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Herb library · Spice · Illicium verum

Star anise

The eight-pointed dried fruit that flavors Chinese five-spice, pho and mulled drinks. As a cooking spice it is recognized as safe, but the FDA has advised against drinking teas brewed from star anise after infants had seizures, and Chinese star anise can be mixed with the poisonous Japanese star anise.

Serious warning

The FDA advised in 2003 against drinking teas brewed from star anise, and against giving them to infants and children, after about 40 illnesses, including about 15 infants, with seizures, vomiting and jitteriness. Chinese star anise can be contaminated with toxic Japanese star anise.

Traditional use

Star anise comes from southern China and Vietnam and has long been used in Chinese cooking and medicine. It reached Europe by the late 1500s and India later, where it was given in tea and added to cough mixtures. In several countries, including the United States, star anise tea has been given to babies for colic, the use behind the poisonings described below. Its oil flavors liqueurs.

Traditional energetics

What studies show

  • Insufficient

    Infant colic: the FDA said in 2003 that it was unaware of scientific evidence supporting any benefit from star anise teas, which are popularly believed to help colicky babies. No trials in people were found for this or other uses.

  • Insufficient

    Harms in people are documented: case series from the United States, France, Denmark and Bhutan describe seizures, jerking, irritability, abnormal eye movements and vomiting after star anise tea or fruit, mostly in infants. Some cases were proven to involve Japanese star anise mixed in.

Be careful of

Cautions

  • ConditionNever give star anise tea to babies or children. The FDA advised the public not to drink teas brewed from star anise and not to give them to infants and children, and a 2004 report of 7 infants concluded it should no longer be given to infants.
  • NoteChinese star anise, a spice the FDA considers generally recognized as safe, can be contaminated with Japanese star anise (Illicium anisatum), a neurotoxic plant that should be used for decoration only. The two look very similar.
  • AmountUsing a pod or two to flavor food is ordinary cooking. Brewing tea from it, or eating the fruit, is how the reported poisonings happened.
  • PregnancyNo pregnancy or breastfeeding safety information was found in the sources used here. Star anise contains estragole, and EMA says exposure of young children and pregnant and breastfeeding women to estragole should be minimized.
  • Ask a clinicianTalk with a clinician or pharmacist before using this if you take prescription medicines, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or are giving it to a child.

From the old books

What herbals and dispensaries of the past printed. History, in their words.

“This last poisonous fruit is sometimes found as a dangerous admixture to true star-anise.”
Harvey Wickes Felter and John Uri Lloyd, King's American Dispensatory (1905), vol. 2, p. 1046. See the page of King's American Dispensatory, vol. 2, p. 1046 (opens in a new tab) · Read the full passage from King's American Dispensatory, vol. 2, p. 1046
“The plant which produces the star-anise does not seem to have been very well known to Chinese botanists, and their identification of this drug seems to have depended largely upon the characteristic odor.”
G. A. Stuart, Chinese Materia Medica: Vegetable Kingdom (1911), p. 214. See the page of Chinese Materia Medica: Vegetable Kingdom, p. 214 (opens in a new tab) · Read the full passage from Chinese Materia Medica: Vegetable Kingdom, p. 214

Sources

  1. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition 2003 (enforcement story: FDA issues advisory on star anise teas) (opens in a new tab) · FDA · read September 25, 2026
  2. Neurotoxicities in infants seen with the consumption of star anise tea (Pediatrics, 2004) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
  3. Star anise poisoning in infants (Arch Pediatr, 2003) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
  4. Neurotoxicity in a child after ingestion of star anise (Ugeskr Laeger, 2023) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
  5. Case series: star anise toxicity presenting to the emergency department in Eastern Regional Referral Hospital in Bhutan (Int J Emerg Med, 2024) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
  6. Public statement on the use of herbal medicinal products containing estragole (EMEA/HMPC/137212/2005) (opens in a new tab) · EMA · read September 25, 2026

Reviewed September 25, 2026.