Herbs & Plants

Every plant on this page carries a number from 1 to 4. It is not a rating of how useful the plant is — it is a statement about how much human research stands behind one specific claim. Level 1 means at least two randomised trials or a meta-analysis. Level 4 means traditional use, and nothing more. We put the number on the page rather than in a footnote, because most disagreement about herbal medicine is really a disagreement about what counts as proof.

The same plant can hold two different numbers at once. Cinnamon appears here twice: once for blood sugar, where controlled trials exist, and once for digestion, where they mostly do not. Nothing about the cinnamon changed between those two pages. What changed is the question.

We read each plant across seven living traditions — Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Japanese Kampo, Korean medicine, Unani, Tibetan Sowa Rigpa and European herbalism — and then against modern research. Three of the five entries below are documented in all seven. Where a tradition has nothing to say about a plant, we write that too; an empty card is more useful than an invented one.

Two kinds of page live here. An article takes one claim and follows it — does ginger do anything for aching joints, and how much. An Atlas profile describes the plant itself: what it is, how much people take, who should avoid it, and what it interacts with. Where both exist, start with whichever question you actually have.

None of this is medical advice, and several of these plants interact with prescription drugs — licorice with blood-pressure medication, for one. The interaction sections are not decoration.