What Is Osha Root Good For? How People Have Used It for Centuries

Ask what is osha root good for and you get two kinds of answer. The first is centuries old. The Zuni, the Diné, the Rarámuri of Northern Mexico, the Southern Ute, the Lakota and the Comanche all kept the root (Ligusticum porteri) in their medicine, mostly for the throat, the chest and the stomach. The second comes from labs. In 2008 a University of Texas at El Paso study found that an osha extract stopped more than half the growth of the tuberculosis bacterium at the lowest concentration it tested. Today people take it as a daily ritual: a dropper under the tongue, or a few drops in tea or a water bottle.

Osha is a member of the carrot and parsley family and a relative of lovage. It grows high, roughly 1,500 to 3,500 m, and the root smells sharply of celery. For the full plant profile, read our guide to osha root.

What is osha root good for, people by people

Each people had its own name and use for the root. This is what ethnobotanists recorded, as collected in Natasha Myhal's University of Kansas thesis on oshá and the U.S. National Library of Medicine's Native Voices exhibition.

• Zuni (New Mexico). Camazine and Bye's 1980 study of Zuni medicine records the root used for sore throat and body aches, and chewed in curing ceremonies.
• Diné (Navajo). Used for colds and toothache. The Diné credit the bear with leading them to the medicine.
• Rarámuri (Sierra Tarahumara, Chihuahua). Families brewed a tea from the root for stomach complaints, headaches and fever, and tied a piece around a newborn's neck. They call the plant wasía, and also chuchupate.
• Southern Ute (Colorado). Used for colds, flu and upper respiratory complaints, and for spiritual protection, per the 2008 Ute Ethnobotany Project.
• Lakota. Their name is mato tapejuta, bear medicine. A decoction of the root was taken for fevers and bronchitis, and the smoke of the burned root was breathed in for headaches and the sinuses.
• Comanche. The medicine woman Sanapia described boiling the root into a thick broth for people with pneumonia.

Hispanic ranchers in New Mexico call the plant chuchupate, and families there brewed it as a tea for sore throats. The habit is old. Osha root turned up in the Patterson Bundle, a leather medicine satchel found in Utah and dated to roughly 200 to 600 years ago.

What researchers found in the lab

The best known result is Oscar Beltran's 2008 work at the University of Texas at El Paso. He tested three plants used against tuberculosis in northern Mexico, osha among them. The osha extract stopped more than half the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv at 5 micrograms per millilitre, the lowest concentration tested. At that same concentration it showed no toxicity to human U-937 cells.

The root's main aromatic compound is Z-ligustilide, which makes up 0.15 to 2.5% of the root.

• In 2010, Fernando Brindis, Rachel Mata and colleagues isolated five compounds from the root in the Journal of Natural Products. One of them, (Z)-3-butylidenephthalide, inhibited the enzyme alpha-glucosidase (IC50 2.35 mM) and lowered blood glucose in diabetic mice at 56.2 mg/kg after a sugar load.
• A 2015 study in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology found diligustilide, the main compound in a hexane extract of the root, gastroprotective in rats at 10 mg/kg against ethanol-induced stomach lesions.
• In 2017, Nguyen, Sparks and Omoruyi reported in Pharmacognosy Research that osha extract at 200 and 400 micrograms per millilitre raised glutathione in human HL-60 cells by about 29 to 30%, and raised catalase activity 2.5 times at doses above 200.

Bears dug it up first

The name bear root comes from a story shared by several peoples: the bear found the medicine and showed it to humans. Shawn Sigstedt, a biology professor at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs, set out to watch it happen. He gave osha root to a pair of captive brown bears in Colorado Springs. The female chewed the root into a mash and rubbed it over her shoulders, chest and head.

More than 20 years later, a motion camera on Sigstedt's ranch outside Steamboat caught two wild bears, months apart, rubbing osha pulp onto a tree and then rubbing their bodies against the bark. His conclusion, as he told the Steamboat Pilot: "Bears taught humans to use osha." The old accounts say bears dig for it when they wake from hibernation.

What is osha root tincture good for in practice?

A tincture is an alcohol extract of the root, and it is the easiest way to have osha every day. You get a measured dose from a dropper. You also skip hunting for whole root. Osha looks a lot like poison hemlock, and United Plant Savers lists it as "At-Risk", so wild digging is a job for experienced harvesters. And the extract keeps: in dark Miron glass it stays sealed from air and light, while loose root and powder sit in a bag open to both.

Mara's Bear Root is osha root tincture from Ligusticum porteri, a mountain plant of Northern Mexico. It comes in a 50 ml dark Miron glass dropper bottle. Take 1 to 2 droppers a day, under the tongue or in water, tea, juice or a smoothie. At that rate a bottle lasts 30 to 50 days. Simple ingredients: premium quality extract.

Osha root uses today

Modern use has moved away from the chewed root and the medicine bundle. People who take osha now tend to keep it as a small daily habit, any time of year. The common ones:

• A dropper under the tongue first thing, held for 20 to 30 seconds and swallowed.
• Stirred into a morning or evening tea.
• A few drops in a water bottle after a hike or a run.
• Packed for trips to altitude, the same high country where the plant grows.

The taste is earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root. In tea it reads like a strong herbal broth. If tea is your way in, we wrote up how to make bear root tea.

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 is osha root used for traditionally?

Zuni healers used it for sore throat and body aches, Rarámuri families brewed it as a tea for stomach complaints and fever, and the Comanche boiled it into a broth for pneumonia. The Lakota call it mato tapejuta, bear medicine.

Is bear root the same as osha?

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

What does osha root taste like?

Earthy and warming, with a sharp bite close to celery or lovage. The smell is strong the moment you open the bottle.

How do you take osha root tincture?

Most people take 1 to 2 droppers a day. Hold it under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow, or stir it into water, tea, juice or a smoothie.