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Nutmeg

Nutmeg — what the European monograph actually supports, what it is not for, the form and how long it is meant to be used, side effects, and the 1 medicine interaction documented for it.

This is a reference page, not a diagnosis and not a prescription. Herbal products are real pharmacology: they have effects, side effects and interactions with medicines. Tell your doctor and your pharmacist everything you take, including teas and supplements, and never stop or change a prescribed medicine because of anything you read here.

What it is

Myristica fragrans Houtt. — seed kernel

Local names across the region this site serves: muskaatpähkel (ET) · muskottipähkinä (FI) · мускатный орех (RU).

Grouped here under Kitchen spices with a safety story. Regulatory position: Culinary spice; no medicinal indication in the EU.

What the evidence supports

The registered indication: Nothing medicinal. It is on this list because it is the kitchen spice that poisons people.

In culinary amounts — a grating over potatoes, into a béchamel, into a Christmas bake — nutmeg is unremarkable. In the amounts sometimes swallowed deliberately for a psychoactive effect, or accidentally through a badly scaled recipe, it produces a well-described toxic syndrome: nausea and vomiting, dry mouth, flushed skin, a racing heart, dizziness, agitation, disorientation and hallucinations, typically starting hours after ingestion and lasting a day or more, sometimes two. Myristicin and elemicin are the constituents usually held responsible. Poison information centres see these cases every year, disproportionately in teenagers who have read that nutmeg is a legal high. Nothing about the experience is pleasant or benign, and combined with alcohol or other sedating substances it becomes considerably more dangerous.

D — Popular claim unsupported, or safety dominates The better trials are negative, or the substance appears in the literature mainly for the harm it has caused.

What it is not for

Any medicinal purpose. There is no indication that justifies more than culinary amounts.

Form, strength and how long

Whole nut, freshly grated, or pre-ground. Mace is the seed's aril and has a similar composition.

Duration. Not applicable — as a spice, in cooking quantities.

No gram figure appears on this page on purpose. The plant part, the extraction solvent and the drug-to-extract ratio together define a preparation, and a number taken from one does not describe another. The reasoning is set out on the hub; the amount that applies to you is the one printed on the pack you are holding, and a pharmacist will read it with you.

Side effects

At culinary levels, none. At large intakes, the anticholinergic-like toxidrome described above, which can be genuinely frightening and occasionally requires hospital treatment.

Who should avoid it

Avoid medicinal or large amounts entirely in pregnancy. Keep the jar out of reach of curious teenagers, which is a stranger sentence than it should be. If someone has taken a large amount, contact your national poison information centre or emergency number.

Interactions with medicines

The reverse view — start from the medicine rather than the plant — is in the medicine, food and alcohol interactions reference, and summarised for every herb on this site.

As a food

This one is also in the kitchen, so the nutrition figures are worth having next to the pharmacology: see the food data page for calories and nutrients per 100 g and per portion. Culinary amounts and medicinal preparations are different exposures, and the difference is usually the whole safety story.

Sources: NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health — herb fact sheets · checked 2026-09-06

Frequently asked questions

Others in kitchen spices with a safety story