This article is from herbal expert Steven Horne.

Roller coasters can be great fun, but they would be a nightmare if you could never get off. If you had to stay on for hours, day after day, you’d wind up stressed, exhausted, and desperate for escape. Unfortunately, every year, millions of people get on the blood sugar roller coaster and can’t get off, and this roller coaster ride also leaves them feeling stressed and exhausted. And, even worse, it leads to major chronic and degenerative diseases.

The blood sugar roller coaster involves rapid swings in blood sugar levels, alternating between spikes and crashes. As sugar levels spike, a person feels an agitated rush and even a temporary sense of euphoria. However, high blood sugar levels are harmful, so insulin is released to rapidly drive the sugar out of the blood and into the cells.

This causes blood sugar to fall lower than the ideal level, creating a blood sugar crash. Blood sugar levels in this phase of the roller coaster ride are too low to maintain proper energy levels and brain function. During the crash phase, a person may feel tired and irritable while experiencing poor concentration and brain fog.

Sadly, the crash phase causes cravings for more sugar, which starts the cycle again.

It’s not a very stable way to live, and the body’s efforts to constantly compensate for these wide swings in blood sugar levels ultimately lead to poor health. If a person stays on this wild ride, they will eventually develop metabolic syndrome and then diabetes, which will cause weight gain and chronic inflammation. The inflammation damages blood vessels, brain cells, joints, and other tissues, contributing to many chronic and degenerative diseases.

If you’re on this dangerous roller coaster ride, it’s time to get off. If you follow the following suggestions and escape this destructive ride, you’ll have more energy, better health, a clearer mind, and more stable emotions. With so much to gain, it’s time to get started.

Understanding Sugar Cravings

One of the biggest obstacles in getting off the blood sugar roller coaster is the addictive nature of sugar. Sugar lights up the dopamine centers in the brain as much as cocaine and other drugs do. It’s hard to make the necessary changes by willpower alone because having a sweet tooth or cravings for carbohydrate-rich foods is natural.

Carbohydrate-rich foods provide quick energy for brain and muscle activity, so the desire for them is perfectly normal. And, because sugary and starchy plants aren’t common in nature, we have sweet taste receptors to help us detect plant foods with high caloric value. However, most people no longer satisfy these needs with whole-plant foods. Instead, they eat refined carbohydrates—table sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour, and white rice. These concentrated carbohydrates may satisfy caloric needs but leave your body craving more.

Unlike refined carbohydrates, natural sources of high-carbohydrate foods such as fruits, starchy vegetables, and grains contain fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Even raw honey, one of nature’s most concentrated sources of sugar, contains some bee pollen, which contains many important nutrients.

Whole Foods Versus Refined Carbohydrates

Whole foods help stabilize blood sugar in three ways.

First, the fiber in these foods slows the release of sugars into the bloodstream, so they don’t cause the rapid spikes in blood sugar levels that refined carbohydrates do. Fiber also provides a feeling of fullness, which helps curb appetite and prevent overeating.

This is why you can feel satisfied and full after eating an apple, but you can easily drink the juice of several apples. Juicing the apples removes the fiber and concentrates the sugars. Without the fiber, you can easily consume more sugar, and your body absorbs it faster.

Secondly, along with sugar, whole foods contain vitamins and minerals that your body needs to use the sugar. Refined foods lack these nutrients, and when your body’s needs for them go unmet, you continue to crave more food as your body searches for the nutrients it needs.

An example of this can be seen in the difference between eating white bread and whole-grain bread. You will probably feel satisfied with one or two slices of whole-grain bread, but eating the same amount of white bread may leave you unsatisfied. Although fiber content plays a role in this, so does the presence of vitamins and minerals in the whole grain. You’re getting everything your body needs rather than just empty calories.

Lastly, whole foods contain compounds that inhibit the proliferation of unfriendly microbes (harmful bacteria and yeast) and feed the good bacteria in the intestines. On the other hand, refined carbohydrates encourage the growth of unfriendly micro-organisms.

The microbes in your gut create chemicals that influence your appetite. Yeast and unfriendly bacteria will secrete chemicals that make you crave more sugar, while good bacteria will secrete chemicals that cause you to crave natural foods with fiber. Thus, balancing the microbiome in the gut leads to craving healthier foods.

Intestinal dysbiosis causes many health problems. Microbes feeding off of simple sugars create acid waste and gas, which can result in acid indigestion, belching, bloating, burping, and even acid reflux. It also causes leaky gut syndrome, which results in increased allergic reactions, autoimmune reactions, and more inflammatory problems. It also contributes to various mood disorders, including anxiety and depression.

Refined Carbohydrates and Disease

Refined foods have long been a source of disease. For example, in the past, people could get plenty of vitamin B from eating whole grains like wheat and brown rice, but when these whole grains were stripped of important nutrients to produce white flour and rice, people started to get sick because of B vitamin deficiencies.

Modern society has taken the convenient path to solve these overt deficiency diseases. White flour is enriched with B vitamins and high carbohydrate foods like bread and cereal often have some vitamins and minerals added to increase their nutritional value. There are two problems to this approach. First, these isolated nutrients aren’t utilized as efficiently as natural ones. And second, there are many nutrients lost while refining foods that don’t get replaced.

As a result, people continue to suffer from health problems because of these refined foods. Everywhere they are introduced, there is a corresponding rise in diabetes, obesity, and other diseases.

Tips for Getting Off the Roller Coaster

Once you understand sugar cravings and the problems associated with refined carbohydrates, you can take action and break this addictive cycle. The following tips will help you reduce sugar cravings, keep your blood sugar balanced, and help you enjoy greater physical and emotional health.

Don’t Restrict. Substitute!

Since your body likes sweet things, it makes no sense to tell yourself, “I can’t eat anything sweet.” This attempt at self-deprivation eventually results in internal rebellion and an even stronger craving for sweets, which leads to binges, where we give into our carbohydrate cravings.

