Have a cup of mint tea and call me in the morning?

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Photograph courtesy Newcastle University

A centuries-old folk remedy for aches and pains just earned a nod of recognition from modern medicine: researchers from the U.K.’s Newcastle University determined that Hypnis crenata, or Brazilian mint, is an effective pain reliever. Researchers first traveled to Brazil to observe traditional preparation of the remedy to determine appropriate dosage. Back in the lab, they recreated the preparation and tested the analgesic effects in mice. They found that, when prepared as a tea, the Brazilian mint proved equally effective as the commercially available medication Indometacin, which is predominately used as an anti-inflammatory and analgesic.

The research was presented today at a symposium on medicinal plants and herbs held in New Delhi, and will appear in the journal Acta Horticulturae. After the promising trial in mice, researchers are eager to see whether the herb proves to be an effective remedy for humans as well. If so, it may not be the delectable treatment it sounds like—researchers say when prepared as a tea, the Brazilian herb tastes more like sage than what most people would recognize as mint.