around the bitter taste, such as ginger and honey to enhance the flavor. Another very, very common way to use herbs that are medicinal are tinctures. And so ashwagandha tincture is just a liquid extract that can be added to juice. It's made by soaking the herb typically in some sort of grain alcohol or glycerin for, you know, two to four weeks. Probably the most common way that we take all drugs by mouth are capsules. So in that previous powder form and also by just kind of grinding up some of the roots, you can put in supplemental capsules and then just swallow it. All of these different methods have different dosages with them and again, as the writer, we always say, don't do it at home. There's all kinds of ways that can go wrong. The plant can be different from one plant to the other. There's many different strains, so not something I'd want to play with.
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Definitely. The variation in forms that you can kind of put ashwagandha into makes me curious if that changes across cultures. Is there like one that a culture might lean more towards? Yes, the preparation of ashwagandha can vary in different cultures, as it's often used in traditional medicines and remedies that have been passed down through many generations. A few examples of how ashwagandha are prepared and consumed in Ayurvedic medicine is by taking it as decoction or a tea by simmering the root in water for several minutes. It's also commonly consumed in powder form which can be mixed with milk or ghee which is like a butter to enhance its absorption. In traditional Chinese medicine, ashwagandha is known as winter cherry and it's often used in combination with other herbs to create a formula that really targets specific health concerns and it's typically consumed in the form of a decoction or again a powder mix with water. In the Middle East, ashwagandha is often used in the form of a tea made by boiling the root in water also, and it's often mixed with ginger and cinnamon for added flavor and to supplement other health benefits. And then in the West, Western herbalists use ashwagandha in a form of tincture or a capsule. It's often again combined with other herbs like holy basil to create a formula that supports stress management and your overall well-being. And again, the prep and consumption of ashwagandha can vary depending on the cultural context and traditional medicine practices of the particular region. It's interesting hearing how different have been able to use this and I'm curious how has this changed over time?
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Well, Viri Sudhi, the regions are really where each of the use kind of propagates itself. So the oldest region is India with the Ayurvedic medicine and this goes back three to five thousand years where people really just used it as a medicine to cope with stress and anxiety. So basically just a leafy form, the root form. I think this then transmitted to China and the Chinese medicine about a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago and the Chinese people then started to grow it and then use different practices combining with other herbs, more so for stress management and again as a longevity thing. There was a big push in Chinese medicine, you know, two to three thousand years ago with various dynasties to live longer and this is one of those type compounds. Now obviously we have modern times and you know when I started doing my research on ashwagandha a while back, the first thing I thought was we just have a powder from a plant that doesn't do anything but there's been a growing body of scientific interest and we'll talk about some of the studies today that show it actually is an adaptogen. So it's something that has likely, more research is needed, anti-inflammatory properties. And these properties I've found to be beneficial for all kinds of other things. Cognitive function, anxiety and depression, fertility and sexual function. And again, you know, I'm a scientist, I'm an ASA, when I hear all those things, I start to get a little worried about what research has been done and how it's being done. So we need to figure out more about this.
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When we talk about different types of substances such as ashwagandha over time that have been here for so long, it makes me curious about the traditional customs and ceremonies that might be associated with its use. Can you speak a little bit about that? Well, as far as I know, there are no specific traditional customs or ceremonies associated with ashwagandha itself. However, in Ayurvedic medicine, herbs and other natural substances are often used in conjunction with specific rituals or practices, such as yoga and meditation, to support overall health and well-being. And these practices vary depending on the specific region or lineage of Ayurveda being followed. And in addition, ashwagandha is sometimes used in traditional Indian wedding rituals as a symbol of fertility and vitality. It's also sometimes included in Ayurvedic massage oils, which may be used as part of a larger healing ritual or self-care practice. And while ashwagandha itself may not be associated with specific customs or ceremonies, it's often used with larger cultural and traditional contexts.
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Yeah, and that's interesting that something's come up a lot with these drugs or compounds or plants, whatever we want to call them, therapeutics, actually I think it's important we figure out what to call them, that's something I want to have a whole episode on, that have a root that easily propagates. So you have a root, it easily propagates, right, you could put it in your pocket, walk around with it for a couple months, and then plant it in the soil and it would grow. And it's medicinal. So if you have this idea, and you're in maybe more of a pagan culture, it would be something that's super fertile, right? So that would why it would be a gift and thought to be in fertility. And I don't think there's a lot of good science. We'll talk about that in a second. I keep saying that, that it improves fertility. In fact, it might change sperm count and that's about it. But interesting that when you have something grows, it's seen as a fertility booster.
