Chamomile is a medicinal plant with mood enhancing effects. These effects are thought to be due to the presence of flavonoids within the plant tissue. In particular, researchers have shown that chamomile contains apigenin, a flavonoid belonging to the flavone subgroup. Apigenin is found in the free apigenin form and also as apigenin 7-O-glucoside (aligenin bound to a glucose molecule). Apigenin is mainly found in the essential oil of chamomile and has been shown to be relatively heat stable. Chamomile extracts have been reported to contain different ratios of apigenin to apigenin 7-O-glucoside and this may reflect the fact that apigenin glucosides are enzymatically degraded to apigenin in the plant tissues. Therefore plants from different times of the season may contain different ratios of apigenin to apigenin 7-O-glucoside as degradation proceeds. As apigenin is likely responsible for the anxiolytic effects of chamomile, the ratio of apigenin to apigenin 7-O-glucoside may influence the mood elevating effects of the herb.
Chamomile is an effective treatment for mood disorders. Both depression and anxiety respond positively to the administration of chamomile extracts.
As well as apigenin 7-O-glucoside, chamomile contains other acetylated apigenin glucosides in lower amounts but these are unstable and tend to breakdown to form apigenin 7-O-glucoside and then apigenin. Apigenin is thought to confer anxiolytic effects to animals and humans, and these effects are reasonably well reported. However some studies have also shown that apigenin may have antidepressant effects. For example in one study, researchers investigated the antidepressant effects of apigenin in mice. Administration of apigenin was able to attenuate the experimentally induced depression in the animals in a similar manner to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor drug fluoxetine. In addition, both apigenin and fluoxetine also decreased the levels of proinflammatory markers in the brains of the mice, suggesting they both exerted anti-inflammatory effects. The authors of the study suggested that the antidepressant effects of apigenin may result from an anti-inflammatory effect in the prefrontal cortex of the mice
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