Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Gale of wind is a small weedy herb drunk as a bush tea across the Caribbean. People reach for it mainly for kidney stones and for jaundice (yellow skin and eyes). Its botanical name is Phyllanthus amarus.
The whole plant is used, leaves, stems, seed and often the root. It grows as a roadside and garden weed through the islands and much of the tropics. Seed pods sit in a neat row under the leaves, which is where several of its names come from.
You may meet it as carry-me-seed in Jamaica, as chanca piedra or "stone breaker" in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, and as deye do in Haiti. Older island writing calls it the stone and jaundice bush.
Here is the honest verdict. Human evidence is thin, small and mixed, and no use below is settled. Long use in a tradition is not proof that a herb works, and it is not proof that it is safe.
Nobody has shown clearly how this herb acts in people. Almost all of the mechanism work is from test tubes and animals.
In lab studies, lignans from the plant slow an enzyme that hepatitis B virus uses to copy itself. Whether that happens inside a treated person is not established.
In cell and animal work, extracts appear to cut the clumping of calcium oxalate crystals. Those crystals are the main stuff of many kidney stones. One small human study found shifts in urine salts, which is a hint, not an answer.
In animals, extracts have lowered blood sugar and eased swelling. Human trials to back this up are small or missing.
Dried whole herb, loose or bagged for tea, is the most common form.
Capsules and tablets of powdered herb are widely sold. So are liquid tinctures and alcohol-free glycerites.
Some brands sell extracts set to a stated lignan content. Strength still varies between brands, so one product does not match another.
In the islands, many people pick the fresh plant and boil it at home. Several look-alike weeds grow in the same ground. Getting the right plant is a real concern with fresh material.
Caribbean bush medicine has used this herb for well over a century. Written island herbals from the 1800s onward list it for stones, gravel and jaundice.
Healers gave it as a boiled tea for painful urination, for yellowed eyes and for fevers. The Spanish name chanca piedra carries the old claim outright: stone breaker.
The same plant travelled through Ayurvedic and West African practice, and the Caribbean use likely draws on both. This record tells you the herb was valued and widely used. It does not tell you the remedy worked.
Stop and see a doctor the same day if you notice any of these:
Yellow skin or yellow eyes. Dark urine or pale stools. Blood in your urine.
Severe pain in the side or back, fever with shaking chills, or vomiting you cannot stop.
Shaking, sweating, confusion or a pounding heart, which can mean low blood sugar.
Unusual bruising, or bleeding that will not stop.
Call emergency services for swelling of the lips, face or throat, or trouble breathing. That is an allergic reaction.
In the United States it is sold as a dietary supplement, not as an approved medicine. In the United Kingdom and the European Union it is sold as a food supplement, with no approved medical claims. Across the Caribbean it is an ordinary bush tea, and local rules on herbal products vary by island.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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