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As you previously alluded to the science of it all I'm very curious how does ashwagandha work in the brain what receptors are involved with it?
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April 2nd ago we talked about ceremonies not sure we did a lot of research we could not find a lot and mechanism action not sure so one thing though there's been a couple studies I get to give my opinion sometimes not really well done looking at ashwagandha in the brain and anytime you have a compound that can maybe relax people a little, promote relaxation, be an anxiolytic, decrease anxiety, people say it's a GABA drug but I don't think there's been any really good receptor assay showing that it binds. Similarly, serotonin, it's been shown to interact with serotonin receptors in the brain, regulate mood and anxiety, and then also acetylcholine, where it's thought to improve cognitive function and learning and memory. But no really tight binding assays at work here. And definitely, again, having many different alkaloids in it, it's quite possible that it hits multiple targets.
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OK, so the alkaloids you're mentioning,
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can you speak more to maybe their different effects on the brain? Yeah, some of these alkaloids include withanion, withanine, somnifrinine, somnifrinine, withaninine, withifuranine, and withesomnine, among others. And while the effects of each—
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This root is really with it.
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Yeah, with it. And while the effects of these alkaloids on the central nervous system. For example, the withanilides, they have been shown to have neuroprotective effects and to enhance cognitive function while also playing a role in the regulation of GABA receptors, which are involved in anxiety and stress management. Withafirin A has been shown to have the anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects, and it's been shown to modulate activity of several different signaling pathways in the brain, including the ACT-M TOR and NFK beta pathways. Overall, while the specific effects of each alkaloid found in ashwagandha are not fully understood, there is evidence to suggest that they may have different effects on the brain and nervous system, but more research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms of action and potential.
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Okay, remember I said I could give my opinion that with RNA, that's actually a pretty cool paper on that. They really show that AKT and mTOR, nuclear factor kappa beta, these are all things that are for inflammation, but they're also for tumor growth, and nobody's really looked at that when I saw that pathway. I thought, you know, somebody should really do a study on that alkaloid, showing that plants still know a lot more than we do about many things.
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For sure.
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How much of ashwagandha is needed to fill its effect?
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It's not really that kind of drug, so let's start off with that. But there are several factors that we're always gonna talk about when we talk about dose, such as your age, your weight, your overall health. These are gonna be important, not only when taking ashwagandha, but any drug. And then also we talked about a second ago, the form, right? If you have a highly concentrated tincture versus you're just chewing the leaves, it's gonna be different. But typically, people are taking a dry powder in the range of two to 400 milligrams a day, maybe a couple times a day, and its effects aren't immediate, and I don't think they're even noticeable for most and people report and there have been some studies where it takes you know weeks to feel these effects. You should probably talk to people before you do this, it is a plant, but you know as always if you're going to start taking something for a couple weeks you should talk to your health care professional, make sure it's something that should be part of your health care plan because again everyone's different, everyone has a different body weight, everyone has a different metabolism, and everyone for sure has a different liver and tolerance to things. But there's no real evidence of the right or proper dose.
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Okay.
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Can you speak to maybe some of the effects that ashwagandha has on other neurotransmitters? Yeah, beyond GABA, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and glutamate are other neurotransmitter systems that we think are affected by ashwagandha. So, dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in motivation, reward, and movement. And some research suggests that ashwagandha may help to increase dopamine activity in the brain, which could potentially enhance your motivation and improve mood. Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter involved in the body's stress response. And some studies suggest that ashwagandha may help to regulate neuropinephrine activity, which could potentially reduce your anxiety and stress, especially if you're taking it as a supplement every day. And glutamate is kind of the opposite of GABA. So if GABA is the inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, glutamate is your excitatory neurotransmitter system, which is involved in many different functions, including your learning and memory. And some research suggests that ashwagandha may help to modulate glutamate activity, which could potentially improve cognitive function.
