Passionflower for Opioid Withdrawal
Evidence that passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) helps with opioid withdrawal is weak and rests on a single small, dated trial where it was only added to clonidine. It should not replace standard medical treatment, and combining it with opioids or other sedatives may dangerously deepen drowsiness and slow breathing.
Why this grade7-layer evidence engine
The grade is Weak Evidence because the only direct human data is one double-blind RCT from 2001 (PMID 11679027, n=65, 14 days). Crucially, passionflower was used as an add-on to clonidine, not on its own: it matched clonidine alone for physical withdrawal symptoms and beat it only for mental/psychological symptoms. The trial is single-center, over two decades old, has not been replicated, and its funding was not disclosed.
A 2021 systematic review of integrative medicine for opioid withdrawal (PMID 34016305) included passionflower among seven interventions but did not isolate its effect, and judged the overall evidence base limited by small samples. No firm, passionflower-specific efficacy conclusion exists.
Regulators and clinics offer no support for this use. The US FDA lists passionflower only as a food/flavoring substance, not a treatment, and major bodies (NIH ODS, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Health, WHO) do not address it for withdrawal. The Safety Review flag reflects a real interaction risk: passionflower can add to the sedation and respiratory depression of opioids and other CNS depressants. Opioid withdrawal is a serious condition best managed with proven therapies such as buprenorphine, methadone, or FDA-approved lofexidine/clonidine.
Scoring transparency
All scores computed by a 7-layer evidence engine — fully auditable▸View the full decision path (audit trail)
- compute_raw_score — 加權公式: L2×0.30 + L3×0.25 + L5×0.25 + L11×0.10 + L1×0.10 = 0.535
- tier_from_score — 依分數區間映射至 tier letter
- apply_hec_rules — 無高階證據可裁決
- tier_strict_requirement_check — Tier 條件達標，未降階
- detect_disputes — 偵測到 0 個 hard + 0 個 soft dispute
- decide_status — 依 tier + dispute 結果決定 status