More than one hundred components have been found in the oil and the relative concentrations vary between cultizars and geographic location. Medically peppermint has been found to exhibit an antispasmodic activity on smooth muscles. Commercial preparations are available for use in the treatment of irritable bowel abdominal pain and related symptoms. When administered orally, these peppermint containing drugs appear to be effective. Generally administered as an enteric coated capsule, these preparations release their contents in the large intestine and colon.
Peppermint oil appears to act directly on the smooth muscle.
The antispasmodic activities relate to the menthal content and it has been demonstrated that this activity is due to the calcium antagonist effect of menthol. A caution on this product is that because of the oil s ability to relax gastrointestinal smooth muscle people with hiatal hernias may experience a worsening of their symptoms. The next rather large group of natural products are the antispasmodics . These natural products would be used to treat any type of smooth muscle spasticity. I will first mention those products with an historical basis but with no current found scientific backing.