A strategy that works is to start feeding your body with healthier sources of carbohydrates that actually have some nutritional value. Fruits are a good place to start. Try eating apples, oranges, bananas, figs, dates, raisins, and other whole fruits as snacks instead of candy bars, cookies, and pastries. This is especially helpful if you also eat some nuts with the fruits, as the nuts provide protein and fats, which also help to satiate the appetite. Pick fruits you enjoy, and make sure they are ready to eat when a craving hits. Get rid of sources of temptation, and avoid buying them in the future.

You can substitute more natural sugars for refined sugars when baking or cooking. Try using date sugar, coconut sugar, real maple syrup (grade B is best), black strap molasses, raw honey, or freeze-dried sugar cane juice instead of refined sugar. These sweeteners have some nutritional value and you’ll eat less of the sweet foods you make with them than you will using refined sugar.

There are helpful, natural sugar substitutes you can use such as stevia and monk fruit.

It also helps to use whole grains instead of refined grains—brown rice instead of white rice, whole wheat instead of white flour, and other whole grains like oats, barley, millet, and rye. Of particular benefit are the pseudo-grains, amaranth, quinoa, and buckwheat. These all help to control blood sugar while satisfying that craving for carbohydrates,

Start the Day Right

If you start the day with sugar-sweetened coffee, sugary breakfast cereal, toast and jam, pastries, and other high-carbohydrate foods, you’re initiating the blood sugar roller coaster for the entire day. You can reset this by eating more protein and fats for breakfast, such as eggs, meats, nuts, or avocados.

It makes sense to start the day with high protein food, since your body produces more protein-digesting hydrochloric acid in the morning than it does in the evening. While bacon and eggs might be a classic example, there are plenty of other options. Try starting the day with cottage cheese, unsweetened whole milk yogurt with fresh fruit, or a protein shake. It also helps to get some good fats such as grass-fed butter or cream and coconut oil. Coconut oil has the added advantage of containing caprylic acid which helps destroy yeast and correct problems with intestinal dysbiosis.

Correct Intestinal Dysbiosis

Correcting intestinal dysbiosis will also help balance your blood sugar by reducing your cravings for sweets. It takes a couple of weeks of eating more natural foods to reset your microbiome, but once you do, you’ll find yourself craving natural foods instead of refined foods. You can help the process by using herbs that help to knock down the overgrowth of unfriendly bacteria and yeast.

Many of the herbs that help to control blood sugar are also antimicrobial and help balance your gut microflora. These include cinnamon, nopal, goldenseal, and bitter melon. Berberine, an alkaloid found in goldenseal, Oregon grape, coptis, and other antibacterial herbs have been shown to lower blood sugar levels and aid both metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

So, try taking berberine, cinnamon, or a formula containing some of these herbs to help lower your blood sugar levels and improve the balance of gut microbes. It also helps to eat fermented foods and/or take probiotic supplements.

Stabilize Your Blood Sugar Levels

If your mood and energy levels drop in the middle of the afternoon and you find yourself suffering from severe cravings for sugary and/or starchy foods, try taking licorice, algae, or adaptogens like eleuthero to stabilize your blood sugar levels.

If you have high blood pressure, replace the licorice root with eleuthero or a formula containing herbs like eleuthero, schizandra, astragalus, and ginseng. It also helps to take a spoonful of coconut oil with each dose of herbs.

If you experience frequent thirst and urination, a sense of dryness in your body, hot flashes, night sweats and/or burning sensations in your hands and feet, try taking a formula containing eucommia, glehnia root, rehmannia, and kudzu root. The herbs in this formula help to balance blood sugar, reduce insulin resistance, and help your cells to hydrate better.

Get Physically Active

Resistance training (using weight machines, free weights, and calisthenics) along with cardiovascular (aerobic) exercise is also helpful for getting off the blood sugar roller coaster. Resistance exercises train the muscles to take up glucose without the need for insulin, thereby decreasing insulin requirements. This helps you avoid blood sugar spikes and their associated crashes and reduces stress by reducing cortisol production, which helps you avoid binge eating.

The key to successful exercising is consistency. Make it a priority in your life and schedule the time for it. Thirty minutes is all that is needed. If you’ve been sedentary for a long period, the first week will be tough, but hang in there! As you work through initial pain, exercising will gradually become easier, and you’ll feel much better.

Additional Helpful Supplements

There are a number of supplements that can help to balance out your blood sugar levels and reduce your food cravings. Here are a few to consider.

Chromium is involved in creating the glucose tolerance factor (GTF), a hormone-like compound that works with insulin to transport glucose into the cells.

Magnesium is another mineral that helps stabilize your system. If you tend to feel tense and anxious, suffer from migraine headaches or insomnia, and are irritated by minor inconveniences, you probably need more magnesium.

A formula containing vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins in a base of adaptogenic and nervine herbs may also be helpful. This reduces stress levels, helps your body process carbohydrates properly, and reduces sugar cravings.

It may also help to take a formula that contains herbs like cinnamon, fenugreek, bitter melon, gymnema, and nopal, and perhaps minerals like chromium and vanadium.

Avoiding diabetes, reducing your risk of heart disease, losing weight, having more energy, and potentially lengthening your life are outcomes well worth the effort to get off the blood sugar roller coaster. Make your escape and start taking action today.

The Problems with Non-Caloric Sweeteners

Artificial and non-caloric sweeteners might seems like an easy exit, but they aren’t the answer to escaping the blood sugar roller coaster. In April of 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a paper on the use of non-sugar sweeteners, advising people not to use them.1 A systematic review of the most current scientific evidence showed that using artificial sweeteners was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, weight gain, cardiovascular disease, and overall mortality.
When you crave sugars or carbohydrates, your body is signaling a need for calories (energy). Non-caloric sweeteners trick your body into thinking it’s getting energy, but it isn’t. So, this is followed by an increased (not decreased) desire for sugar. This is true both for artificial sweeteners and for non-caloric natural sweeteners such as stevia and monk fruit.

