You’d be hard-pressed to find a wellness fad I haven’t tried. Butter coffee, propping my legs up against a wall (crucial for pre-bed anxiety spikes), sweating my life away in an infrared sauna–if someone (anyone) has said it’s good for you, then I’ve done it. My latest fixation is one of my more controversial: nightly castor oil stomach wraps.

As a pre-bed ritual, I’ll take a palmful of castor oil, rub it onto my stomach in a clockwise motion, then wrap a beige piece of medical-looking fabric over the top to protect my pyjamas and sheets from oil stains. It’s a bit like wearing a huge, ugly belt. In the morning, I’ll whip it off, jump in the shower and go about my day.

The benefits I’ve noticed include substantially less bloating in the morning, and better and much more regular bowel movements. An overshare, perhaps, but if you’re a hormonally-challenged person, constipation can exacerbate already painful symptoms due to a build-up of excess oestrogen that can’t be excreted. Buoyed by my own observations,  I went in search of an expert to help me understand exactly why it’s been working.

Does castor oil wrapping actually work?

If you go by the thousands of social media videos showing people, like me, using castor oil on their stomachs, then yes. Doctors and medical professionals, however, take a much more dim view of the whole thing.

“It possibly works,” Dr Vijay Murthy, functional medicine and ayurvedic doctor and founder of the Murthy Clinic, says when I ask. “There’s a small study signalling castor oil can help ease constipation symptoms in older adults.” But, he cautions, that clinical trial didn’t show an increase in bowel frequency – just improved symptoms over a short period of time.

Murthy agrees that there are benefits to using castor oil packs for comfort, warmth and relaxation – he just can’t go as far as to suggest that applying castor oil topically can do much to help with aiding digestion. It’s also not recommended to use a castor oil pack during menstruation, as it can increase cramping and, in some instances, bleeding.

Castor oil contains something called ricinoleic acid, which stimulates smooth muscle (the small and large intestines each contain multiple layers) and can mimic the effects of a laxative. Taking castor oil orally, though, is not recommended for many people, including pregnant women, as it can trigger “uterine-stimulation”, or early labour, and interact with certain medications.