Is it safe for a pregnant woman to eat the "meat" of an artichoke leaf?

Why cant pregnant women eat artichoke leaf extract?

@Allie: I was just reading that it has been shown to inhibit production of cholesterol, which is generally a good thing for the human body, but perhaps it’s not good for fetuses? In any case, according to WebMD.com and Drugs.com, it seems that normal (food) artichokes are fine, and even high in iron, which is helpful. A quick google search of “pregnancy AND artichoke” will show the links, and some other links to artichoke recipes specifically recommended for pregnant women.

If there are artichoke recipes recommended for pregnant women, then I would think artichokes would be fine.

Artichoke leaf extract? That sounds delicious….not. I never even heard of this one. It’s crazy what random crap we are and aren’t supposed to do.

I’ve worked as a nurse midwife/nurse practitioner for many years and am not aware of any issues with artichokes during pregnancy.

Actually, pregnant women should avoid artichoke leaf extract simply because no clinical studies have been run showing that it is safe. It is more of a situation where “caution is the parent of safety.” In other words, when it comes to a fetus, if you don’t know what something might do it is best to err on the side of safety and not expose the fetus to it.

As far as artichokes themselves go, according to this site they provide the important minerals magnesium, chromium, manganese, potassium, phosphorus, iron and calcium. Artichokes are also a good source of fiber (12% of the RDV), vitamin C (10% of the RDV), and folate (10% of the RDV).

This last, folate, is known to reduce birth defects according to this site.

It helps prevent neural tube defects (NTDs) – serious birth defects of the spinal cord (such as spina bifida) and the brain (anencephaly). Neural tube defects occur at a very early stage of development, before many women even know they’re pregnant. They affect about 3,000 pregnancies a year in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that women who take the recommended daily dose of folic acid starting at least one month before they conceive and during the first trimester of pregnancy reduce their baby’s risk of neural tube defects by 50 to 70 percent.

Some research suggests that folic acid may help lower your baby’s risk of other defects as well, such as cleft lip, cleft palate, and certain types of heart defects.

Folate is essential for the production, repair, and functioning of DNA, our genetic map and a basic building block of cells. So getting enough folic acid is particularly important for the rapid cell growth of the placenta and your developing baby.

Your body needs folate to make normal red blood cells and prevent anemia.

Some research suggests that taking a multivitamin with folic acid may reduce your risk of preeclampsia, a complex disorder that can affect your health and your baby’s.

And then, of course, as a good source of fiber, artichokes can help prevent constipation, which bedevils many pregnant women as the baby grows bigger.

So apparently, pregnant women should go ahead and eat artichokes if they want to, but would be wise to avoid artichoke leaf extract until clinical trials show it is safe.

It’s not on my list of things to avoid from the midwife. I’d never heard of this. Interesting! It’s still ok to eat the hearts, right?

I had to wait to get back to this topic until I got to my office today. My employer subscribes to something called the Natural Medicines Database, which is an excellent resource – I typically use it several times a day in my practice.

It looks like artichoke and artichoke extract have been used for stomach upset, cholesterol problems, hangover, IBS, snakebite, among others. The leaves and extract are sometimes used for flavoring beverages. As a food or in food, it’s GRAS Generally Recognised As Safe here in the US by the FDA.

In terms of actual research based evidence for medicinal purposes, studies have shown benefit when used for symptoms related to gallbladder inflammation, but usually takes weeks to work and might make gallbladder stones worse. Studies are contradictory when it comes to treating high cholesterol. A few studies show possible benefit for IBS. One study showed it didn’t help with hangover symptoms. That’s the extent of the research cited.

They didn’t cite any data that showed harm during pregnancy, and used the fallback position regarding therapeutic/medicinal use – “insufficient reliable information available about the safety”. The problem is it’s very difficult to ethically do clinical studies on the effects of drugs and herbs in pregnancy. You can’t give a group of pregnant women a new or old medicine for the purpose of seeing how it affects them and their babies. We get most of our information either from animal studies which may or may not translate to humans and usually involve huge doses of the drug being studied or from retrospective studies where you gather information on what kinds of things women have been exposed to during pregnancy and then look for patterns of good or bad outcomes. It takes huge numbers of subjects to be able to make any kind of trustworthy conclusion, and when it comes to a fairly obscure supplement like artichoke, it’s probably never going to happen.

That means probably best to avoid medicinal use in pregnancy because we don’t know enough. I wouldn’t worry at all about eating artichoke leaves or hearts during pregnancy after reviewing the information.

TMI?

@MagsRags: Now that’s a great answer!