Spearmint Tea and Hormones: What Two Small Trials Actually Found

Spearmint tea is the rare internet remedy with real randomized trial data behind it. It is also one of the most over-claimed. Here is exactly what those trials did and what they found.

What the studies did

The key trial was a 30-day randomized, placebo-controlled study in 42 women with PCOS and hirsutism. One group drank two cups of spearmint tea a day; the other drank a placebo herbal tea. Blood androgens were checked at day 0, 15 and 30, and hair growth was scored both by a clinician and by the women themselves.

What they found

• Free and total testosterone both dropped significantly in the spearmint group over the 30 days.
• LH and FSH rose, which is the direction most women with PCOS want.
• Women's own ratings of their hirsutism improved significantly compared with placebo.
• The clinician's hair-growth score did not reach significance — the authors' own explanation was that 30 days is simply too short for a hair follicle cycle to show a change.

An earlier five-day trial found the same testosterone signal in women with hirsutism. A systematic review of herbal teas in PCOS counted only four tea trials among more than a hundred herbal randomized trials, so this is a small literature — real, but small.

What that means if you drink it

The honest read: spearmint tea has a genuine, measurable anti-androgen effect in women, shown in short trials. Nobody has shown it regrows hair, clears acne long-term, or replaces medication. If you try it, expect a slow change measured in months, and judge it on your own experience rather than a single hormone panel.

How to drink it

• Two cups a day is the dose the trial used.
• One tea bag or 1 to 2 teaspoons of dried spearmint per cup, freshly boiled water, steeped 5 to 10 minutes with a lid on so the oils stay in the cup.
• Fresh spearmint works too — a small handful of leaves per cup, bruised between your hands first.
• It is naturally caffeine-free, which makes it an easy evening drink.

Two cups a day of plain tea is also a decent stand-in for the drinks people reach for at 6pm — which is the whole argument of my book Drink Smarter.

What it will not do

• It will not out-drink a high-sugar, low-protein diet.
• It will not fix insulin resistance on its own.
• It will not show up in the mirror for at least a few weeks.
• It is not a substitute for the labs and treatment your provider recommends.

Safety

Spearmint as a food is fine for most people. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, take medication for diabetes or blood pressure, or have kidney or liver disease, check with your provider before drinking medicinal amounts every day.

Read next: Why Alcohol Worsens Perimenopause Symptoms and Foods That Help With Cortisol.

My book PCOS Metabolic Reset covers the food side in plain language, and Nourished plans start at $5.

This article is for education only and is not medical advice. Check with your healthcare provider before using herbal tea therapeutically, especially if you are pregnant, breastfeeding or taking medication.