Castor Oil: All-Purpose Life-Changer, Or Snake Oil?

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Castor oil is enjoying a moment in the world of trending health products, with many (social media) sources lauding it as a miraculous cure-all with dozens of uses.

  • Today’s main feature examines some of the most common claims, and sees where the science is backing or lacking.

• At 10almonds, we often mention that “diversity is good”; usually we’re talking about diet and exercises, but the same goes for more things!

  • Today’s sponsor, Money, is giving a timely opportunity to diversify your portfolio one of the most stable investments, gold—which historically can be a very solid bet in uncertain times.

• Today’s featured book is about healthy vegetarian Indian cooking—excite your taste buds without exciting your cardiologist!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

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Monday’s Research Review

Castor Oil: All-Purpose Life-Changer, Or Snake Oil?

As “trending” health products go, castor oil is enjoying a lot of popularity presently, lauded as a life-changing miracle-worker, and social media is abuzz with advice to put it everywhere from your eyes to your vagina.

But:

• what things does science actually say it’s good for,

• what things lack evidence, and

• what things go into the category of “wow definitely do not do that”?

We don't have the space to go into all of its proposed uses (there are simply far too many), but we’ll examine some common ones:

To heal/improve the skin barrier

Like most oils, it’s functional as a moisturizer. In particular, its high (90%!) ricinoleic fatty acid content does indeed make it good at that, and furthermore, has properties that can help reduce skin inflammation and promote wound healing:

Bioactive polymeric formulations for wound healing ← there isn’t a conveniently quotable summary we can just grab here, but you can see the data and results, from which we can conclude:

• formulations with ricinoleic acid (such as with castor oil) performed very well for topical anti-inflammatory purposes

• they avoided the unwanted side effects associated with some other contenders

• they consistently beat other preparations in the category of wound-healing

To support hair growth and scalp health

There is no evidence that it helps. We’d love to provide a citation for this, but it’s simply not there. There’s also no evidence that it doesn’t help. For whatever reason, despite its popularity, peer-reviewed science has simply not been done for this, or if it has, it wasn’t anywhere publicly accessible.

It’s possible that if a person is suffering hair loss specifically as a result of prostaglandin D2 levels, that ricinoleic acid will inhibit the PGD2, reversing the hair loss, but even this is hypothetical so far, as the science is currently only at the step before that:

In silico prediction of prostaglandin D2 synthase inhibitors from herbal constituents for the treatment of hair loss

However, due to some interesting chemistry, the combination of castor oil and warm water can result in acute (and irreversible) hair felting, in other words, the strands of hair suddenly glue together to become one mass which then has to be cut off:

“Castor Oil” – The Culprit of Acute Hair Felting

👆 this is a case study, which is generally consider a low standard of evidence (compared to high-quality Randomized Controlled Trials as the highest standard of evidence), but let’s just say, this writer (hi, it’s me) isn’t risking her butt-length hair on the off-chance, and doesn’t advise you to, either. There are other hair-oils out there; argan oil is great, coconut oil is totally fine too.

As a laxative

This time, there’s a lot of evidence, and it’s even approved for this purpose by the FDA, but it can be a bit too good, insofar as taking too much can result in diarrhea and uncomfortable cramping (the cramps are a feature not a bug; the mechanism of action is stimulatory, i.e. it gets the intestines squeezing, but again, it can result in doing that too much for comfort):

Castor Oil: FDA-Approved Indications

To soothe dry eyes

While putting oil in your eyes may seem dubious, this is another one where it actually works:

Source: Therapeutic potential of castor oil in managing blepharitis, meibomian gland dysfunction and dry eye

Against candidiasis (thrush)

We couldn’t find science for (or against) castor oil’s use against vaginal candidiasis, but here’s a study that investigated its use against oral candidiasis:

Rosemary, Castor Oils, and Propolis Extract: Activity Against Candida Albicans and Alterations on Properties of Dental Acrylic Resins

…in which castor oil was the only preparation that didn’t work against the yeast.

Summary

We left a lot unsaid today (so many proposed uses, it feels like a shame to skip them), but in few words: it’s good for skin (including wound healing) and eyes; but we’d give it a miss for hair, candidiasis, and digestive disorders.

Want to try some?

We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎

Take care!

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One-Minute Book Review

Chetna's Healthy Indian: Vegetarian: Everyday Veg and Vegan Feasts Effortlessly Good for You – by Chetna Makan

Indian food is wonderful—a subjective opinion perhaps, but a popular view, and one this reviewer certainly shares. And of course, cooking with plenty of vegetables and spices is a great way to get a lot of health benefits.

There are usually downsides though, such as that in a lot of Indian cookbooks, every second thing is deep-fried, and what’s not deep-fried contains an entire day or more’s saturated fat content in ghee, and a lot of sides have more than their fair share of sugar.

This book fixes all that, by offering 80 recipes that prioritize health without sacrificing flavor.

The recipes are, as the title suggests, vegetarian, though many are not vegan (yogurt and cheese featuring in many recipes). That said, even if you are vegan, it’s pretty easy to veganize those with the obvious plant-based substitutions. If you have soy yogurt and can whip up vegan paneer yourself (here’s our own recipe for that), you’re pretty much sorted.

The cookbook strikes a good balance of being neither complicated nor “did we really need a recipe for this?” basic, and delivers value in all of its recipes. The ingredients, often a worry for many Westerners, should be easily found if you have a well-stocked supermarket near you; there’s nothing obscure here.

Bottom line: if you’d like to cook more Indian food and want your food to be exciting without also making your blood pressure exciting, then this is an excellent book for keeping you well-nourished, body and soul.

Click here to check out Chetna’s Healthy Indian, and spice up your culinary repertoire!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you the most well-informed start to the week,

The 10almonds Team