Sucralose

The most popular artificial sweetener right now is sucralose, produced by chlorinating sugar. This alters the structure of the sugar molecules by replacing three hydroxyl groups with chlorine atoms.

Although sucralose is currently considered to be a safe sweetener, research is accumulating that sucralose contributes to a wide variety of health problems. These include increased appetite, metabolic syndrome, weight gain, and diabetes, the very problems artificial sweeteners are supposed to help prevent.

Worse, there is evidence that it contributes to other problems, too, such as irritable bowel syndrome, liver inflammation, disturbed gut flora, reduced immunity to viral infections, and liver inflammation. It may also accumulate in tissues, damage DNA, and produce carcinogenic compounds.

Aspartame

Aspartame is composed of two amino acids (aspartic acid and phenylalanine) linked together by methanol (wood alcohol). At only 86° F (30° C), aspartame can break down, releasing these individual components.

Methanol is toxic because it breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde (embalming fluid). Methanol is a known carcinogen. Aspartic acid is a neuroexcitotoxin. In large amounts, it overstimulates the brain and contributes to ADD/ADHD conditions.

Aspartame has been associated with many health problems. Like sucralose, it contributes to weight gain, but it is also damaging to the nervous system. Its use is associated with increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, as well as mood disorders, headaches, and migraines. It also causes intestinal dysbiosis and increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

A Sweeter Alternative: Xylitol

One option for a natural sweetener that isn’t completely non-caloric is xylitol. It’s a good option to use when weaning off of refined sugar. Although it does have some caloric value, it is very low on the glycemic index (so it doesn’t spike blood sugar levels) and it has some health benefits. Xylitol helps control harmful bacteria, has been shown to aid dental health, and may also help to balance the gut microflora.

 

Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash

This article is from herbal expert Steven Horne.

Ginger is a very common spice available at any grocery store and is used to flavor ginger snap cookies, gingerbread, and ginger ale. Ginger is second only to capsicum in its stimulating effects. While capsicum primarily stimulates circulation, ginger’s primary action is directed towards the digestive system.

Ginger stimulates digestive secretions and increases intestinal motility. This means it helps the body digest food better and also helps relieve digestive stagnation, easing gas, bloating, and indigestion.

Ginger and Motion Sickness

Daniel B. Mowrey, author of The Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine, published a study on ginger for motion sickness and nausea in the medical journal The Lancet in 1982. He and his research partner found that ingesting ginger effectively prevented motion sickness and reduced or eliminated morning sickness.

The ability of ginger to ease motion sickness and nausea is related to its digestive effects. Nausea occurs when the peristaltic motion of the small intestines reverses. Normally it’s pushing material downward, but when it starts pushing things upward towards the stomach, you experience nausea. If this reversal of peristalsis persists, you throw up. Ginger eases nausea and prevents vomiting by stimulating the downward movement of materials in the small intestine.

Ginger for Colds and Congestion

Pungent herbs like capsicum, ginger, garlic, and mustard are some of the best allies for acute ailments involving fever, chills, and copious watery or white mucus. You use herbs like ginger to thin and expel mucus and to induce perspiration. Drinking a warm tea made of either fresh or dried ginger is helpful. One popular remedy is a tea made with slices of fresh ginger, lemon, and a little honey.

It’s also helpful to use ginger in a bath. Put a couple of tablespoons of dried ginger into a bag made with cheesecloth or other fabric and put it in a tub of water as hot as can be comfortably tolerated. Soak in the bath for at least 15 minutes, keeping the bath hot. It can be helpful to coat sensitive areas in some olive oil so they won’t be irritated by the ginger. Ginger baths can be helpful for easing both acute ailments and easing muscle aches and joint pain.

Using Ginger

Ginger works well in capsules or tea forms, but it can also be used in a variety of food-like forms. I’ve eaten pickled or candied ginger and drunk ginger beer to help digestion. I’ve also juiced fresh ginger with lemon and apple as a digestive tonic.

In Modern Herbal Dispensatory, I list a formula I created called ginger magic that I find great for fighting colds and flu and settling an upset stomach. It also has anti-inflammatory properties. To make it, start by juicing fresh ginger using a vegetable juicer. Measure the amount of ginger juice and add an equal amount of glycerin (or honey). Then add ¼ of that amount of brandy or spiced rum. So, if you added 1 cup of glycerin, you’d add ¼ cup of brandy. To use it, take 1-3 teaspoons with water when you’re sick or have an upset stomach.

Ginger essential oil can also be used, but it must be diluted. To use it internally, dilute 1-2 drops in a little fixed oil (olive or coconut oil). Ginger oil can also be diluted in a fixed oil and applied topically to help ease joint and muscle pain.

Photo by Kim Daniels on Unsplash

This article is from herbal expert Steven Horne.

Fat… Just say the word and notice the emotions it evokes. Fats have a bad reputation, both for making people overweight and for being bad for their health. Foods labeled “low fat” or “no fat” are promoted as healthy.

In spite of this bad rap, most people still love fats. After all, fried foods, whipped cream, sour cream, and butter taste good. The phrase “living off the fat of the land,” illustrates the enduring love for fatty foods.

There’s a good reason we crave fats. The right kind of fats are necessary for good health. Every cell membrane is made of lipids (fatty molecules) and the brain is 50% fat by dry weight. Fat keeps the skin soft. During the winter, fat helps insulate against the cold. Many tissues, including the brain and heart, work better when they burn fats (in the form of ketones) for fuel instead of carbohydrates.

Fats are also needed for the production of many chemical messengers, including steroidal hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, cortisol, aldosterone, and progesterone. They are used to create specialized messengers called eicosanoids that allow cells to communicate with each other. Prostaglandins are the best known of these messengers, which mediate inflammation, regulate immune responses, and control cell proliferation.

So, why do fats get such a bum rap? Primarily, it has to do with the quality of fats people consume. Just like refined carbohydrates cause health problems because they are missing the nutrients your body needs to process them, refined fats lack what you need to be healthy. In this article, we’re going to help you understand fats better so you can pick the kind of fatty foods that will contribute to your health.

