How Does Black Cohosh Measure Up As A Hot Flashes And Night Sweats Remedy?

Hot flashes and sweats are one of the most bothersome complaints associated with perimenopause and menopause. The fall back treatment for real relief has always been hormone replacement therapy. Until recently that is.

New research has found that hormone replacement therapy has far greater risk than previously suspected. HRT is associated with far greater risk for breast cancer. It used to be thought that HRT made it less likely that menopausal women would develop cardiovascular disease. Now this benefit has been shown to be largely suspect.

With the lost confidence in HRT more and more women are looking to "natural" solutions for menopausal related complaints such as hot flashes. An old standby herbal remedy is black cohosh or Cimicifuga racemosa / Actaea racemosa.

Cimicifuga racemosa is perhaps the most widely used herbal remedy for hot flashes.

One of the most popular brands is Remifemin. A Remifemin website says that over 1.5 million women have taken Remifemin in the past 50 years and that several billion tablets have been sold. The Google listing title claims that Remifemin relieves hot flashes by 70%.

Researchers at St. Mary's Hospital Department of Obstetrics reported in the journal Alternative Therapies In Health And Medicine (Jan-Feb, 2010) that black cohosh was far less effective than that. Their study was titled "Efficacy of black cohosh-containing preparations on menopausal symptoms: a meta-analysis". (In a meta-analysis the researchers evaluate all of the existing research on a subject and draw a conclusion based on all of the evidence available).

The researchers concluded that black cohosh improved menopausal symptoms "overall by 26%".

Another study on black cohosh was reported in the medical journal Menopause (Nov-Dec, 2009). The study was titled "Safety and efficacy of black cohosh and red clover for the management of vasomotor symptoms: a randomized controlled trial." Or in other words "How effective and safe are black cohosh and red clover for relief of hot flashes?"

This study followed women for 12 months. Women were given either a standardized extract of black cohosh, red clover, hormone replacement therapy (estrogens from pregnant mare's urine) or a placebo. A placebo is a dummy pill which looks like the real thing. It is given to see how much improvement or change women would experience when given an inert substance that they believed was the real thing.

After 12 months the improvement in the women's hot flashes symptoms were evaluated. The improvement was 34% for black cohosh, 57% for red clover, 63% for the placebo and 94% for the hormone replacement therapy.

Based on the research studies above it doesn't seem that black cohosh is the most effective herbal remedy for relief of hot flashes and night sweats. Red clover out performed it significantly.

Another herbal extract which is documented to out perform both black cohosh and red clover is Siberian rhubarb root extract.

Four independent clinical studies have been done to date and have been reported in the journals Menopause and Alternative Therapies In Health And Medicine. Women reported a 72% reduction in hot flashes and night sweats in just 12 weeks after taking a single 4 gram tablet of this herbal extract each day.