Passionflower and Nerve Pain: What the Trials Actually Measured
Passionflower is the largest ingredient in Nerve Honey and the best studied, but not for nerves.
A calming vine with a long history
Passiflora incarnata, the maypop, grows wild across the southeastern United States. Its leaves and flowers have been brewed as a calming tea for generations, and European herbal medicine still uses it for mild stress and sleep. Its likely active compounds are flavonoids that act gently at GABA-A receptors, the brain's main calming switch[8].
What human trials tested
The human evidence is about anxiety and sleep. In a four-week trial in generalized anxiety disorder, passionflower drops did about as well as the drug oxazepam[1]. A week of passionflower tea improved self-rated sleep quality[2], and a two-week extract trial lengthened total sleep time on overnight recordings in people with insomnia[3]. Single doses of extract before ambulatory surgery (500 mg) and before dental extraction (260 mg) reduced anxiety[4] [5]. A 2020 systematic review judged these results encouraging but limited by small trial sizes[7].
The nerve-pain evidence is one rat study
The only study we found that measured nerve pain gave rats a chemotherapy drug that damages nerves, then treated them with passionflower extract. The extract reduced pain responses to touch and cold, apparently through GABA and opioid pathways[6]. That is an interesting lead, but rats are not people, the doses were extract doses scaled to body weight, and nobody has repeated it in humans.
What it means for someone with tingling feet
If passionflower helps people with nerve symptoms, the likely route is indirect: calmer evenings and better sleep, which make the same signals feel less intrusive. That is worth something. It is not nerve repair, and it is not a replacement for the medicines that have been tested for neuropathic pain. Nerve Honey's 145 mg, of unstated form, may also be less than a strong cup of tea.
Safety in brief
Drowsiness, dizziness and confusion are the listed side effects; passionflower should not be used in pregnancy, and it may interact with anesthesia[9]. One case report describes severe nausea, drowsiness and heart rhythm changes[10]. Combine it with sleeping pills, benzodiazepines or opioids only after asking your prescriber.
Questions on this topic
Does passionflower help neuropathy?
No human study has tested it for neuropathy. Its human evidence is for anxiety and sleep.
How much passionflower is in Nerve Honey?
145 mg per two capsules; the label does not say whether it is herb powder or an extract.
Sources behind this page
Every link opens the original record. Those studies used single herbs at their own doses, often as extracts or teas, and none of them gave anyone a Nerve Honey capsule.
- 1Akhondzadeh S, Naghavi HR, Vazirian M, Shayeganpour A, Rashidi H, Khani M. Passionflower in the treatment of generalized anxiety: a pilot double-blind randomized controlled trial with oxazepam. J Clin Pharm Ther. 2001;26(5):363-367. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11679026/
- 2Ngan A, Conduit R. A double-blind, placebo-controlled investigation of the effects of Passiflora incarnata (passionflower) herbal tea on subjective sleep quality. Phytother Res. 2011;25(8):1153-1159. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21294203/
- 3Lee J, Jung HY, Lee SI, Choi JH, Kim SG. Effects of Passiflora incarnata Linnaeus on polysomnographic sleep parameters in subjects with insomnia disorder: a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled study. Int Clin Psychopharmacol. 2020;35(1):29-35. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31714321/
- 4Movafegh A, Alizadeh R, Hajimohamadi F, Esfehani F, Nejatfar M. Preoperative oral Passiflora incarnata reduces anxiety in ambulatory surgery patients: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Anesth Analg. 2008;106(6):1728-1732. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18499602/
- 5Dantas LP, de Oliveira-Ribeiro A, de Almeida-Souza LM, Groppo FC. Effects of Passiflora incarnata and midazolam for control of anxiety in patients undergoing dental extraction. Med Oral Patol Oral Cir Bucal. 2017;22(1):e95-e101. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27918731/
- 6Aman U, Subhan F, Shahid M, et al. Passiflora incarnata attenuation of neuropathic allodynia and vulvodynia apropos GABA-ergic and opioidergic antinociceptive and behavioural mechanisms. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2016;16:77. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26912265/
- 7Janda K, Wojtkowska K, Jakubczyk K, Antoniewicz J, Skonieczna-Żydecka K. Passiflora incarnata in neuropsychiatric disorders: a systematic review. Nutrients. 2020;12(12):3894. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33352740/
- 8Miroddi M, Calapai G, Navarra M, Minciullo PL, Gangemi S. Passiflora incarnata L.: ethnopharmacology, clinical application, safety and evaluation of clinical trials. J Ethnopharmacol. 2013;150(3):791-804. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24140586/
- 9National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Passionflower. www.nccih.nih.gov/health/passionflower
- 10Fisher AA, Purcell P, Le Couteur DG. Toxicity of Passiflora incarnata L. J Toxicol Clin Toxicol. 2000;38(1):63-66. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10696928/
Treat Nerve Honey as a 60-day experiment you can measure
Checkout happens on the seller's BuyGoods page, not here. Before the first dose, run the label past your pharmacist if you use sleep aids, pain medicine or anything for mood; write down a 0 to 10 score for tingling, burning and sleep; keep the order email and the packing slip; and settle by day 45 whether the bottles go back to Florida while the window is still open.