Understanding Fats
Fats and oils contain triglycerides which are composed of three fatty acids attached to a molecule of glycerin. When you eat fats, the body breaks the fatty acids and glycerin apart, absorbs the individual fatty acids and the glycerin, and then recombines them to construct the body’s own triglycerides.

The type of fatty acids within these triglycerides determines how the fats work in the body. Fatty acids come in many varieties. They may be long, medium, or short-chained. They may be saturated or unsaturated. If they are unsaturated, they can be mono or polyunsaturated and the polyunsaturated fatty acids can be either the omega-3 or omega-6 type. To help us understand which fats are good for us, let’s begin by breaking down what all these classifications mean.

Saturation

Fatty acids are long chains of carbon molecules. Each molecule of carbon is capable of holding onto two hydrogen atoms. When all the carbon molecules are holding onto two hydrogen atoms, the fatty acid is said to be saturated. If just one carbon atom is missing a hydrogen atom, the fatty acid is monounsaturated. If more than one carbon atom is missing a hydrogen atom, the fatty acid is polyunsaturated.

Saturation affects the structure of the fatty acid. Saturated fatty acids are straight, while most unsaturated fats bend at the points where a carbon is missing a hydrogen atom. The bend makes the fat more fluid, which is why polyunsaturated fats tend to be liquid at room temperature, whereas saturated fats tend to be solid at room temperature.

This also affects how they act in the body. Polyunsaturated fats help keep cell membranes pliable, while saturated fats make them stiffer. This influences the membrane’s permeability. Too many saturated fats contribute to problems like insulin resistance.

The Omega Factor

The omega factor in polyunsaturated fatty acids is determined by the position of the first hydrogen missing an electron in the fatty acid chain. In omega-3 fatty acids, it occurs at the third carbon on the chain. In omega-6 fatty acids, it occurs at the sixth carbon.

Both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are considered essential because the body must get these polyunsaturated fats in the diet. However, they are needed in a proper proportion to each other. Many researchers believe that a good ratio is anywhere from 1:4 to 1:7; that is one part omega-3 fatty acids to four to seven parts omega-6 fatty acids. Most Americans aren’t even close to this ratio, consuming diets of anywhere from 1:20 to 1:60. This contributes to numerous health problems; most notably, it increases inflammatory responses, which contribute to chronic disease.

Cis Vs Trans-Fatty Acids

Polyunsaturated fatty acids that bend at the point where carbon atoms are missing hydrogen bonds are called cis fatty acids. As you subject these fatty acids to heat, however, they can become trans-fatty acids. In trans-fatty acids, the hydrogens attach on opposite sides causing the fatty acid so they don’t bend. Trans fats are linked to increased risk for heart disease and other health problems. This is why polyunsaturated oils are not the best oils for cooking.

Fatty Acid Length

The length of the fatty acid chain is also important. Shorter-chained saturated fatty acids are more readily burned for fuel than longer-chained saturated fatty acids. In fact, the medium-chained fatty acids found in coconut oil, palm oil, and even butter are actually beneficial for the body because they are not stored as body fat and encourage the body to burn fat. Medium-chain fatty acids, such as caprylic and lauric acid, have many health benefits, which will be discussed later. There are also some health benefits in short-chain fatty acids.

Avoiding the Bad Fats
Polyunsaturated fats have a problem. They can oxidize because oxygen can attach to the places where the carbons are missing hydrogen atoms, turning them rancid. Once oil has been removed from the seeds, nuts, or other food sources, it deteriorates.

To prevent fats from turning rancid and lengthen shelf life, manufacturers refine oils, a process not unlike making refined white sugar. Fresh oils pressed from nuts and seeds contain vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Because these nutrients decrease shelf life, they are removed from the oil. This extends shelf life but makes the oils less healthy for consumption.

Hydrogenation

Many vegetable oils also contain trans fats because they are heated during extraction. This problem is compounded by hydrogenating the oil. Hydrogenation is the process of saturating fats by adding more hydrogen molecules to the fatty acid. Some oils are only partially hydrogenated, so they remain liquid, but others are fully hydrogenated (i.e. saturated) to become solid fats such as margarine and shortening. In either case, hydrogenation ruins essential fatty acids, causing trans-fatty acids to form in their place.

The end result of creating refined vegetable oils is a very shelf-stable oil product that can be heated to a high temperature without smoking. However, the oil loses its flavor and nutritional value and acquires harmful trans-fatty acids in the process. This is why it is best to avoid using processed vegetable oils as much as possible, particularly hydrogenated vegetable oils like shortening and margarine.

Avoid Fried Foods

Deep-fried foods are particularly problematic, since the constant heating of the vegetable oil increases the amount of trans-fatty and long-chain saturated fatty acids while decreasing the healthy cis unsaturated fatty acids. Deep frying foods also increases the amount of calories being consumed. These factors help explain why eating fried foods has been shown to increase the risk of obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.

Choose Animal Fats Wisely

Contrary to popular belief, not all animal fats are bad. The biggest problem with animal fat is its source. The fatty acid profile in animals raised in feed lots is very different from that of animals raised on pasture or obtained from wild sources. Also, many toxins accumulate in fat, so animals that are fed food containing pesticides or are given chemicals to fatten them up or increase production of milk and eggs will have less healthy fat.

On the other hand, if you can get organic, grass-fed animal products like eggs, butter, cream, whole milk, raw cheese, poultry, or even red meat, enjoy them. Fish can also be a good source of healthy fats, including wild-caught salmon, sardines, tuna, wild-caught rainbow trout, and herring. Be careful with fish, however, as it can accumulate mercury.

Getting the Good Fats
The best sources of fat are natural foods such as avocados, nuts (particularly walnuts, macadamia nuts, and almonds), seeds (hemp, flax, and chia for example), and the organic-grass-fed animal products mentioned earlier. When it comes to selecting oils, there are a number of factors to consider.

