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Sandalwood Poisonous?
Is sandalwood poisonous if eaten?
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#2
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Curious schreef
Is sandalwood poisonous if eaten? * * * I can't really say and I doubt if anybody could. However, on the whole poisonous woods are ususally most dangerous if the poison is extracted first or if the wood is divided into very small particles (by sanding and such) and can be breathed in. On the whole wood itself is not digested, meaning that the stuff in the wood stays in. However IIRC there are a few woods that are poisonous to the touch (when fresh), and quite a few more that cause allergic reactions (susceptibility varies). I would expect sandalwood not to be poisonous when eaten, but strongly suggest you don't try to test this (it costs like crazy too). PvR |
#3
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Curious schreef
Is sandalwood poisonous if eaten? * * * Another aspect is poisonous to whom? Things harmless to humans can be poisonous to pets. Apparently chocolate can be lethal to dogs, and avocado fruits to birds. Woods guaranteed to be non-poisonous when ingested are a fairly hot topic for bird owners, wanting to put sticks, roosts, etc in with their bird. A few woods are known to be poisonous when ingested (black walnut to horses is often mentioned, as is yew to apparently everybody). PvR. |
#4
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#5
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In article ,
Gautam Majumdar wrote: On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 06:24:18 +0100, Curious wrote: Is sandalwood poisonous if eaten? Can't say about sandalwood as a whole but sandalwood oil is not poisonous to humans. It is used in various medicinal preparations of the Ayurvedic (ancient Indian) system. Geez mate, that hardly proves it's not poisonous! In fact, many lethal compounds are used in medicine for the very reason that they are extremely biologically active. I hardly need mention they need to be used with precision and caution. Mind you, it's possible that sandalwood oil is relatively safe. Indeed there is some data on the Australian product from _Santalum spicatum_ that has found no serious problems: http://www.aromarich.btinternet.co.uk/sandalwood2.html But, mind you again, that page is from an aromatherapy site, so perhaps should itself be taken with a grain of salt. ;-) E.g. see: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~no...********books7. htm At http://www.wrc.net/phyto/Chandana.html there is an indication of possible toxic effects from _S. album_ oil: quoting Toxicity: Possible cytochrome p-450 inducement in high doses long term (Jones et al 1994). Essential oil reported to have a "baneful effect upon the kidneys" in larger doses (Nadkarni 1976, 1102). /quoting The references are given on that page -- and it might be noted that the article by Jones et al. actually referred to quandong (_Santalum acuminatum_). Cheers, Phred. -- LID |
#6
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In article ,
Gautam Majumdar wrote: On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 06:24:18 +0100, Curious wrote: Is sandalwood poisonous if eaten? Can't say about sandalwood as a whole but sandalwood oil is not poisonous to humans. It is used in various medicinal preparations of the Ayurvedic (ancient Indian) system. As with almost anything, the dose makes the poison. A few minutes with google reveals that for the oil of Santalum album the oral LD50 in rats is 5580 mg/kg and the skin LD50 is 5.00 g/kg. I don't know why they don't standardize the units, but as far as acute toxicity you'd have to drink a cup or two to poison yourself to death with it, and you'd probably die of intestinal impaction before you could eat enough sandalwood sawdust to kill you. That said, unsurprisingly the oil is an irritant to skin, eyes and mucous membranes, and people can develop an allergic reaction to it. More interesting is that it's believed to have some kidney toxicity, and has been established to induce cytochrome P-450 in the liver and also act as a cyclooxygenase inhibitor. This means that it can potentiate, antagonize or interfere with a lot of different prescription drugs and as a diuretic may cause hypokalemia especially in conjunction with other drugs. The US FDA rates it as GRAS (generally recognized as safe) as a food, drug or cosmetic additive. GRAS mainly means that it's been in use for a long time as such without any evident harm caused by it, although it hasn't been formally tested for safety. It appears that no research has been done on long-term issues like mutagenicity, carcinogenicity or teratogenicity, or effects of prolonged high dosages on any organs or systems. There is some research indicating anti-fungal and anti-bacterial action, unsurprising since that's probably its function in the plant. What little science I can find was mostly done with S.album, but there are a lot of other species used. It's been overharvested in India, so a lot of sandalwood and sandalwood oil now comes from S.spicatum in Australia, and from other species elsewhere. Essential oils (mainly terpenes) have a wide range of medicinal and toxic effects, and may vary quite a lot between species. Since there's no authority to