Buckthorn Bark Decoction (Laxative)

From “Before You Begin”

The book’s safety page, quoted as it stands. Read the whole page — it is free.

• Seven recipes are remedies, taken on a course. Nothing is gained by drinking them for pleasure.
• The monographs give a clinical basis for three of the indications this book discusses, and only one of them comes close to anything you will brew: pharmacy buckthorn bark for occasional constipation (Chapter 40) — and even there the monograph means a tea made from standardized bark, where the amount of active compound per cup is known.
• Licorice, Chapter 37, must not be combined with diuretics, cardiac glycosides, corticosteroids or stimulant laxatives, including the buckthorn bark of Chapter 40, and calls for caution alongside medicines the liver breaks down with the enzyme CYP3A4.
• Buckthorn bark, Chapter 40, must not be combined with licorice root, diuretics or corticosteroids, and if you take cardiac glycosides, antiarrhythmic medication or any medicine that prolongs the QT interval, ask a doctor first: the potassium loss it causes intensifies their effect.
• Buckthorn bark, Chapter 40, must have been stored for at least a year, which is why it is bought at a pharmacy and not stripped from a tree.
• Oak and buckthorn bark are the furthest from a drink in this book — oak bark is an astringent that is as often gargled as swallowed and is not taken internally beyond three days, and buckthorn bark is a laxative taken at night, two or three times, and then stopped.
• Pregnancy. Twenty-six of the twenty-eight recipes here are restricted in pregnancy — most because safety has not been established rather than because harm has been shown, but the answer is the same either way. The two that carry no restriction are the rosehip brew of Chapter 26 and the sea buckthorn of Chapter 28, both of them fruits eaten as food across Europe.