All the fats you eat are actually a mixture of various types of fatty acids in varying proportions. For example, coconut oil is 92% saturated fat (primarily steric acid), 6% monounsaturated fat, and 2% polyunsaturated fat. Olive oil, on the other hand, is considered a monounsaturated fat because it is 15% saturated, 73% monounsaturated (oleic acid), and 12% polyunsaturated. Safflower oil is a polyunsaturated fat because it is 10% saturated, 13% monounsaturated, and 77% polyunsaturated.

Selecting the Right Oils

Oils high in saturated fats are better for frying because they can withstand heat better. Coconut oil, ghee, and organic lard are all good fats to use for cooking. Four of the best oils for cooking are olive oil, avocado oil, sesame oil, and sunflower oil. Never heat these oils to very high temperatures. If they start to smoke, the temperature is too hot.

Also avoid soy, canola, cottonseed, corn, and grapeseed oil. Some of these oils come from genetically modified plants. Others are too high in omega-6 fatty acids, which makes them pro-inflammatory.

Never use oils high in polyunsaturated fats like flax, hemp, pumpkin, or walnut oil for cooking. These oils should be used in salads or other dishes that don’t require heat. It’s also good to refrigerate them as they can go rancid more easily.

In addition to these general suggestions, here are a few good fats you should consider using.

Olive Oil

High-quality extra virgin olive oil is one of the best oils to use. Good olive oil has a green or golden color. It also has a distinctive aroma and flavor, somewhat fruity and a little bit bitter. It should always be cold-pressed and packaged in dark glass bottles. It will also be more expensive.

Olive oil is great for salads and uncooked foods; however, it can also be used as a cooking oil if you keep the temperature down. You can also mix it with coconut oil or ghee for cooking.

Coconut Oil

Extra virgin coconut oil is also a very healthy fat. It is one of the best sources of medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs). Coconut oil is also good for cooking, as its high content of saturated fats makes it more heat stable. However, it’s even healthier when consumed raw.

Taking some coconut oil first thing in the morning can curb the appetite and help stabilize blood sugar levels throughout the day. It can help set the metabolism to burn fats which can aid in weight loss. Coconut oil can also help brain function. It may be helpful for preventing and even managing epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, and autism. It can also help with intestinal dysbiosis, reducing the amount of yeast and harmful bacteria in the intestines.

Butter

Butter from pastured (grass-fed) cows can actually be a healthy fat. It contains higher amounts of omega-3 essential fatty acids than regular butter and is also a better source of vitamin A. Butter is a good source of the fat-soluble vitamins D3 and E, and grass-fed butter can also be a good source of vitamin K2. It is also a source of CLA.

Although butter is high in saturated fat (70%), about 11% of that is the short-chain fatty acid butyric acid, which has been shown to reduce inflammation in the digestive system. Butter is also a good source of MCTs such as caprylic, lauric, and capric acid.

Clarified butter, or ghee, is made by heating butter and removing all the milk solids. Ghee is better than butter for cooking because it has a higher smoke point. Clarifying butter also removes potential allergens for people who have issues with dairy.

Fatty Acid Supplements
In addition to including good fats in your diet, you can also take certain fatty acid supplements for specific health needs. Here are some important supplements to consider.

Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids

While both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are essential to health, most people are getting plenty of omega-6 fatty acids and not enough omega-3 fatty acids. Many researchers believe this imbalance is responsible for increased inflammation, poor tissue healing, and other diseases. As a result, many people benefit from taking an omega-3 essential fatty acid supplement containing the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA. One can also get more omega-3 fatty acids by consuming grass-fed or pasture-raised meat, eggs, dairy, fresh fish, and flax or hemp seed oil.

DHA

DHA is a long-chain omega-3 fatty acid. It is the most abundant fatty acid in the brain, essential for myelin sheath repair and the maintenance of brain function. It has been used to aid memory, ease mental illness, aid focus and concentration in ADHD, reduce seizures, heal neurological degeneration and neuropathy, and aid recovery from traumatic brain injuries. It is also helpful for the eyes and cardiovascular system.

GLA

GLA is one of the omega-6 essential fatty acids. Along with adequate levels of the omega-3 fatty acid EPA, it helps to reduce inflammation and modulate immune responses. The synthesis of GLA may be inhibited by nutritional deficiencies, alcohol or tobacco use, overconsumption of trans-fatty acids or saturated fats, or by stress, illness, or aging. Evening primrose oil, borage oil, and black currant oil are all high in GLA. Supplementation with oils high in GLA along with an omega-3 supplement may be helpful for skin problems like eczema and dermatitis and for certain types of PMS.

CLA

CLA is conjugated linoleic acid, which belongs to the omega-6 family of fatty acids. It occurs naturally in meat and dairy products when animals are grass-fed.

CLA enhances the cell membrane’s defense mechanism against attack by free radicals. It also stimulates the production of critical immune system cells and inhibits the release of an immunoglobulin associated with allergies. It also helps decrease abdominal fat, balance adrenal hormones, enhance muscle development, reduce insulin resistance, and help to lower cholesterol and triglycerides.

MCT Oil

MCT oil is a supplement containing the beneficial medium-chain triglycerides. It is mostly caprylic and capric acid. It is useful as part of a ketogenic diet, which can be helpful for neurological disorders, including epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, and autism.

Fat Soluble Vitamins

In whole foods, fats are accompanied by fat-soluble vitamins and other nutrients. Because people may avoid fatty foods or utilize only processed vegetable oils, they wind up being deficient in fat-soluble vitamins. These vitamins are extremely important to help prevent the fats in the body from oxidizing. Oxidized fats stick to the lining of arteries and contribute to cardiovascular and neurological diseases.

Fish oil supplements can provide omega-3 essential fatty acids and vitamins A and D, which are essential for the health of mucus membranes, bones and teeth, and proper immune function. Vitamin K2 taken along with vitamin D3 will help bone and dental health and reduce the risk of heart disease.

