Herb Weavers Journal #84 - Borage - 25th Feb 2025

Borage Flower, Leaf and Seed oil

Borage is a medicinal herb with many uses, it also grows abundantly so you shouldn’t need to pay for the benefit of it either. It’s health properties include treating inflammation, improving skin issues like eczema and dermatitis, and a rarer skin condition called neurodermatitis.

Because borage seed oil is rich in omega-6 fatty acids, which can help reduce inflammation and pain, it makes a great  anti-inflammatory.

With regards to skin health, the see oil can help with skin conditions like eczema, seborrheic dermatitis, and neurodermatitis.  There is also proof of asthma being treated with borage seed oil extract, which is believed to help improve the symptoms, including any cough.  Acute respiratory distress syndrome has been mentioned in many reports and how symptoms are helped when used on a regular basis.

Because it makes a good anti inflammatory, it also helps rheumatoid arthritis.

Other ailments helped with this plant are alcoholism, pain, depression, fever control, heart disease and stroke symptoms. The oil has also been used as an addition to baby formula in small amounts to provide the fatty acids required to promote development in preterm babies.

Other lesser uses in the UK and around Europe, but widely used in Chinese and other traditional medicines, are as a sedative and diuretic.

Borage is also used for a hormone problem called adrenal insufficiency, for blood purification to increase urine flow, and to promote sweating. For lactating mothers, it is used to increase breast milk production too.

So this plant has a lot to offer and most plants are described as unsafe or not enough info for pregnant or lactating mothers, but this one has always been promoted for this and yet 4 years ago things changed.

NB# All this said, about 4 years ago we were notified that studies had shown that Borage was now classed as a carcinogenic and should be avoided. Please read the reports and make your own mind up.

If you are buying these products from a health food shop or the internet, only buy items marked as pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) FREE. As PAs when used in high doses are what the reports believe can cause cancer and are more likley to cause issues with the liver.

Do not take with prescribed liver medications, anticoagulant or antiplatelet drugs or phenothiazines as these can all react with borage.