The Medicinal Uses of Japanese Barberry

Disclaimer. I am not a licensed health practitioner.  This is just another post on an item you might wish to have available if needed so that a physician can treat you and your family as best as possible.  No medication, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician.  Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.  A qualified, licensed physician or other medical provider should be consulted before beginning any herbal or conventional treatment.

This post is going to be exclusively about Japanese barberry.  However, it should be noted that just about everything written here about the medicinal uses of Japanese barberry also applies to Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium), Phellodendron amurense (not phylodendron, an entirely different plant), American goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), and Nandina domestica, which are all members of the berberine family.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these other plants; the medicine obtained from them is equally effective.  In the case of Phellodendron amurense it's actually easier to obtain because you don't have to dig up the roots.  Most of these plants are considered invasives and are easily located, especially in the eastern United States.

I don't live there.  If I did, I'd plant a Phellodendron amurense tree or two in my yard and perhaps some of the others.  But the way things are going in this country, there might not be sufficient time for it to grow and for me to be able to start harvesting for medicine.  I really want to be able to find what I need for medicine now.

So that's where Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) comes in.  While it is particularly invasive in the eastern part of the country and should be easy for folks living there to locate, it's not at all invasive in the West.  It gets planted and it stays there.  It does not spread at all.  With its small, shrubby size, bright red berries, and foliage that turns purple in the fall, it's a very popular ornamental out here.  It's used in landscaping everywhere.  Shopping centers, commercial developments, churches, residential landscaping.

Japanese barberry

Here's one picture of it.  Google for a few other images and then pay attention when you are out and about.  Maybe consider getting some plants in the spring and planting them in your yard.

The medicine, berberine, can be found in the lower branches (scratch off the outer bark--if it's yellow underneath, it's got berberine), but the roots contain up to ten-fold more medicine.  That's why it's nice to find invasive plants growing in the wild.  No one cares if you dig them up.  But in shopping centers and church parking lots people might not be so understanding.

Why do you want to learn about using Japanese barberry as medicine?  What's it good for, as far as preppers are concerned?  Acute dysentery and diarrhea, as encountered in cholera and enterotoxogenic E. coli infections, giardia, infected wounds, conjunctivitis and other eye infections, and infections of the mucous membranes of the mouth, throat, and vagina. 

In places where it is considered invasive, Japanese barberry spreads like raspberries and blackberries do:  by seeds eaten by animals and excreted, root spread, root and branch cuttings, and live branches touching the ground.  Roots left in the ground will resprout.  In arid areas and poorer soils barberry is much more well-behaved.

The barberry wood is really tough and must be cut into very small, one inch or less, pieces while fresh.  Scrape off the bark of sections you have targeted for harvesting.  The inner bark must be yellow; if not, it is not medicinal and there's no point to harvesting it.  Move on to another plant.  The outer bark is the most medicinally powerful part of the plant, but most people use the entire root.  Harvest in the fall.  Cut and dry well and store in plastic bags in plastic totes, and keep it dark and dry.  (If you have access to Oregon grape, you could use it instead; the roots aren't as difficult to harvest and process.)

Tincture:  Tincture the dried root in a 1:5 ratio in 50 percent alcohol (i.e., one ounce dried root by weight to five ounces of 100-proof alcohol).  The dosage is 10-60 drops, three times per day, or more in acute gastrointestinal conditions. 

Very little information is provided on dosages to treat various conditions.  A clinical trial in India showed that berberine in a dosage of 10 mg/kg/day was as effective as metronidazole in treating giardia.  It controls enterotoxigenic E. coli completely, and works to some degree in treating cholera.  (However, when combined with pomegranate bark or peel or geranium root, berberine is completely effective in eliminating cholera.)

Vaginal yeast infections:  two teaspoons in one pint of water; douche once or twice per day.

Wash:  one tablespoon per pint of water and wash affected area twice per day.  Useful for infected wounds and acne.

And an aqueous extract (which has been shown to be less potent than alcohol extracts) was shown to be slightly less effective than sulfacetamide in treating eyes infected with Chlamydia trachomatis. 

Berberine is synergistic with fluconazole, ampicillin, and oxacillin.[1]

Other uses:  The barberry fruits are edible and were historically used to make jam. Common barberry (Berberis vulgaris) when used in place of antibiotics in chicken feed was shown to increase the birds' weight gain.

For more information:
https://practicalselfreliance.com/barberry-berberis/
http://medicinalherbinfo.org/000Herbs2016/1herbs/barberry/
https://www.home-remedies-for-you.com/herbs/barberry.html
https://www.drugs.com/npp/barberry.html
https://aac.asm.org/content/aac/32/9/1370.full.pdf

[1] Stephen Harrod Buhner, Herbal Antibiotics, 2012, 166. 

14 january 2019

21 april 2024