Vitamin E is another important fat-soluble vitamin that helps prevent fats from oxidizing. Vitamin E taken along with the mineral selenium is helpful for preventing blood clots and may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

A three-step process to protecting yourself from harmful chemicals

This article is from herbal expert Steven Horne.

We often hear about major emergencies where toxic chemicals are released into the environment, but sadly, this happens far more than most people realize. In a study published by the CDC in 2015, a survey of just nine states over a ten-year period from 1999 to 2008 found a total of 57,975 incidents involving “acute chemical incidents.”

If these chemicals were substances that broke down readily in the environment, there would be less concern, but many of them are persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that will linger in the environment for decades, if not hundreds of years.

Over 350,000 chemicals are currently registered for use in industry, agriculture, and medicine. Only a small fraction of them have been adequately tested for safety, and their safety is tested individually, not collectively. While we do enjoy many benefits from the wonderful discoveries of modern chemistry, the growing use of these chemicals is causing increasingly detrimental effects on the health of plants, animals, and human beings.

These chemicals are affecting the rising generation even while they are in the womb. One study found an average of 287 toxic chemicals in the umbilical cords of newborn infants. Many of the chemicals that were present are known to be POPs. This is extremely alarming, especially given the ever-increasing rates of neurological disorders in children. These neurological problems include autism spectrum disorder (which now affects about one in one hundred children), ADD, ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome, stuttering, delayed speech development, dyslexia, and behavioral disorders.

Environmental toxins may also be contributing to adult neurological problems like anxiety, depression, insomnia, numbness, tingling, brain fog, sleep apnea, dementia, and mental illness.

Many of these chemicals are endocrine disrupters, which cause hormonal imbalances, especially in the reproductive system. In women, they may be contributing to premature breast development in girls, PMS, uterine fibroids, tender breasts, and heavy menstrual bleeding. Boys may experience undescended testicles, enlarged breasts, and delayed onset of puberty because of these endocrine disrupters. Adult men may experience infertility, prostate problems, and low testosterone levels.

These chemicals also adversely affect the immune system. They contribute to chronic inflammation, impaired immune function, autoimmune disorders, and cancer. They can also interfere with the function of other organs and glands like the liver and thyroid.

Understanding this raises the question “What can we do to protect ourselves?” Here is a three-step plan for not just surviving, but thriving in a toxic world.

Step 1: Reducing Chemical Exposure

It’s impossible to avoid chemical exposure in modern society because these chemicals are found everywhere. The good news is that your body has the ability to eliminate them, so don’t get obsessed over the problem. Rather, simply take steps to reduce your exposure. This reduces the load on your detoxification systems, which makes it easier for your body to eliminate the toxins you are exposed to.

Here are five practical things you can do.

1. Avoid chemicals in your food

The average person consumes several pounds of chemical additives every year. These include artificial flavorings, preservatives, food colorings, and artificial sweeteners. You can greatly reduce the load on your eliminative systems by eating natural foods that don’t contain these chemicals and avoiding processed foods that do. So, read labels carefully, and if the ingredients don’t sound like food, don’t buy the product.

It also helps to buy organically grown food whenever possible. This reduces your exposure to pesticides, herbicides, and other agricultural chemicals. When you can’t do this, wash your produce in water with a scent-free castile soap or a fruit and vegetable wash. This is important because many of these chemicals are fat-soluble and can’t just be rinsed off like dirt.

2. Drink the purest water you can find

If possible, you should purchase some type of water purification system, such as a reverse-osmosis system coupled with carbon filtration or a gravity-fed filtration system. At the very minimum, use a carbon filter and change the filter regularly or buy purified water from grocery or health food stores using reusable containers. Avoid bottled water, especially in soft plastic bottles, as the plastic leaches chemicals, and produces a lot of plastic waste in the environment.

3. Use non-toxic household products

Much of your exposure to chemicals takes place within your own home. You can greatly reduce your exposure to chemicals by finding the most natural, non-toxic products you can afford. Again, it’s important to read labels carefully.

For starters, look for non-toxic household cleaning products. Many toxic household products can be replaced with simple things like baking soda, vinegar, natural soaps, and essential oils.

It’s also important to look for non-toxic personal care products. Remember that anything you put on your skin can be absorbed into your body, so look for all-natural, non-toxic toothpaste, shampoo, deodorants, lotions, and cosmetics. As with cleaning products, many natural substances can be used for these purposes, such as olive oil, coconut oil, clay, essential oils, and herbs like aloe vera, calendula, witch hazel, and seaweeds.

Finally, you can also find non-toxic methods to control weeds and household pests. These methods include vinegar (20% or 30%), natural soaps, boric acid, and pheromone traps.

4. Purify your indoor air

Many people live in areas with a lot of outdoor air pollution, but there is also a lot of air pollution that comes from inside the home. Many building materials and household items, such as carpets, upholstery, paint, and treated lumber contain chemicals that outgas into the home. This is most noticeable after new construction or remolding. Take steps to purify your indoor air.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to grow houseplants. Research has shown that houseplants absorb air pollutants while increasing the oxygen supply in your home. Some of the good plants for this purpose are aloe vera, bamboo palm, Boston fern, Chinese evergreen, dwarf/pigmy date palm, English ivy, ficus, gerbera daisy, mums, peace lily, philodendron and snake plant.

You may even wish to invest in some type of air filtration system for your home. Do a little research to find the best system for your situation.

5. Follow chemical safety protocols

Many people are routinely exposed to chemicals at work; some examples of professions at risk include janitors, carpet cleaners, beauticians, hairdressers, house painters, dry cleaners, auto mechanics, print shop workers, builders, farmers, gardeners, and welders. If you do have to use chemicals, either at home or in your workplace, be sure to follow proper safety protocols to reduce your exposure and risk.

