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Boswellia
A gum resin extract, also known as Indian frankincense or salai guggul, standardised to its boswellic acids and carried in one formula at 300 mg. It has no authorised EU health claim, our file on it is still a short one, and most of what this page has to say is about blood thinners and bleeding.
WHAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO SAY
Nothing. It has no authorised claim.
Boswellia has no authorised health claim under Regulation (EU) 432/2012. Most botanical claims have sat on the European Commission's on-hold list since 2010, waiting for an EFSA assessment, but our file does not record a specific boswellia claim among them. Either way, we make no health claim for it, and you will not find one on this page.Boswellia has no authorised health claim under Regulation (EU) 432/2012. Most botanical claims are on hold, waiting for an EFSA assessment. We make no health claim for it.
Our file describes how its boswellic acids block an enzyme called 5-lipoxygenase, and with it the making of leukotrienes, and act on leukocyte elastase and NF-κB. It cites trials in knee osteoarthritis. It also cites an EMA monograph for mild to moderate joint pain, while two other records in the same file say there is no EMA monograph at all. Until that is settled, we lean on neither. A mechanism, a trial or a medicines assessment is not a food claim. That is a reason to keep boswellia in a formula, not a permission to promise anything about your joints or about inflammation.
WHAT WE USE
A gum resin extract, standardised to its boswellic acids.
Boswellia is a plant, so the choice is not between salts but between preparations of its gum resin. Our file credits its action to the boswellic acids, AKBA and KBA, and names AKBA as the main one. Our EU regulatory record asks for an extract standardised to 65% boswellic acids, with AKBA at 30% or more. A standard fixes how much of those acids is in each dose.
Our file records a traditional Ayurvedic dose of 300 to 500 mg, two or three times a day. It does not say which preparation that refers to, so we will not tell you more than that.
A branded gum resin extract standardised to at least 30% AKBA. It is the one behind the trials our file cites, Sengupta 2008 and 2010, at 100 to 250 mg a day in knee osteoarthritis.
65% boswellic acids, with AKBA at 30% or more, at 300 mg in one formula. Neutral in taste, and available in a concentrated form that our form record says cuts the volume fourfold. It contains none of the allergens the EU requires on a label, and no intolerance or dietary restriction is documented.
There is no authorised claim for any form of boswellia, standardised or not, so the standard is not a claim argument and we do not use it as one. The formula line records only part of the specification: the 30% AKBA, not the 65% boswellic acids. Our form record also marks the extract as not stable in liquid, which is exactly what we serve, and lists it as water-soluble, while the formula record groups it with the fat-soluble ingredients served with dinner and our pharmacokinetic notes say absorption is low and improves with fat. All of that is pending review, and so is the rest of our boswellia file.There is no authorised claim for any form of boswellia. Our records disagree on whether it dissolves in water or in fat, and our form record marks it as not stable in liquid. That is pending review.
WHERE IT APPEARS
One of the twenty-nine carries boswellia.
It is in Anti-inflammatory & recovery, a booster for a short course after exercise or a minor injury, taken at night, preferably with dinner, at 300 mg, for 14 days at a time. That formula is still pending clinical validation. The dose sits above the 100–250 mg a day used in the trials our file cites, and at the bottom of the 300–500 mg traditional single dose. Our pharmacokinetic file puts its onset at 4 to 8 weeks, which is longer than one 14-day course. We would rather say so than let the name do the work.
THE CEILING
No upper limit set. No cap of our own yet.
Our dose record notes that EFSA has not set a tolerable upper intake level for boswellia, and our file sets no daily cap of its own either. What it gives are doses: 100 to 250 mg a day of a standardised extract in the trials it cites, and 300 to 500 mg two or three times a day in Ayurvedic tradition. We serve 300 mg, in one formula. No limit is not the same as no risk.EFSA has not set an upper intake level for boswellia, and our file sets no cap of its own. We serve 300 mg, in one formula. No limit is not the same as no risk.
Only Anti-inflammatory & recovery carries boswellia, so it cannot add up across formulas today. No engine rule tracks a boswellia total yet. That holds only while it stays in a single formula.
Avoid it if you are pregnant or breastfeeding: there is not enough data. Do not combine it with blood thinners such as warfarin or aspirin; talk to a healthcare professional. Stop it two weeks before planned surgery. Anti-inflammatory & recovery is not suggested at all if you take an anticoagulant, vitamin K antagonists included, because its file says omega-3, boswellia and piperine together raise the risk of bleeding; nor if you have liver disease, because of the liver alerts on the turmeric next to it. Its course is capped at 14 days. If your symptoms last longer than two weeks or get worse, see a doctor: something that needs its own treatment may be behind them. Do not exceed the recommended daily dose, keep it out of reach of young children, and do not use it in place of a varied, balanced diet.
Our boswellia file is a minimal one, with deeper research still pending, and our library still lists boswellia as a candidate ingredient. It rests on one cited source, documents no side effects and lists no contraindications beyond the warnings above. How much of it is absorbed and how the body clears it were looked for and not found, and the only half-life figure in our notes, for AKBA, has no unit and no source, so we do not print it. That is a gap, not a clean record.
WHAT IT REACTS WITH
No documented pairs yet. A few flags.
Boswellia is one of the 140 ingredients in our library, so it has 139 possible partners. None of its pairs is documented in our interaction table yet, out of the 443 on file. What follows comes from its own file and from the files of the ingredients next to it.
Boswellia has no pair in our interaction table and no row in our drug interaction table. Zero documented pairs is not the same as zero interactions, and the flags below are the reason we say so.
All three sit next to it in Anti-inflammatory & recovery. The formula's file says that omega-3, boswellia and piperine together raise the risk of bleeding. Turmeric's file records boswellia as a synergy acting on different targets, and also warns against doubling up on ingredients with a similar role, naming boswellia, ginger and omega-3. None of these pairs is in our interaction table yet.
Blood thinners such as warfarin and aspirin: the label warning on file says not to combine them and to talk to a healthcare professional, and your profile is checked for anticoagulants before the formula carrying it is suggested. Our pharmacokinetic file also lists boswellia as an inhibitor of CYP3A4, and its notes add a weak effect on CYP2D6, two liver enzymes that clear many medicines. That flag is not in our drug interaction table and no engine rule acts on it yet.
443 of the 9,730 possible pairs in our library are documented, which is 4.55%, and none of them involves boswellia. The rest are not "safe", they are simply unchecked. Our drug interaction table has no boswellia row either, while its own file names blood thinners and two liver enzymes. That gap is ours, and we would rather write it down than let the number look like a badge.443 of the 9,730 possible pairs in our library are documented, which is 4.55%, and none involves boswellia. The rest are not safe, they are simply unchecked, and our drug table has no boswellia row yet.
SOURCES
Everything on this page, with its reference.
Reviewed by VION nutrition team · last reviewed 16 September 2026
140 INGREDIENTS · 64 IN USE TODAY
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