Does Hops Cause Depression?

The Holistic Herbalism Podcast

Recently it seems like there’s been a proliferation of hop-flavored beverages on the market. Not just beer, but also sodas, fizzy waters, and other gently bitter elixirs are competing for attention with kombucha and fancy herbal infusions. This seems like a good thing to us – more people getting some bitters in their lives couldn’t hurt! But it also brought to mind this week’s topic: a common warning herbalists make, that there’s potential for cases where hops cause depression, or worsen it.

This can absolutely be true in some cases, and we ourselves regularly pass on this caution! But as with most things in herbalism, it’s not so cut-and-dried as it seems at first. In this episode we’ll discuss historical and contemporary info sources on the subject, and try to get a more nuanced perspective. In certain situations, the cold and sedative nature of hops does make it contraindicated for depression. But in others, the term ‘depression’ is used as a catch-all for a variety of mental states, some of which hops can improve.

So does hops cause depression? It depends on the context! But a good grounding in herbal energetics helps us see through the superficiality and understand which situations are which.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Herbal Tinctures in Clinical Practice, Michael Moore
• Hops, Henriette Kress
• Humulus lupulus, Marisa Marciano
• Hops, Richard Whelan
• Hops in A Modern Herbal (1931), Maude Grieve
• Humulus in The Eclectic Materia Medica (1922), Harvey Wickes Felter
• Humulus (U.S.P.) – Hops in King’s American Dispensatory (1898), Felter & Lloyd
• Effects of a hops (Humulus lupulus L.) dry extract supplement on self-reported depression, anxiety and stress levels in apparently healthy young adults: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover pilot study, Kyrou et al (Hormones 2017, 16(2):171-180)
• Assessment report on Humulus lupulus L., flos (2014), European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products
• The Holistic Herbalism Podcast, Episode 101: How Herbs Are Different From Drugs

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