Contact Info

Join us

EPAZOTE

Epazote
Epazote 2
Epazote 3

Botanical name:

Dysphania ambrosioides (formerly Chenopodium ambrosioides)

Alternative names:

Epazote, Mexican tea, wormseed, paico, payco

Main indications:

  • bean-pot herb
  • folk worm tea — oil is the danger

Short characteristics:

Epazote is Dysphania ambrosioides (old name Chenopodium ambrosioides), a Mesoamerican pot herb with a wormwood-and-petrol leaf. It traveled. You will meet it as paico in the Andes and as a weed almost everywhere. It is not an Amazonian endemic.

Cooks put a sprig in beans. Folk medicine used stronger teas and, worse, the essential oil as a worm cure. Ascaridole in that oil is toxic. Kitchen sprigs are food. Wormseed oil is a historical poison with a folk reputation, not a home dewormer.

The usual way of use:

A sprig in the pot — food. That is the use that belongs in a kitchen. Do not drink essential oil. Do not give “wormseed oil” to children. Do not run a parasite cleanse with this plant. If you have worms, that is a clinic problem, not a Dysphania problem.

Composition

The leaf used in cooking is a strong aromatic. The distilled oil is another object: ascaridole (an endoperoxide), plus carvacrol and caryophyllene oxide in many samples. Ascaridole is the compound that made “oil of chenopodium” a 19th- and 20th-century anthelmintic — and the compound that got people killed when the dose slipped.

  • Ascaridole: endoperoxide; iron-activated radical chemistry; the toxicity story.
  • Carvacrol and caryophyllene oxide: other major oil constituents in Monzote’s analyses; they hit mitochondria too.
  • Cooked leaf ≠ oil: a sprig in beans is not a dropper of wormseed oil.

Traditional Use

Mesoamerican cooking and household medicine used the plant for beans, wind, and worms. Andean paico is the same species in a different kitchen. The folk parasite use is real. So is the reason pharmacies stopped selling the oil.

  • Culinary: beans, soups, a sprig.
  • Folk worms and “empacho”: historical. Not a protocol to copy.

Precautions and Possible Interactions with Medicines

The essential oil is dangerous. That is not a polite hedge. Oil of chenopodium caused poisonings — neurological, hepatic — and is not a home remedy. Ascaridole’s mitochondrial toxicity is published, not folklore.

  • Do not ingest the essential oil. Not for parasites, not for “cleanse,” not for children, not ever as a folk drug.
  • Pregnancy: no medicinal epazote.
  • Children: food sprig in a family pot is one thing; worm teas and oil are not.
  • Liver or kidney disease: no medicinal use.
  • Anthelmintics you were prescribed: do not stack a folk oil on them.

Available Scientific Studies

Two papers on the oil and the genus. Read them as a toxicity file.

  • “Toxic effects of carvacrol, caryophyllene oxide, and ascaridole from essential oil of Chenopodium ambrosioides on mitochondria”
    Authors: Monzote L, Stamberg W, Staniek K, Gille L (2009)
    Overview: Oil constituents impair mammalian mitochondrial function. Ascaridole’s toxicity jumps in the presence of Fe²⁺ via carbon-centered radicals and lipid peroxidation. This is the mechanistic warning behind the old wormseed-oil poisonings.
    Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19666043/

  • “Essential oils from Dysphania genus: Traditional uses, chemical composition, toxicology, and health benefits”
    Authors: Dagni A, Hegheș SC, Suharoschi R, Pop OL, Fodor A, Vulturar R, Cozma A, Aniq Filali O, Vodnar DC, Soukri A, El Khalfi B (2022)
    Overview: Genus review: traditional uses, oil chemistry, and toxicology, including ascaridole, carvacrol, and mitochondrial effects. Contraindications listed include pregnancy, small children, and liver or kidney disease. Use this as a brake, not as a recipe.
    Link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9773091/