Herbs That Promote Eye Health

For at least 2000 years, various herbs have been utilized throughout the world to promote eye health–consumed regularly to prevent failing eyesight, and prepared as topical infusions to treat everything from common eye strain to glaucoma.  While there is little modern evidence to support many of the documented and anecdotal claims concerning some of these traditional herbal remedies, others have gained considerable supported from the medical community in recent years, scientifically recognized as containing healthful substances that can indeed prevent or treat eye ailments, and support overall eye health.  Read more . . .

Female Herbs: Herbs Just for Her

Through the centuries, various cultures around the world have not only discovered that plants fall into categories in terms of their biological sex (with male and female plants often having completely different curative properties from one another), but that plants can also be categorized by which sex they best serve: female or male.  Thus, certain herbs are routinely designated as “female herbs.”  The following herbs have traditionally been singled out by many societies around the world as having curative and medicinal properties especially geared to a woman’s body; herbs specifically effective in treating female reproductive conditions for a wide range of women regardless of age, ethnicity, or cultural heritage.  Read more . . .

Has a Cure for the Common Cold Already Been Discovered?

Researchers at University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland, and the Craig Venter Institute, recently announced that they have decoded the elusive genetic blueprints of the common cold, essentially demystified the enigma behind how all the viral strains are related to one another, thus enabling them to hone in on the culprit: the rhinoviruses.  The findings of this study, published in the Feb. 12, 2011 issue of Science journal, explains the nature of the human rhinovirus.  But while this is certainly good news for the millions of men, women, and children who contract the opportunistic virus (twice a year on average for adults, and up to ten times a year for children), many wonder why is it that with all the scientific advances in recent decades, a cure for this commonly-contracted disease wasn't found long ago?  After all, any number of deadly bacteria-related diseases have been cured, why not the common cold virus?  Read more . . .

Home Remedies for Sexual Impotence

Since man first discovered the connection between an erect penis and fertility, he has persued an interest in natural substances that enhance his sexual performance.  While exploring the effects of various plants he found growing around him, he no doubt stumbled upon herbs that when chewed would cause him to have more frequent and harder erections; herbs that would allow him to maintain his erections longer.  As a result, most cultures of the world now have an assortment of herb-based home remedies for treating sexual impotence.  Read more . . .

The Health Benefits of Black Cohosh

Black cohosh is a member of the buttercup family, a perennial plant native to North America.  Also known as black snakeroot, bugbane, bugwort, rattleroot, rattletop, rattleweed, and macrotys, it has been used for centuries by Native Americans who first discovered its many health benefits.  Traditionally considered a female herb, it is commonly used to ease labor pains, treat menstrual cramps, hot flashes, infertility, threatened miscarriage, and to induce lactation.  Black cohosh first appeared in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia in 1830 under the name “black snakeroot.”  In 1844 it gained new popularity when Dr. John King, an eclectic physician of the era, prescribed it to treat a number of illnesses including rheumatism and nervous disorders.  By the early twentieth century, many doctors across the US were routinely advocating black cohosh for most female-related maladies including endometritis, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia, sterility, severe after-birth pains, and for increased breast milk production.  Read more . . .

The Health Benefits of Grape Seed Extract

Grape seed extract, as the term suggests, is a natural chemical extract made from the seeds of grapes.  Most often, the seeds left over from the commercial production of wine or juice are used; harvested, ground, and extracted.  Especially high in particular chemical compounds science terms OPC’s (oligomeric proanthocyanidins), grape seed extract increases the strength of weakened blood vessels, and is also one of the most potent antioxidants known.  And in terms of cost-efficiency, grape seed extract is one of the least expensive ways to get your daily dose of these highly beneficial compounds.   Additionally, grape seed extract contains a vast array of health-supporting ingredients including substantial amounts protein, lipids, carbohydrates, and polyphenols (which come mainly in the form of flavonoids, also known as bioflavonoids).  Read more . . .

The Health Benefits of Essiac Tea

Essiac tea is a blend of herbs believed by many to have unique cancer-fighting properties and a number of other health benefits. Originally used by Native American medicine men, the recipe was rediscovered in 1922 by a Canadian nurse named Rene Caisse as she was attending a woman who claimed to have been cured of breast cancer with an herbal remedy given to her by a North American Indian shaman in the 1890s.  After learning for herself the health benefits of this herbal blend, Rene named her version of the recipe ESSIAC—her last name spelled backwards.  As nurse Caisse discovered, the four main herbs that make up Essiac, burdock root, the inner bark of slippery elm, sheep sorrel, and Indian rhubarb root, each have unique properties that have been utilized for centuries, both as an herbal infusion as well as for topical poultices and plasters.  Read more . . .