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So I have to ask you, April, as a card-carrying neuroscientist, when you see dopamine, norepinephrine, glutamate, GABA, what are you thinking? I'm thinking that this is, that ashwagandha is a dirty
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drug. It's acting on multiple systems and that we probably don't really know
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exactly what the target is. And dirty drug, I mean, that's not a bad thing. You know, the word for that is polypharma. It just means it's hitting multiple targets at the same time. I get a little worried that when I hear something's hitting glutamate and GABA because you're kind of working on the yin and the yang at the same time. So I think that's something that we really need to start to understand about this. When you
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mentioned its effects on glume and it potentially affecting things like
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learning and memory, can you guys expound on maybe the effect it has on memory
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consolidation? So we ask this question for just about every drug and for just about every drug we say, this stuff is bad for you. Yeah. So I'm gonna start off by saying that we need to do more research, but it looks like there is some evidence to suggest that it might have a positive effect on memory, memory consolidation. And when we talked about some of the alkaloids earlier, we talked about the mTOR pathway and the AKT pathway. These are all pathways that are really important to stabilize those connections in your brain. We call the synapses. So it kind of makes sense if it's having a huge influence on there. Now my worry in all this when we talk about memory consolidation is that it's not like you can take one of these and study and it's going to improve your memory, right? We have bad things that happen to us sometimes during the day. And so if you're taking a drug like this for weeks on a time and you have something terrible happen, you're going to consolidate that more also. So again, looks like it does work on memory. We know from studies where we've looked at animals that are given like a spatial task, so the typical solve this maze type problem, that certain neurotransmitters that could be involved in the consolidation such as acetylcholine and glutamate are increased and that also it may improve memory function of short-term memory on top of that. In a trial that I looked at, it was a randomized blind, double blind placebo control, which is kind of a nice way to say it was really well done. In healthy adults, it found the standardized extract of ashwagandha did improve both immediate and general memory performance compared to a placebo. So that's kind of serious, right? It actually does do something. That's what really caught my attention. But you have to always wonder now, because we're talking about a drug that has anxiolytic calming, promotes focus, and promotes cognitive function. Which one of those, all three? So again, I'd like to know more about it, but it's not one of those ones that I'm gonna throw out and say, eh, I'm not so sure. I think we do actually need to do more research on this.
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It's nice to hear about an in-depth, actual study for sure on what's happening maybe sort of on the brain side, but I think a common question asked is what are some of the effects that ashwagandha has on the body as well? Yeah, so these are going to be effects that people might be taking ashwagandha for. They might be noticing effects more immediately. So ashwagandha is thought to boost your immune system by increasing the production of white blood cells and enhancing the activity of those natural killer cells in your body, which help fight off infections. Ashwagandha has been shown to also lower blood pressure and reduce levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, all of which can help to reduce the risk of heart disease. And ashwagandha is believed to have anti-inflammatory properties, which can help to reduce pain and swelling in muscles and joints. And it's also thought to improve muscle strength and endurance. And beyond those, ashwagandha is believed to have antioxidant properties, which can help to protect the skin from damage caused by free radicals. It's also thought to have anti-aging effects and may help to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines. So maybe more of a cosmetic reason. Ashwagandha is thought to have aphrodisiac properties and help increase libido and improve sexual function in both men and women, but more research I think needs to be done on that. Yeah, and yet again, I'm such a
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scientist, when you get a laundry list like that, immune system, heart, muscles, joints, sex, I kind of get the the snake oil salesman feel. So it can't do all those things. So again, I'd really like to figure this out. Yeah, the sex health and the heart and the immune and the muscle joints, it just doesn't make sense. Yeah.
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Well, having a different array of effects on the brain as well as the body,
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is ashwagandha even considered an addictive substance?