guarantee purity, sandalwood oil is often adulterated with other materials, notably castor oil, and other woods treated with sandalwood oil are sold as sandalwood. At any rate, used sensibly neither the wood nor the oil are likely to harm you, but don't get carried away. Even the innumerable web sites that sell the stuff for its vaguely medical and magical properties have enough sense to recommend caution, even if they can't agree whether its "ruling planet" is the moon or Uranus. While sorting through the swamp of entrepreneurial new age sites google turned up, I ran into a paper describing some research testing 53 different essential oils for their insecticidal effect on a particularly troublesome species of white fly in greenhouses in Korea. About half the oils tested had an 80% or better kill rate on eggs, and some had good effect against adults. One of the best was peppermint oil. This is encouraging since some of these greenhouse species have developed resistance against most chemical insecticides, and white fly is a big problem on edible crops like greenhouse tomatoes where limiting pesticide residues is very important. Of course, any discussion of herbal remedies these days has to have personal anecdotes to prove a point. I've been using a rather nice sandalwood scented soap from China for many years and I'm not dead yet. It's denser than the North American soaps because it doesn't have air whipped into it to make it float, so it doesn't dissolve away as fast in the shower. It's cheap, too. I like the scent a lot. But my husband finds that it aggravates a chronic skin condition he has, so he uses Ivory now. There's no telling if it's the sandalwood or another ingredient at fault, however. Or maybe there's an astrological incompatibility, right? |
#7
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On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 14:27:22 +0100, Phred wrote:
In article , Gautam Majumdar wrote: On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 06:24:18 +0100, Curious wrote: Is sandalwood poisonous if eaten? Can't say about sandalwood as a whole but sandalwood oil is not poisonous to humans. It is used in various medicinal preparations of the Ayurvedic (ancient Indian) system. Geez mate, that hardly proves it's not poisonous! In fact, many lethal compounds are used in medicine for the very reason that they are extremely biologically active. I hardly need mention they need to be used with precision and caution. I agree; whether something is harmful to use depends mainly on the dose. Some of our cherished food supplements, even essential neutrients such as Vitamin A, could cause harm and even death if taken in large doses. But we don't call them poisonous because they are not harmful when used in intended ways. Mind you, it's possible that sandalwood oil is relatively safe. Indeed there is some data on the Australian product from _Santalum spicatum_ that has found no serious problems: http://www.aromarich.btinternet.co.uk/sandalwood2.html Sandalwood oil is used by many people in the Indian subcontinent for skin conditions, both for medicinal and cosmetic purposes. It is not used internally excepting in minute quantities in some Ayurvedic medicine. When I said that it is not poisonous, I meant these uses. It may not be safe if somebody drinks a litre of it. At http://www.wrc.net/phyto/Chandana.html there is an indication of possible toxic effects from _S. album_ oil: quoting Toxicity: Possible cytochrome p-450 inducement in high doses long term (Jones et al 1994). Essential oil reported to have a "baneful effect upon the kidneys" in larger doses (Nadkarni 1976, 1102). /quoting The references are given on that page -- and it might be noted that the article by Jones et al. actually referred to quandong (_Santalum acuminatum_). -- Gautam Majumdar Please send e-mails to |
#8
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In article , Gautam Majumdar wrote:
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 14:27:22 +0100, Phred wrote: In article , Gautam Majumdar wrote: On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 06:24:18 +0100, Curious wrote: Is sandalwood poisonous if eaten? Can't say about sandalwood as a whole but sandalwood oil is not poisonous to humans. It is used in various medicinal preparations of the Ayurvedic (ancient Indian) system. Geez mate, that hardly proves it's not poisonous! In fact, many lethal compounds are used in medicine for the very reason that they are extremely biologically active. I hardly need mention they need to be used with precision and caution. I agree; whether something is harmful to use depends mainly on the dose. Some of our cherished food supplements, even essential neutrients such as Vitamin A, could cause harm and even death if taken in large doses. But we don't call them poisonous because they are not harmful when used in intended ways. G'day again mate, Somewhat off-topic in s.b.botany but your mention of Vitamin A reminded me of the likely cause of disaster in one of the early Antarctic expeditions. They were pretty much starving and started eating the dogs. This included the liver, so it's reasonably suspected at least one poor bloke finally died of Vitamin A poisoning! quoting from http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=7043 Mawson himself led the 'Far Eastern' sledging