A plant used for centuries by the Inca people of Peru to relieve toothache could put an end to painful injections at the dentist after a Cambridge scientist won the right to develop it as a natural anaesthetic.
Acmella oleracea (Spilanthes oleracea) – commonly known as the toothache plant – is grown as an annual in the UK for its curious button-like flowerheads. The buds are sometimes eaten as a novelty food for their extraordinary fizzing and numbing effect on the mouth and tongue: other common names include electric, or Szechuan buttons.
Medical anthropologist Francoise Barbira-Freedman came across the plant by accident when she was given some to chew as a cure for her toothache by Inca tribesmen she was staying with on a research trip to the Amazon. She brought some back to research its properties and found it acts to block nerve endings and can numb the mouth for up to 20 minutes when chewed.
Pain-relieving oral gel
Extracts from the plant have now been made into a potent pain-relieving gel with no known side-effects. It can be used to numb the mouth without injections during dental treatment, soothe teething pain in babies and even ease the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
Following successful clinical trials, it is hoped the treatment will reach the market in two or three years. Barbira-Freedman plans to share the profits with the people of Peru who first showed her the plant.
‘There are many other anaesthetic plants to be researched yet,’ she said. ‘I think this remedy might alert people even more to the potential richness of indigenous knowledge and its sophistication.’
Source: Royal Horticulture Society – Natural Anaesthetic Plant Cure for Toothache