Fibromyalgia: Effective Herbal and Dietary Treatments

Current statistics show that fibromyalgia affects approximately 3-5% of the American population, with a female to male incidence ratio of approximately 9:1.  According to current medical criteria, fibromyalgia (also referred to as FM or FMS) is defined as: “A medical disorder characterized by chronic widespread pain and allodynia (pain caused by a stimulus which does not normally induce pain), and a heightened and painful response to pressure.  In that fibromyalgia symptoms are not restricted to physical pain, the alternative term “fibromyalgia syndrome” is also applied to this condition.  Other core symptoms of fibromyalgia include overpowering fatigue, sleep disturbance, and joint stiffness.  Some patients also report difficulty swallowing, bowel and bladder abnormalities, jaw pain, numbness and tingling (especially in the hands and feet), and cognitive dysfunction (what many term ‘brain fog.’)"  Read more . . .

Medicinal Plants: What Makes Them Different From Other Plants

For all intents and purposes, there really is no difference between plants we term medicinal and other plants.  In that the biological processes that define plants apply to all members of the plant kingdom, any plant may serve a medicinal purpose–perhaps one we simply have yet to discover.  Fundamentally, the use of plants that can provide therapeutic benefits all comes down to their chemical make-up as to whether they will serve a curative function.  Today, the fields of organic chemistry and pharmacology have qualitatively determined which chemical factors of a given plant are responsible for which therapeutic effect.  These distinctions regard the chemical “constituents” of a given plant: alkaloids, glycosides, essential oils, tannins, bitter principles, sugars, fatty oils, and organic acids.  Read more . . .

Marijuana, Medicine, and Religion

During the reign of the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung Shennong (circa 5000 BP), considered the Father of herbalogical studies, cannabis was cited in the most widely-read herbal of the time, recommended for malaria, constipation, rheumatic fever, absent mindedness, insomnia, nervousness, and a variety of female disorders.  In India, hemp has been used for centuries to quicken the memory, lower fever, induce sleep, relieve headaches, and cure venereal disease.  And in Africa, marijuana has been used for malaria and other fevers–with documented results–and even today, indigenous groups continue to use cannabis poultices for snake bites and brew hemp tea for women during childbirth.  Read more . . .

Homeopathy: History and Principles

Homeopathy is based on the law of familiars (like cures like), involving the use of minute doses of a natural substance that can cause a healthy person the same symptoms it cures in a sick one.  The principle of like cures like dates back as far as 3000 BCE to Sanskrit medical texts, as well as Hippocrates (400 BCE) and Paracelsus, the renown 16th century German physician and alchemist.  But it was Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician born in 1775, who first integrated homeopathy into the systematic form commonly used today.  A common example of homeopathy is the use of Apis mellifica (honeybee).  Read more . . .

The Art (and Science) of Bathing: Additives to Heal the Body and Soothe the Spirit

In today’s fast-paced world, fewer and fewer people are opting to bathe when a shower is faster, said to use less water, and the idea of soaking in one’s own dirt seems foolish.  There are, however, substantial health benefits to occasionally opting for a soothing bath.  For one, daily hot showers can, in fact, make the skin too clean, stripping it of the healthy bacteria and oils nature provides to ward-off foreign bacterial invasion and protect the skin from a variety of skin conditions.  For another, opting for a bath provides opportunities to add herbs, oils, and other healthful ingredients that can relieve aches and pains, ward-off viruses, and improve one’s state of mind.  Read more . . .

Alfalfa: History and Health Benefits

In the UK, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and south Asia, alfalfa is known as lucerne, and because it visually resembles clover (with clusters of small purple flowers), in many part of the Western Hemisphere it carries the common folk name, bum clover.  Known to have been used as an herbal remedy for over 1500 years, early Chinese herbals list young alfalfa leaves as treatment for disorders related to the digestive tract and the kidneys.  Similarly, Ayurvedic herbals advocate its leaves for treating poor digestion, and a poultice from the seeds for boils.  In Eastern cultures, it has long been proported to be helpful to people suffering from arthritis and water retention.  Read more . . .

