Side effects: Vomiting at high doses

Adverse events: None reported for Dioscorea villosa. A related species, from Java contains a weak picrotoxin, a convulsive poison.²

Precautions/contraindications: No information exists regarding safety in pregnant women and children. Wild yam constituents have exhibited estrogenic activity in mice⁵ and anti-estrogenic activity in vitro.¹⁰ However, the relevance of these effects to physiologically achievable concentrations is unknown. Until the mechanism of action of the herb is better understood, it should probably be avoided in patients with estrogen-responsive tumors.³