Ephedra Has Been in the News

Ephedra is also known by its Chinese name, Ma-Huang and as Mormon tea or Brigham tea for ephedra harvested in the southwest deserts of the United States.

Ma-huang is first mentioned in the classic Chinese herbal of the Divine Plowman Emperor, Shen-Nong's Ben Cao Jing, which survives as a list of 365 herbs from the first century A.D. Ephedra is the basis of the modern Chinese materia medica.

Under the creed of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ma-Huang's taste and nature are hot, bitter, and warming. Its functions are to induce sweat, soothe breathing, and promote the excretion of urine. It is traditionally prescribed for typhoid fever, bad colds, fevers without sweat, pain over the body, pain in the joints, coughing, shortness of breath and swelling of the ankles.

Ma-huang (ephedra) has been used for thousands of years to treat bronchial asthma cold and flu, chills, lack of perspiration, headache, nasal congestion, aching joints and bones, cough and wheezing and edema.

In Western terms, Ma-huang is considered to have diaphoretic, diuretic, central nervous system stimulating and anti-asthmatic activity. The stem (herb) of ephedra contains a number of active compounds, including small amounts of an essential oil, and most important, one to two percent alkaloids composed mainly of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, with ephedrine ranging from 30 to 90 percent depending on the source.

 

The effects of ephedra are generally attributed to the alkaloid ephedrine which produces central nervous system stimulation; peripheral vasoconstriction; elevation of blood pressure; bronchodilation; cardiac stimulation and a decrease of intestinal tone and motility, among other effects.

According to Dr. Albert Leung in his second edition of Encyclopedia of Common Natural Ingredients Used in Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics (John Wiley & Sons 1995), the central stimulant action of ephedrine appears to be mediated by 1-adrenoceptors and not by dopamine receptors. He also notes that pseudoephedrine has similar activities as ephedrine, except that its hypertensive and CNS effects are weaker.

A flurry of ephedra news, regulatory and legal activity has surrounded the sale of Ma-huang and ephedrine in dietary supplement products.

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