Step 2: Nourish Detoxification Systems

Your body has a built-in ability to get rid of toxic chemicals. The various systems that provide these detoxification functions include the liver, lymphatics, bowels, urinary system, skin, and lungs. By supporting the health of these systems with proper nutrition, you can enhance your body’s ability to get rid of the chemicals you are exposed to.

In addition to chemical exposure, modern society faces a unique challenge in that we are surrounded by empty-calorie foods that do not contain the nutrients necessary to sustain the body’s detoxification systems. Cleansing isn’t just stimulating the bowels to move or the kidneys to produce more urine. It also involves internal organs and enzyme systems that require vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other phytochemicals to work properly.

With that understanding, here are four recommendations for keeping your body’s detoxification systems in good working order through proper nutrition.

1. Eat vegetables that enhance detoxification

Certain types of vegetables greatly enhance the body’s ability to detoxify. The first group of these are the cruciferous vegetables, which come from plants in the mustard family. They include kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, mustard greens, turnips, radishes, Brussels sprouts, and watercress.

These vegetables contain sulfur compounds that aid the body’s ability to detoxify chemicals and fight infections. They have been shown, for example, to reduce one’s risk of cancer, a disease caused primarily by chemicals.

The second group of vegetables that are helpful for increasing the body’s ability to eliminate toxins are dark, green leafy vegetables. These include Swiss chard, beet greens, leafy forms of lettuce, and dandelion greens, along with several cruciferous vegetables (e.g. kale, mustard greens, and watercress). Although you can get nutritional benefits from these greens when they are cooked, you will get better results with detoxification if you eat them raw. So, add them to salads, juice with them, or blend them into a smoothie with the antioxidant berries and fruits discussed next.

If you find it difficult to eat enough green vegetables, consider a product like Power Greens, which is designed to efficiently and easily get you that nutrition.

2. Eat berries and other antioxidant fruits

In traditional Chinese medicine, sour foods are said to tonify the liver, the major organ of internal detoxification. Sour fruits are typically loaded with antioxidant nutrients, which help protect the liver and other tissues from the oxidative damage caused by various chemical irritants and the detoxification process.

Examples of berries and sour foods that aid detoxification include blueberries, raspberries, organic strawberries, blackberries, sour cherries, sea buckthorn, acai berries, wolfberry, and lemon juice. A great way to gently detox your liver is to combine the berries and greens in a smoothie.

3. Take bitter and hepatoprotective herbs

A class of herbs called simple bitters has long been used to stimulate digestion and improve liver function. These bitter herbs help to activate digestive secretions and the enzymes involved in phase one detoxication. The slight bitterness of the dark green vegetables mentioned earlier helps here, but there are also herbal bitters like dandelion leaf and root, blessed thistle, gentian, artichoke leaf, red clover, and chicory that can be taken to help the body detoxify more efficiently.

Many of these remedies were traditionally believed to help clean the blood and clear morbid conditions like skin diseases, cysts, and abscesses. They appear to support the body’s detoxification processes in a gentle but effective manner.

There are also herbs that have documented hepatoprotective effects. These herbs help protect the liver from toxic chemicals while it neutralizes them. The most famous of these herbs is milk thistle, but other hepatoprotective herbs include schizandra, dandelion root, lycium, and turmeric.

4. Keep your eliminative channels open

Once the body has processed toxins for elimination, they must be removed from the body via one of the body’s eliminative systems. The primary ways these toxins are expelled are through the colon and kidneys.

Drinking at least six to eight glasses of water daily helps all eliminative systems. To keep the colon working properly, you need to ensure adequate fiber in your diet to bind toxins in the stool so they can’t be reabsorbed.

If your bowels move less than once a day and/or your stools are hard and difficult to pass, you may also want to use cascara sagrada or other natural stimulants.

Step 3: Enhance Your Body’s Detoxification Pathways

In addition to these general aids to detoxification, specific nutrients and herbs can help eliminate specific types of toxins. Understanding how the internal detoxification process works is key to using these supplements effectively.

Processing toxins for elimination is a two-phase operation. In phase one, enzymes add or remove electrons to the toxin to give it an electrical charge. In phase two, the electrically charged toxin is joined to another substance in a process called conjugation. This makes the toxin water soluble so it can be flushed out through the colon and kidneys. This process takes place primarily in the liver. Here is a more detailed explanation of the detoxification process.

Phase One: Liver Enzymes

In phase one of detoxification, the body uses about 50 different enzymes to electrically charge toxins. An electrically charged toxin is called an intermediate metabolite. These electrically charged toxins are free radicals, which is why antioxidants are so important in the detoxification process.

Signs that you have problems with phase one detoxification include feeling sluggish and groggy when you wake up in the morning, having a stuffy feeling under your right rib cage, and feeling bad with no specific cause. It will also take a long time for the effects of medications, alcohol, caffeine, or any other substance (natural or otherwise) to wear off. You may also feel irritable or anxious for no specific reason.

Using herbal bitters can enhance phase one detoxification. B-complex vitamins and vitamin C, minerals like magnesium, manganese, and zinc, and essential fatty acids also enhance phase one detoxification.

Phase Two: Conjugation

The intermediate metabolites have to be quickly neutralized by phase two enzymes, which conjugate (join or attach) the toxin to another molecule. If this doesn’t happen, you’ll feel sick as you detoxify. Symptoms of sluggish phase two detoxification include headaches, stomach pain, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, and brain fog. These may occur when you start nourishing your detoxification systems as described in step two, or when you are fasting or trying to lose weight.

Some nutrients that are important during this stage are n-acetyl cysteine, alpha lipoic acid, glutamine, methionine, Vitamins C, E, B1, B12, SAM-e, choline, magnesium, zinc, MSM, and indole 3 carbinol.

To summarize, I want to emphasize prudence but not anxiety. Your body can handle chemicals if you help it with both prevention and nutrition. Just be smart and eat well (or use supplements).

 

Photo by Victoria Aleksandrova on Unsplash

This article is reprinted with permission from herbalist expert Steven Horne.

You can read part 1 here.

