Osha Root for COPD and Lung Health, from Comanche Broth to the Lab

People who type osha root for COPD into Google are usually looking for a lung root with a long record behind it, and osha has one. Osha (Ligusticum porteri) is a high mountain root in the carrot and parsley family. A Comanche healer boiled it into a broth for pneumonia, Diné singers kept it for a gravelly voice, and its old English name is Colorado cough root. In 2008 a lab at the University of Texas at El Paso ran it against the bacterium behind tuberculosis.

For the plant itself, from the bear legend to where it grows, start with our complete osha root guide.

Osha root for COPD and the lungs, in the words of the people who used it

In 2017 Natasha Myhal wrote her master's thesis at the University of Kansas on osha's ethnobotany. She gathered elders' interviews and a century of fieldwork into one table, and the chest and throat come up again and again.

• Comanche. The anthropologist David Jones spent years with Sanapia, a Comanche medicine woman, and published her account in 1972. Myhal quotes it: Sanapia said the root could be boiled into a thick broth for patients with pneumonia.
• Diné (Navajo). Arnold Clifford, interviewed in 2016, described powwow singers using the root for a gravelly voice. The Diné credit the medicine to the bear.
• Zuni. Camazine and Bye (1980) recorded the Zuni taking crushed root in water for sore throat.
• Cochití and Taos Pueblo. Myhal's table records the root for colds and for loosening phlegm in lung infections.
• Hispanic New Mexico. Ranchers call it chuchupate and brew it as a tea for sore throats. Myhal cites Vigil (2016): the root is still pulverized into a powder "to clear the lungs."
• Lakota. Their name is mato tapejuta, "the bear's medicine" (Schneider 2017).

The University of Kansas Native Medicinal Plant Research Program sums it up in one line: Native Americans used osha for many ailments, "particularly those relating to the lungs and heart." The habit is old. A root identified as osha was found in a Utah medicine bundle dated to between 200 and 600 years ago.

Osha root expectorant reputation among herbalists

The herbal trade picked up the lung reputation and kept it. EBSCO's Research Starters entry on osha describes it taken as an expectorant, "hence the common name Colorado cough root," and lists Michael Moore's 1979 book Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West among its sources. Moore founded the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine, and osha appears throughout his writing on mountain plants.

The naturopath Eric Yarnell went further in a 2006 article for Naturopathic Doctor News and Review. He grouped osha with its close relative oshala (Ligusticum grayi) as roots "commonly used for respiratory infections," and listed the picture herbalists match them to as debility with heavy mucus and congestion. The Kansas program notes the same pull in the market, where the root is sold commercially for bronchitis and other respiratory problems.

What the lab found

The 2008 tuberculosis test at UTEP

Oscar Beltran's 2008 thesis at the University of Texas at El Paso tested three plants used for tuberculosis in Northern Mexico and the borderlands. One was chuchupaste, the osha the Rarámuri use for respiratory illness. Against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv, the osha extract stopped more than half of the bacterium's growth at the lowest concentration Beltran used.

Osha oil and drug-resistant staph

In 2005 a French and British team led by Pascale Cégiéla-Carlioz published work on osha root oil in the Flavour and Fragrance Journal. They identified 42 compounds. The water-distilled oil was 56.6% sabinyl acetate and 12.9% Z-ligustilide. Against a strain of Staphylococcus aureus that resists the antibiotic norfloxacin, 100 micrograms per millilitre of the distilled oil doubled the drug's activity, and the solvent-extracted oil quadrupled it.

Z-ligustilide, measured

Z-ligustilide is the compound behind the root's celery-like smell. In 2012 Rivero, Bye, Mata and colleagues at UNAM published an HPLC method for it in the Journal of AOAC International. Roots and products from Mexico and the United States held 0.15 to 2.5% Z-ligustilide. The root's essential oil had 31 constituents, and phthalides (the family Z-ligustilide belongs to) made up 44.61% of it.

Why people choose a tincture over dried root

Osha grows at roughly 1,500 to 3,500 m and almost all of it is wild. Plants are often more than 10 years old when they're dug, and United Plant Savers lists osha as "At-Risk." It also looks like poison hemlock, a deadly plant in the same family. A tincture from a supplier who knows the plant takes the digging stick and the guesswork out of it.

The dose is measured too. A dropper is a dropper every time, where a chunk of root varies with the root. And the extract sits sealed, away from air and light. Dark amber glass is a step in the right direction for that. Dark Miron glass is the gold standard, and it is what Mara uses.

Bear Root is Mara's osha tincture, Ligusticum porteri, a mountain plant of Northern Mexico, home of the Rarámuri, who still brew the root. Simple ingredients: premium quality extract.

A dropper a day

Hold a dropper under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow. It tastes earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root, the same smell the chemists traced to Z-ligustilide. If you'd rather drink it, stir it into a mug of tea, a glass of water or juice, or the bottle you take on a hike or a run. Most people take 1 to 2 droppers a day, morning or evening, any time of year, and a 50 ml bottle lasts 30 to 50 days at that rate.

For more on the breathing side of the record, read our post on osha root and the lungs.

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 are the benefits of osha root, according to tradition?

The record centres on the chest and throat. Comanche, Diné, Zuni, Pueblo and New Mexican Hispanic sources describe it for pneumonia, a gravelly voice, sore throat and loosening phlegm.

Is osha root an expectorant?

Herbalists have long described it that way. EBSCO's osha entry, citing Michael Moore, says it is taken as an expectorant, which is where the name Colorado cough root comes from.

What does osha root tincture taste like?

Earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite. Many people stir it into tea instead of taking it straight.

Is bear root the same as osha?

Yes. Bear root is a common name for osha, Ligusticum porteri, from the story that bears dig up the root and chew it when they wake from hibernation.