expedition with Belgrave Ninnis, a Swiss doctor, and Xavier Mertz, an English army lieutenant. The expedition was five weeks old and 500 km out when disaster struck: Ninnis, with one of the two sleds and most of the party's supplies, was lost down an immense crevasse. Mertz was to die on the return journey, possibly from Vitamin A poisoning from eating the livers of husky dogs. But Mawson survived after an epic solo journey during which he had to haul himself on the end of a rope out of a deep crevasse. It was one of the great polar stories of survival. /quoting Mind you, it's possible that sandalwood oil is relatively safe. Indeed there is some data on the Australian product from _Santalum spicatum_ that has found no serious problems: http://www.aromarich.btinternet.co.uk/sandalwood2.html Sandalwood oil is used by many people in the Indian subcontinent for skin conditions, both for medicinal and cosmetic purposes. It is not used internally excepting in minute quantities in some Ayurvedic medicine. When I said that it is not poisonous, I meant these uses. It may not be safe if somebody drinks a litre of it. At http://www.wrc.net/phyto/Chandana.html there is an indication of possible toxic effects from _S. album_ oil: quoting Toxicity: Possible cytochrome p-450 inducement in high doses long term (Jones et al 1994). Essential oil reported to have a "baneful effect upon the kidneys" in larger doses (Nadkarni 1976, 1102). /quoting The references are given on that page -- and it might be noted that the article by Jones et al. actually referred to quandong (_Santalum acuminatum_). Cheers, Phred. -- LID |
#9
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Gautam Majumdar wrote in message .uk...
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 06:24:18 +0100, Curious wrote: Is sandalwood poisonous if eaten? Can't say about sandalwood as a whole but sandalwood oil is not poisonous to humans. It is used in various medicinal preparations of the Ayurvedic (ancient Indian) system. I was thinking of making a thin watery drink with the following whole ingredients [raw, natural, organic, un-processed, solid, all products whole and not juiced] with my VitaMix blender: 1. Sandalwood 2. Licorice 3. Betal Leaf [Paan] 4. Mints [peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, etc.] 5. Garlic 6. Cinnamon 7. Ginger 8. Tamarind 9. Anice 10. Parsley 11. Holy Basil [Tulsi] 12. Scallions 13. Lime 14. Lemon 15. Mustard Leaves 16. Lavender 17. Rose petals 18. Parrot Tulip petals 19. Turmeric The flavors/aromas should be equally strong. This means that less amounts of the stronger-flavored/stronger-aroma plants should be used. Another thing in consideration is the causticity -- paan, ginger and some of the others have caustic qualities. The higher the causticity of the plant the less of it should be added. I might add some other plants! |
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Why?
M. Reed I was thinking of making a thin watery drink with the following whole ingredients [raw, natural, organic, un-processed, solid, all products whole and not juiced] with my VitaMix blender: 1. Sandalwood 2. Licorice 3. Betal Leaf [Paan] 4. Mints [peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, etc.] 5. Garlic 6. Cinnamon 7. Ginger 8. Tamarind 9. Anice 10. Parsley 11. Holy Basil [Tulsi] 12. Scallions 13. Lime 14. Lemon 15. Mustard Leaves 16. Lavender 17. Rose petals 18. Parrot Tulip petals 19. Turmeric The flavors/aromas should be equally strong. This means that less amounts of the stronger-flavored/stronger-aroma plants should be used. Another thing in consideration is the causticity -- paan, ginger and some of the others have caustic qualities. The higher the causticity of the plant the less of it should be added. I might add some other plants! |
#11
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Monique Reed wrote in message ...
Why? M. Reed Because it's a drinkable Dagwood sandwich? -- Also puzzled, Chris Green |
#12
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Monique Reed wrote in message ...
Why? I like the clean feeling it would give. I would this to be my meals. A meal's amount for breakfast, a meal's amount for lunch, and a meal's amount for dinner. |
#13
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Curious schreef
I like the clean feeling it would give. I would this to be my meals. A meal's amount for breakfast, a meal's amount for lunch, and a meal's amount for dinner. * * * A religious ritual? PvR |
#14
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With that concoction, I doubt if you would feel clean. You would more likely
feel pretty sick. Better talk to your doctor. Iris, Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40 "If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming train." Robert Lowell (1917-1977) |
#15
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You want this to be your only source of nourishment? I think perhaps
you might want to consult a nutritionist. You will will be deficient in protein and probably other essential parts of a balanced diet. M. Reed Curious wrote: Monique Reed wrote in message ... Why? I like the clean feeling it would give. I would this to be my meals. A meal's amount for breakfast, a meal's amount for lunch, and a meal's amount for dinner. -- ˙WPC5 |
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