Nettle Supplements & Nettle Infusions: Good or Bad?

It’s Kate Mahoney, your food-first supplement expert and founder of the Supplement Academy, popping by with what is hopefully a helpful Supplement Scoop dedicated to nettles! Because with so many health influencers promoting nettle infusions, preparations of nettle tea leaves, or nettle supplements, understanding the benefits and potential drawbacks of nettles is crucial for successfully guiding our clients.

This post is thanks to great question I received on this topic.  

“Would nettle infusions ever be a bad idea for anyone?”  

I'm happy to provide some insight I have on the topic of nettles as a supplement expert! 🙂 

Like always, any supplement links I share are clean links [aka affiliate-free] to ensure I continue to provide you with comprehensive, unbiased and agenda-free supplement information, as is in alignment with my integrity. 💜

Now let's dive in! 😀

First, it’s best to rotate [aka only use short-term] beneficial herbs such as nettle seasonally or medicinally. What critical thinking helps make clear is that traditional seasonal and medicinal herb use is relatively short term; anywhere from one single dose up to no longer than a 2-3 months.

Modern agricultural and manufacturing practices have made it possible for us to have access to nettle supplements and nettle tea leaves in ways that were never possible before industrial agriculture.  

For the safety of our clients and despite their current availability, it’s essential for us to be aware of the traditional use of herbs because there is a lot of important wisdom that allows us to help our clients even more without doing inadvertent damage/harm to them. 

Next, while both freshly harvested cooked nettles and nettle tea leaves prepared as an infusion can be a wonderful source of certain minerals, nettles are also a powerful natural antihistamine. The natural antihistamines are why a lot of people take nettles for allergies.

BUT WAIT!
Before you start jumping for joy and racing to find a nettle tea recipe or supplement for your allergies, there are some important considerations and potential side effects to be aware of first. 

(The following information is an excerpt from an FSS aka Functional Supplement Specialist certification course curriculum Digestion Pathway module lesson that addresses how to optimally navigate allergens with clients.)

Any and all antihistamines—whether natural or synthetic—do not address the root cause of allergies. Antihistamines merely lessen allergy symptoms temporarily.  

Nettles and other natural antihistamines are what I refer to as Inflammation Reaction-dampening supplements.  

This is because if someone is having an Inflammation Reaction (to anything), we need to remember that Inflammation Reaction-dampening supplements do NOT address the root cause of the Inflammation Reaction, they only temporarily lessen symptoms.  

While short-term use of Inflammation Reaction-dampening supplements [such as nettle leaf] can provide temporary relief when necessary, long-term use has side effects. 

Our discerning critical thinking can help us remember why the body is inflamed in the first place: It has identified a substance as a toxin and is having an Inflammation Reaction in an effort to remove the toxin from the body as quickly as possible.

I’ll use the example of pollen with a metaphor of a house fire to illustrate this concept.  

Think of pollen as hot sparks, the immune system as oxygen, and the body as a house.  

We know that oxygen ignites fire. When pollen [aka hot sparks] enters the body, the naturally occurring oxygen in the house [in this metaphor, the immune system] ignites due to the presence of the hot sparks, creating a house fire. 

Giving someone an antihistamine supplement to reduce an Inflammation Reaction is basically like closing the house up and depriving it of oxygen, or in this analogy, depriving the body of immune function to rid the body of exacerbating pollen.

This also means any hot sparks [aka pollen] that still remain in the body get trapped inside the body as well. 😬  

As soon as the house is “opened back up again”—which happens because the Inflammatory Reaction-dampening supplement is no longer being taken, or it stops working because the body reaches a state of toxic burden that it can no longer contain--the immune system is immediately reignited and the house fire is (often uncontrollably) ablaze once more.  

Clearly, Inflammation Reaction-dampening supplements are not a root-cause answer for people having an Inflammation Reaction. It’s like putting a Band-Aid on an infected wound so you can’t see the infection, but the problem is still there and getting worse the longer the Band-Aid is on. 

So when it comes to consuming nettles in any form--be it freshly harvested, nettle supplements, or an infusion made from nettle tea leaves--my suggestions are:

That concludes this Supplement Scoop!

I sincerely hope this information is helpful, colleague. 💜  

Until next time, remember that critical thinking + discernment is a SUPERPOWER. 🌟

Warm regards,
Kate 💜 

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The Supplement Scoop blog is written by Kate Mahoney, FNTP, FSS, a food-first dietary supplement expert, functional nutrition practitioner, and former international functional nutrition instructor with nearly 30 years of experience. Her mission is to empower everyone with the ability to identify the less than 15% of supplements worldwide that are worth using, with the hope that doing so will lead to improved supplement quality and effectiveness around the world. To that effort, in 2020, she founded the Supplement Academy to provide health professionals and consumers around the world with comprehensive and unbiased dietary supplement information and education.

In her free time, Kate is a Muppet whose inner spark is rejuvenated by nature, dancing to super loud music with friends, caring for her rescued feline furbabies with her beloved spouse, and enjoying delicious homecooked food with loved ones.