Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Shaghayegh is the bright red corn poppy, Papaver rhoeas. It is a single herb used in Persian and Unani medicine, mostly as a syrup or tea made from the dried petals. Traditional healers give it to calm restlessness, help sleep and soothe a dry, tickly cough.
This is not the opium poppy. Papaver rhoeas contains different, much weaker alkaloids (plant compounds) and no morphine. Even so, it is mildly sedating (sleep-inducing), so it is not a harmless flower tea.
The evidence verdict: the traditional record is long and consistent, but human trial evidence is essentially absent. A long history of use is not proof that something works, and that point applies to everything below.
Nobody has shown clearly how Shaghayegh works in people. The best-supported idea is simple: the petals contain alkaloids that appear to damp down nerve activity, which would explain the mild drowsiness reported for centuries.
Laboratory and animal studies suggest a calming effect on the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord). Those results do not automatically carry over to a cup of petal tea.
The soothing effect on a sore throat may be simpler still. The petals are rich in mucilage, a slippery gel that coats irritated tissue.
Dried red petals are the usual form. They are steeped as a tea or simmered into a sweet syrup, the classic Persian and European preparation for coughs.
You may also find tinctures (alcohol extracts) and capsules of powdered petal. These are less traditional and rarely standardised, so the alkaloid content is unknown.
Poppy seeds from this plant are a food, not a medicine. The green leaves and unripe seed capsules are not used and have caused poisoning in grazing animals.
Shaghayegh appears in Persian and Unani writing as a cooling, moistening herb for heat, wakefulness and dry cough. Greco-Arabic physicians such as Avicenna described the red poppy in this role.
The same use spread across Europe, where sirop de coquelicot (red poppy syrup) was a pharmacy staple for children's coughs into the twentieth century.
See a doctor if your cough lasts more than two weeks, brings up blood or coloured phlegm, or comes with fever or breathlessness. Also see a doctor if sleep problems continue after two weeks, or if you feel low, panicky or unable to cope.
Get emergency help straight away if someone becomes very drowsy and hard to wake, breathes slowly or shallowly, or has a swollen face, lips or tongue. If a child has swallowed any poppy preparation, contact a poison centre or emergency service at once.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Shaghayegh is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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