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Borage oil

Supplement fatty acid women's healthskin & hair
Aka: starflower oil
Brands seen in Singapore: California Gold Nutrition, Life Extension, Swanson Vitamins, Nature's Way, NOW Foods
Not medical advice. Check with your doctor or pharmacist before you start, stop or change the timing of anything you take.
How to use
What it’s for
A GLA (omega-6) oil · eczema trials found no benefit
Studied for
Trials were short-term · long-term use is unstudied
Pros & cons
Pros
  • Well studied: 27 eczema trials, 1,596 participants
  • Adverse effects in trials were mild and transient
Cons
  • No effect on eczema versus placebo in pooled trials
  • Long-term safety was not examined in these studies
  • A related GLA oil raised bleeding risk on warfarin
Sources
  1. Oral evening primrose oil and borage oil for eczema (Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2013) · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “A total of 27 studies (1596 participants) met the inclusion criteria … Oral borage oil and evening primrose oil lack effect on eczema; improvement was similar to respective placebos used in trials.”
  2. Oral evening primrose oil and borage oil for eczema (Cochrane 2013), adverse effects · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “EPO and BO have the same, fairly common, mild, transient adverse effects, which are mainly gastrointestinal. The short-term studies included here do not examine possible adverse effects of long-term use … EPO may increase bleeding for people on Coumadin® (warfarin)”
  3. HSA — Guidelines on prohibited and restricted ingredients in health supplements and traditional medicines (Oct 2025), Annex A/B · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “The objective of this guideline is to highlight the substances of concern when used in HS and TM and is not meant to be an exhaustive list.”
  4. iHerb Singapore — Borage Oil category page · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “Borage Oil”
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Updated 2026-08-29. Every line above traces to a numbered source. Kozen-X is not a medical device and does not give medical advice. It lists what published sources have written down — nothing more. A pair not listed is unrecorded, not cleared. Before you start, stop or re-time anything, talk to your doctor or pharmacist.