Green Tea: Just the Curative Facts

Today, scientific research in Asia as well as in the west has provided hard evidence for many of the health benefits long associated with drinking green tea.  For example, in 1994 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the results of an epidemiological study indicating that drinking green tea reduced the risk of esophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by nearly sixty percent.
Additionally, University of Purdue researchers recently concluded that a chemical compound found in green tea inhibits the growth of cancer cells and that drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, as well as improving the ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to bad (LDL) cholesterol.  Read more . . .

Acne: Causes and Natural Cures

While acne outbreaks can be devastating at any age--though moreso, perhaps, for teens--it can be dealt with effectively if you know its causes, and how to treat it.  According to most experts today, four factors contribute to typical acne outbreaks: abnormal keratinization (thickening of skin cells), abnormal or excessive oil secretions, bacterial invasion, and the male hormone androgen (in females, androstenedione produced in the ovaries, or androstenediol, a byproduct of progesterone).  However, it’s important to note that it's actually heredity, allergies, oral contraceptives, emotional stress, environment, diet, hygiene, or a weak immune system that make the skin pone to outbreaks.  Read more . . .

Medicinal and Practical Uses of Apple Cider Vinegar

Referenced in the oldest known medicinals of ancient China, Greece, and Rome, apple cider vinegar has long been extolled for its many practical and medicinal uses.  The renown Roman physician and medical researcher Galen of Pergamum recorded more than 1,000 uses for vinegar during his studies of the heart, arteries, veins, and peripheral nervous system.   And in the past few centuries, numerous American naturalists from Nicholas Culpepper to Jethro Kloss to M. Grieve have advocated apple cider vinegar as one of the most useful, effective, and underrated medicinal and curative substances known to humankind.  Yet surprisingly, although vinegar was a mainstay of most households in the United States beginning with the first settlers, it suddenly fell out of popularity in the past few decades.  Pushed to the back of the shelf and forgotten.  Read more . . .

The Amazing Curative Properties of Sesame Seed

Officially known as Sesamum indicum, sesame is an annual that typically grows upwards of six feet, producing oblong leaves and small seed pods.  Revered in the Middle East for over 2000 years for both its magical and medicinal powers, the oil of the sesame seed is actually quite nutritious, rich in protein, vitamins A and E, most B vitamins, abundant quantities of zinc, calcium, copper, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium, as well as healthy doses of essential amino acids.  Additionally, sesame seeds contain two unique substances, sesamin and sesamolin which greatly contribute to their far-reaching curative abilities.  Read more . . .

Herbal Remedies and Their Preparation: Infusion and Decoction

The return to choosing herbal remedies over synthetic or pharmaceuticals is not just a trend towards healthy options, but acknowledgment that nature provides botanical (as well as zoological) options for most--if not all--of humankind’s ills.  But as any experienced herbalist will be quick to point out, treating ailments with herbs is not as simple as just obtaining an herb you’ve read about online and deciding, “Hey, I’m gonna try that.”  The practice of herbology involves learning to relate symptomology to diagnosis, knowing when and when not to choose a particular herb, acquiring the appropriate part of the plant, and of course, preparing it in a manner that best allows the body to utilize its healing properties.  Infusion and decoction are the two most common methods used.  Read more . . .

How to Properly Prepare Fomentations, Poultices, Plasters, and Salves

From building one’s immunity to resist colds, to alleviating the symptoms of arthritis; dealing with stress and insomnia to defending the body against cancers, herbs have proven healing powers that equal and often exceed those of synthetic drugs.  But, while countless diseases can be treated with simple herbal infusions and decoctions, if you’re only utilizing internal methods of delivery, then you’re missing out on a number of treatments that could be quite beneficial to you and your family including fomentations, poultices, plasters, and salves.   Indeed, these preparations can replace many topical over-the-counter products you currently use.  Read more . . .

The 12 Most Powerful Common Herbs

While living in California, I took a course in herbology called the “Twelve most powerful common herbs.”  These herbs are considered by many herbalists to be the most powerful curatives among “everyday herbs,” and a good starting point for learning the symptom/herb relationship, and stocking a home herbal medicine chest.  Premier to learning this relationship is knowing when to prescribe a particular herb, and under which circumstance, not to.  I present them here for anyone interested in learning how to intelligently use herbs as curatives.  Read more . . .