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Open Source Apothecary At Home / The herbs
Milder than peppermint, and the one with a genuinely surprising clinical result. — Mentha spicata
remedySpearmint (Mentha spicata) is carvone-dominant rather than menthol-dominant, which makes it gentler and less likely to provoke reflux than peppermint. It is the better choice for a child's tea and for anyone peppermint upsets.
The surprising evidence is not about digestion at all. Randomised trials of spearmint tea have shown reductions in free testosterone and improvements in hirsutism in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. This is a real finding, and it is attached to spearmint specifically — the anti-androgen effect is attributed to carvone-based constituents acting on androgen metabolism, not to mint in general.
That makes the species distinction load-bearing rather than pedantic. If you want the PCOS effect, spearmint is the plant; peppermint is not a substitute. Conversely, if you want the IBS effect, peppermint oil is the preparation with the trials.
In the kitchen spearmint is the better culinary mint and the better iced tea, and it is worth growing alongside peppermint precisely because they are not interchangeable.
The combination of different FS ingredients with different mechanisms of action can be a valuable strategy for improving lipid profiles in subjects with borderline high TC and LDL-C levels.PubMed 41519619 ↗
These results therefore show that ingestion of the aqueous dried spearmint extract is safe and well-tolerated.PubMed 28286189 ↗
The time taken for hirsutism to resolve is significant and a much longer future study is proposed as the preliminary findings are encouraging that spearmint has the potential for use as a helpful and natural treatment for hirsutism in PCOS.PubMed 19585478 ↗
Further studies are needed to test the reliability of these results and the availability of spearmint as a drug for hirsutism.PubMed 17310494 ↗
Clinical translation requires chemically characterized preparations, population-specific trials, clinically meaningful endpoints, risk assessment, and active surveillance for hepatotoxicity, cardiovascular effects, contamination, and drug interactions.PubMed 42575271 ↗
| | | |---|---| | Life | Perennial | | Propagation | Division or cuttings | | Light | Full sun to part shade | | Soil | Any reasonably moist soil | | Containment | Essential, exactly as for peppermint | | Harvest | Top third, before flowering, repeated | | Dry | Shade, ambient |
Grown and handled identically to peppermint. The two are worth keeping as separate labelled plants so you do not substitute one for the other by accident.
Tea — 1-2 teaspoons dried leaf per cup, covered, 5-10 minutes. Gentler than peppermint and better tolerated by children over one year.
For the PCOS/androgen use — the trials used spearmint tea at roughly two cups daily over a month or more. This is a long-timescale intervention, not an acute one, and it is not a substitute for medical management of PCOS.
Culinary — the better mint for food and cold drinks.
Infused oil — as for peppermint, diluted, for external use.