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I looked and I looked and I looked and there has been experiments done to kind of sort of address this question and it looks like the answer is no and why did I look and I look and I look. I can't think of a single enzealytic, that's to say something that relaxes you. I can't think of a single GABA drug that works to relax you, which again is the mechanism that isn't addictive, but it looks like it is not considered addictive. Also people, I mean there's different forms of addiction, different forms of tolerance. People can take this compound for weeks and then just stop. Right? If you take benzos for weeks and you stop, bad things happen. If you take alcohol in mass amounts for weeks and stop, bad things happen. So these are all GABA compounds. So it looks like it is not addictive. Can you guys speak to any
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possible evidence as to how long it takes for ashwagandha to take its effect. Yeah, and again, like all compounds, the effects of a drug will vary depending on the individual and the condition being treated, and it seems like ashwagandha isn't any different. Some people may notice an improvement in their symptoms within just a few days of starting ashwagandha supplementation, while others, like Dr. Hines said, it might take several weeks before you're starting to experience those benefits. And there have been a couple of studies that have been trying to tease this out a bit more. There's a study published in the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine where participants with anxiety disorders were given ashwagandha for a period of 12 whole weeks. That's a pretty long time. And the study found that after just two, participants showed a significant reduction in their anxiety levels. However, it's important to note that individual results may vary, and long-term supplementation may be necessary to achieve maximum benefits. And in addition, a study published in another journal found that ashwagandha supplementation for a period of eight weeks improved cognitive function and memory. But overall, while the exact time frame for it to take effect may vary, some studies suggest that benefits may seem quickly within that few week windows, it looks
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like. And for me, like I go back to SSRIs and fluoxetine, which we're really looking at under a new lens lately. These were some of the treatments that came out of the 70s and 80s to help treat depression. And what people said right away when they had them, it looks like they kind of work, they do, but it takes two weeks. It just doesn't make sense that it takes two weeks. So we have the same thing here. We have two weeks. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but you know, if something's working on GABA, it works instantly. So I'm not trying to dispel all this science that we're talking about today, but I just want to know more. I'm very curious about this now.
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Twelve weeks in general, I think is such a long time, but the in and out of it, I'm curious if there's anything that suggests that ashwagandha interferes with things like sleep?
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Yeah, so two studies on this that I looked at, and so there's a couple things. First of all, it's calming. It has relaxing effects. So at some level, this promotes sleep. Now, we have to break sleep down. Sleep has three stages. It has non-REM, REM, and then you have your in-between stages or your wake. What anxiolytics tend to do is promote non-REM, so they help you fall asleep, but then they kind of wreck your REM, which is important, you know, for restoration and other things. So the study suggests that it improves quality of sleep. They didn't really have any metrics for that. They had people self-report, so they had people say, I feel like I had a better sleep. And this was done in a pretty big journal that looks at plant medicine only and it found that participants who took ashwagandha for six weeks improved their sleep quality compared to those who only took a placebo but there was no recording of the sleep architecture or all these other things. So I'd like to see what it does to how people sleep because I think that's really important. We're finding again a lot about the GABA drugs that people take that they fall asleep really easy like all the Z drugs like zopiclone, luganeste, etc. That you think you sleep better but your quality is not as good and people are terrible at
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reporting sleep quality. Does this calming effect of ashwagandha that we're talking about play a role in things maybe like anxiety or even depression? Yeah, ashwagandha has been traditionally used in Ayurvedic medicine to provoke mental health and reduce stress, and that includes investigating the effects on anxiety and depression. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology found that participants taking ashwagandha for eight weeks experienced a reduction in anxiety and depressive symptoms compared to placebo. And then another study found that participants that taking ashwagandha for six weeks experienced significant reduction in stress and anxiety also. And again, the exact mechanism of ashwagandha and reducing anxiety isn't fully understood, but that brings us back again to GABAerotic signaling in the brain to regulate mood and anxiety. Can you guys talk about any potential health risks associated with long-term use of Vashvoganda?
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So there is lots of studies on these. One of the things that people know is that it can disrupt your thyroid function. It has potential effects on the thyroid gland itself, so not necessarily in, say, controls, but people that have some thyroid condition, it can make it worse. Blood sugar levels, also, it's probably good for most North Americans, lowers blood sugar levels. So, maybe useful for people with diabetes, but for, again, controls, there is a risk of hypoglycemia, that's saying low blood sugar in some people. Immune system function, again, probably good in most people, but people with autoimmune disorders, it can be disruptive. And then fertility, it's thought to promote that fertility, but some studies suggest it actually might decrease sperm count and motility. So maybe not so true.
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Okay, let's just quickly shift gears and look at some of the scheduling around ashwagandha. Can you guys tell me if ashwagandha is a scheduled substance?
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Yeah, I think we can get through this quick. No, you can get it on Amazon. Um, which again, with some of those warnings, you might want to think about, um, that, and you know, you, it's not regulated in the U S it's not regulated by the FDA, you can pretty much get it anywhere.
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Well, it looks like we are at our time for today. Well, it looks like we are at our time for today.
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Thank you guys so much as usual for an amazing discussion.