Herbs for Respiratory Health (and Why Osha Leads the List)

People searching for herbs for respiratory health usually want a short list with something solid behind each name. The seven below all have a long record of use for the throat, chest and airways, and most have at least one published study attached. Each entry names the people or tradition that used the plant and, where it exists, a research finding with its numbers. Osha comes first. It is the root Mara bottles as Bear Root, and its story runs from Zuni and Diné healers to a 2008 lab at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Seven herbs for respiratory health and who used them

Osha (Ligusticum porteri)

Osha is a mountain plant of Northern Mexico, a member of the carrot and parsley family that grows at 1,500 to 3,500 metres. Its uses are recorded across many peoples. The Zuni used it for sore throat and body aches. The Diné took it for a hoarse voice and credit the medicine to the bear. Rarámuri families in the Sierra Tarahumara brewed it as a tea for stomach pain and fever, and the Comanche used it for pneumonia. In New Mexico it goes by chuchupate, and families there made chuchupate tea for sore throats. The Lakota name is mato tapejuta, bear medicine.

In 2008, a University of Texas at El Paso study tested osha, a plant the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) use for chest complaints, against the bacterium behind tuberculosis. At the lowest concentration tested, the osha extract stopped more than half of the bacterium's growth.

Mullein

Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is the tall, woolly-leaved plant that grows along roadsides in Europe and North America. Germany's Commission E monograph records mullein flowers taken as an infusion for catarrh of the upper respiratory tract, and the European Medicines Agency's herbal committee lists a traditional use for sore throat with a dry cough. The flowers contain about 3% mucilage.

Thyme

Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) is the Mediterranean kitchen herb, and its best-known trial comes from Germany. Kemmerich and colleagues (2006) gave 361 adults with acute bronchitis either a thyme and ivy syrup or a placebo for 11 days. Coughing fits fell by 68.7% in the thyme and ivy group against 47.6% on placebo, and the halfway mark came two days sooner.

Elecampane

Elecampane (Inula helenium) is a tall yellow daisy whose root European herbalists have used for coughs and the chest since Greek and Roman times, according to herbalist Christopher Hobbs. A 1999 paper in Planta Medica isolated compounds from the root, among them alantolactone and isoalantolactone, and found they held back the tuberculosis bacterium in the lab at 32 micrograms per millilitre. One related compound, 5α-epoxyalantolactone, did it at 8.

Licorice root

Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) has a written record going back more than 2,300 years. Theophrastus, writing in Greece around 300 BCE, recommended it for asthma, dry cough and chest complaints. In the first century CE, Dioscorides advised placing the fresh root under the tongue to dissolve for hoarseness. The 13th-century Tractatus de herbis gives an electuary of licorice juice and honey for cough, and the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health lists coughing and lung disease among licorice's traditional uses.

Peppermint

Peppermint owes its cool feel to menthol. In a 1988 study of 40 people in Clinical Otolaryngology, inhaled L-menthol raised the feeling of air moving through the nose, while two other forms of menthol made no difference. Measured nasal resistance stayed the same, so what changed was how open the nose felt.

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is native to Australia, and its leaf oil is mostly 1,8-cineole. In a 2009 trial in Respiratory Research, Worth and colleagues gave 242 people with COPD 200 mg of cineole three times a day or a placebo for six months, on top of their usual medicine. In the cineole group, 28.2% had at least one flare-up, against 45.5% on placebo.

What sets osha apart from the rest of the list

The other six came to North America from Europe, the Mediterranean or Australia. Osha is native to the Americas, in the high mountains from Northern Mexico up through the Rockies, and the peoples who lived near it gave it names and uses that are still on record. A medicine bundle found in Utah, 200 to 600 years old, held osha root. Observer Shawn Sigstedt watched Kodiak bears chew the root and rub it into their fur. The bear keeps turning up in the plant's names, from the Diné story and the Lakota mato tapejuta to the English bear root.

The root carries Z-ligustilide, measured at 0.15 to 2.5% of the root, and a smell people compare to celery and lovage, a close relative. Supply is tight. Almost all osha is wild-harvested, the plants are often more than 10 years old when dug, and United Plant Savers lists it as At-Risk. It also looks like poison hemlock, so digging it is work for people who know the plant. For the full profile read our complete guide to osha root. If the chest is your main interest, osha root for lungs goes through the traditional uses one by one.

Herbs for lung health in a form you'll keep taking

Every herb above can be bought as dried leaf, loose root or powder, and each of those asks for work every day: measuring, steeping, straining, keeping the bag away from air and damp. With osha, the extract is the practical choice. Much of the root's aroma comes from volatile oils, and volatile oils escape from cut root left open to the air. A tincture (an alcohol extract) holds what the root gives up in liquid, sealed in glass.

Bear Root is osha root tincture in a 50 ml dark Miron glass dropper bottle. Dark amber glass is a step in the right direction; dark Miron glass is the gold standard, and it keeps light off the extract between uses. The ritual takes under a minute. Use 1 to 2 droppers under the tongue, held for 20 to 30 seconds and swallowed, or stirred into morning tea, a water bottle after a hike or run, juice or a smoothie. The taste is earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root. At 1 to 2 droppers a day, one bottle lasts 30 to 50 days, any month of the year.

Bear Root – Osha Root Tincture

50 ml dropper bottle. Ligusticum porteri from the mountains of Northern Mexico.

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Bear Root considerations

Contains alcohol. Not recommended during pregnancy. If you're nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.

Questions people ask

What herbs are used for respiratory health?

Osha, mullein, thyme, elecampane, licorice root, peppermint and eucalyptus have the longest records. Osha comes from Indigenous North American and Northern Mexican tradition, and most of the others from European herbal practice.

Which herbs for the respiratory system have research behind them?

Thyme with ivy (Kemmerich, 2006, 361 adults) and eucalyptus oil's cineole (Worth, 2009, 242 people with COPD) have human trials. Elecampane compounds (Planta Medica, 1999) and osha (University of Texas at El Paso, 2008) have lab findings against the tuberculosis bacterium.

Is osha the same as bear root?

Yes. Bear root is a common name for osha, Ligusticum porteri, from the story of bears digging up and chewing the root. In New Mexico the same plant is called chuchupate.

How do you take an osha tincture?

Hold 1 to 2 droppers under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow, or stir it into tea, water, juice or a smoothie. People fit it into a morning or evening routine, any time of year.