Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Peach leaf is the leaf of the peach tree, Amygdalus persica (also written Prunus persica). The remedy is the leaf, not the sweet fruit. American folk healers and Eclectic doctors brewed the dried leaves as a tea.
Here is the point that matters most. Peach leaves hold cyanogenic glycosides. These are plant compounds that can release cyanide, a fast-acting poison.
That hazard is why this page treats peach leaf as high risk. It gives no dose, no recipe and no length of use. No safe amount has been worked out for people.
Traditional use tells you what people did. It is not proof that a remedy works, and it is not proof that it is safe. Both of those things need testing, and peach leaf has had almost none.
The short verdict: human evidence for peach leaf is essentially absent, and the known cyanide risk is real. The peach fruit itself remains an ordinary, safe food.
No one has shown, in people, how peach leaf tea would help any complaint. The mechanisms below come from the laboratory and from animal work.
Peach leaves contain amygdalin and prunasin. When leaf tissue is chewed, crushed or wilted, plant enzymes break these down.
In test tubes that reaction gives off hydrogen cyanide. Gut bacteria can do much the same job after you swallow them.
Cyanide blocks the step that lets your cells use oxygen. That is well established in poisoning medicine, not a theory.
The old sedative and anti-sickness claims may simply reflect this toxic effect at a low level. Feeling dull, queasy or light-headed is not the same as being treated.
Peach leaf also holds flavonoids and tannins. In cell studies, extracts show antioxidant activity. In mice, some extracts have reduced signs of allergy and skin irritation.
None of that has been tested in people. A result in a dish or a mouse does not tell you what a cup of tea does in a human body.
Peach leaf turns up in a few places. None of them are standardised.
As a herbal product you may see:
- Loose dried leaf, sold as a herbal tea. - Tinctures and liquid extracts from small herbal makers. - A minor part of some old-style cough or stomach blends.
It is also sold outside medicine:
- Cosmetic and bath products, mainly in Japan and Korea. Peach leaf baths are traditional there.
This page does not describe how to prepare any of them. Giving a method would be giving a dose, and no safe dose is known.
Products rarely state how much amygdalin they contain. Two bags of the same brand can differ.
Treat any claim of a tested, standardised peach leaf product with care. Ask for the test result.
Peach kernels, the seed inside the stone, are a separate and higher risk. They are much richer in amygdalin than the leaves. Crushed kernel products sold as laetrile or vitamin B17 have caused serious poisonings.
Peach leaf has a long record in American home medicine. Nineteenth-century Eclectic physicians listed it in their dispensatories, and country households used it well into the twentieth century.
Writers of that era described a leaf infusion for an irritable stomach, for vomiting, and for the sickness of early pregnancy. Others used it for coughs, for worms in children, and as a mild calming drink.
The bark and the kernel were used too. Wilted leaves were sometimes laid on bruises and sores.
Those same old texts flagged the danger. They named hydrocyanic acid in the leaf and warned that strong or repeated doses could harm. The warning was in the tradition from the start.
Veterinary records tell the other half of the story. Cattle and horses have died after eating wilted peach, cherry or plum leaves. That is a documented cause of livestock cyanide poisoning.
This page describes what was done in the past. It does not suggest you repeat it.
Some reactions to Peach need urgent care. Call your local emergency number or go to an emergency department straight away — do not wait to see whether it passes.
Treat the signs below as an emergency. Call your local emergency number or poison centre at once. Say that peach leaf, kernel or amygdalin was swallowed, as hospitals hold a cyanide antidote.
Get emergency help for any of these:
- Headache with dizziness or confusion - Fast breathing, then slow or gasping breathing - Flushed, very red or bluish skin or lips - Vomiting with weakness or collapse - Fainting, a fit (seizure) or being hard to wake - A bitter almond smell on the breath
Stop using peach leaf and see your doctor if you get milder but repeated headaches, nausea or drowsiness after taking it. Do not wait to see if it passes.
In the United States, peach leaf is not an approved drug. It may be sold as a herbal tea or supplement under supplement law, which does not require proof that it works or is safe.
In the UK and the EU, peach leaf holds no traditional herbal registration. Food law there sets limits on hydrocyanic acid in foods and drinks.
Do not swap one herb for another on your own. Take these to your doctor, pharmacist or a registered herbalist, and name every product you take.
Things worth asking about:
- For nausea: ginger, and for pregnancy sickness, the vitamin B6 and anti-sickness options your midwife or doctor can prescribe. - For cough: honey in warm water for adults and children over one year. - For worms: a pharmacy or prescription worm treatment, which is cheap and effective. - For sleep and restlessness: sleep habit advice first, and ask your doctor before trying valerian or similar herbs. - For itchy skin: a plain moisturiser or oat-based bath product, with a doctor's advice if the skin is broken or infected.
Graded pages for the options named above:
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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