Guarana

Guarana: what was it used for?

A stimulating drink and a remedy for headache. Grieve records that Brazilian miners grated the sticks into sugar and water and drank it like tea, believing it “a preventive of many diseases, as well as a most refreshing beverage,” carrying a stick in their pockets with the palate bone or a scale of a large fish to grate it. King’s Dispensatory, like coffee and tea, calls it “a gentle excitant,” useful when the brain is irritated or depressed by mental over-exertion, and chiefly in nervous headache, the headache of menstruation, “and that following a course of dissipation.”

Guarana: what does modern science say?

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts the seed as a traditional herbal medicine, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for symptoms of fatigue and a sensation of weakness (monograph of 2013). Its assessment report finds 1.1 to 5.8 per cent of caffeine with smaller amounts of theobromine and theophylline, 9.5 to 16 per cent of tannins, mainly proanthocyanidins, and about 30 per cent of starch. Trials of its use against the fatigue of cancer disagree: a 2021 meta-analysis of three breast-cancer studies found it no better than placebo, on very low quality evidence, while a 2024 meta-analysis of five studies in 229 patients found a significant benefit despite high heterogeneity. A 2023 meta-analysis of eight placebo-controlled studies found that a single dose quickened response times a little without improving accuracy, and that it was unknown whether caffeine or something else was responsible. LiverTox, revised in 2023, judges that most of its effects and side effects can be explained by its caffeine.

Guarana: what did the older authorities say?

King’s American Dispensatory (1898)

Guarana “was introduced into France in the year 1817, by a French officer,” and described that year by Gassicourt in the Journal de Pharmacie before its plant was known; it was named after the Guaranis, who prepared it, and in 1826 Martius identified the plant and named it Paullinia sorbilis, from its use for a drink. Once loudly heralded for diarrhoea, it was by 1898 used chiefly for certain headaches, and was contraindicated wherever it was not desirable to excite the heart or raise the arterial tension.