Having covered the basics of natural support for hormones during menopause, let’s look at some remedies for some common problems that can occur during this life transition.

Hot flashes and night sweats

Hot flashes are the most common symptom of menopause. Night sweats are simply hot flashes that occur at night and cause heavy perspiration.

Hot flashes occur via the hypothalamus, which regulates body temperature and monitors the blood to determine what hormones are needed. When the hypothalamus senses there is a need for more estrogen, it signals the pituitary to release the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). During the child-bearing years, FSH stimulates the development of an egg follicle, which releases estrogen and signals the hypothalamus and pituitary to stop producing FSH.

During menopause, when there is no viable egg to develop, there is no estrogen response from the ovaries. So, the hypothalamus and pituitary cause more FSH to be released. This results in a release of epinephrine from the adrenals, which stimulates the hypothalamus and resets the body’s internal thermostat. This causes hot flashes, night sweats, and increased feelings of anxiety, which may result in increased heart rate and a pounding feeling in the chest. After a while, the hypothalamus learns to adjust to lower levels of estrogen and stops trying to stimulate the ovaries. At that point, the problem goes away naturally.

Helpful Remedies for Hot Flashes

Fortunately, there are natural ways to help balance hormones to reduce the severity of hot flashes, if not eliminate them entirely. Try some of the following approaches to see which ones work best for you.

Black cohosh has helped many women with hot flashes. It works better when taken in small doses in liquid form (5-10 drops taken every 5-10 minutes until symptoms subside). However, it also works as part of a formula that contains a time-release form of both black cohosh and dong quai.

Many women have found essential oils with estrogen-stimulating effects helpful. These include clary sage, pink grapefruit, and geranium. Lavender essential oil can also be helpful because of its relaxing effects. Mix a few drops of several of these oils in a small spray bottle filled with water. When you’re experiencing a hot flash, shake the bottle thoroughly and mist the oils around your face. These essential oils directly affect the hypothalamus via the sense of smell, which resets your body’s thermostat and cools you down.

Other possible remedies include eating a teaspoon of flax seeds daily or high-lignin flax seed oil. You can also take flax seed oil in capsules. Flax is high in phytoestrogens and can signal the hypothalamus that estrogen is present.

You can also calm down the adrenal glands by taking a B-complex formula along with vitamin C. The adaptogens Schisandra and astragalus may be helpful for night sweats. Sage capsules can also inhibit night sweats

Mood swings

Mood swings due to changing hormone levels are a common occurrence when going through menopause. These mood swings are similar to the ones experienced during problems with PMS. They include irritability, anxiety, and depression.

For depression during menopause, black cohosh is often helpful. Another possibility is a formula containing herbs like perilla, cyperus, and bupleurum root.

For anxiety and irritability, magnesium, zinc, folate (vitamin B6), and vitamin B12 may be helpful. The vitamin B complex mentioned earlier may also be helpful, as can a stress formula containing magnesium, zinc, and a plant extract from the kana plant called Zembrin®, which has adaptogenic and anxiety-reducing properties.

Solving more specific menopause problems

There are other important health concerns to consider during menopause. Here are some remedies to address these health issues.

Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a decrease in bone density that causes skeletal weakness. It is a common problem after menopause because the production of the reproductive hormones that help improve bone health has decreased. However, there are cultures where osteoporosis is not a problem in postmenopausal women, suggesting that other factors are involved.

Bone building consists of an array of complex biochemical reactions that maintain a balance between breaking down old and injured bone and building new strong but flexible bone. Old bone is constantly being dissolved and reabsorbed, and new bone is constantly being laid down in its place. Bones weaken when the breaking-down process occurs more rapidly than the building-up process.

There is a common belief that osteoporosis is caused by a lack of dietary calcium. If that were actually the case, then all the dairy products, calcium-fortified foods, and calcium supplements would easily reverse the problem. However, the real issue lies in a deficiency of other nutrients needed to attach calcium to the bones. These include vitamin D3 and K2, which tend to be deficient in modern diets, along with the minerals boron, magnesium, and manganese.

To help maintain bone health in postmenopause, try taking a skeletal support formula that combines calcium with other nutrients needed for bone health. A hair, skin, and nail formula that supplies silica-rich herbs like horsetail and dulse can also help because silica helps prevent bone brittleness.

It’s also important to note that bone is built in response to the body’s need for structural support. This is why weight-bearing exercise helps keep bones healthy. Engage in some exercise and lift light weights to help maintain bone health both before and after menopause.

Vaginal Dryness

One of the effects of lower estrogen levels can be vaginal dryness. If this is a problem, some of the tissue-moistening adaptogens that support adrenal health may be helpful. Specifically, try licorice, Shatavari, Schisandra, and astragalus. It may also help to use moistening herbs like marshmallow or linden as a tea.

Any kind of chronic burning, itching, discomfort, or pain should be checked by a doctor to determine the cause before embarking on a course of treatment.

Skin & Hair Health

The health of the skin and hair can suffer during the changes that come with menopause. A hair, skin, and nails formula helps the skin and hair maintain their elasticity. You should also get an adequate amount of omega-3 essential fatty acids and the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and E. These help the skin stay moist.

 

 

Photo by Kelly Newton on Unsplash

This article is reprinted with permission from herbalist expert Steven Horne.

Each year, about 1.3 million women enter menopause, the season of life when their monthly periods cease. This normal transition, which happens to every menstruating woman, typically occurs between the late forties and early fifties. Once a woman has not had a period for a year, she is considered postmenopausal. During the time prior to menopause, known as perimenopause, changes to periods and general health can occur due to declining levels of the sex hormones estrogen and progesterone.

During perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause, women may experience various symptoms. Three-quarters of all women experience hot flashes at some point. Other common menopausal symptoms include weight gain, thinning hair, irregular periods, insomnia, vaginal dryness, and night sweats. Women may also experience emotional symptoms such as anxiety, depression, or irritability. After menopause, many women will also start to experience bone loss (osteoporosis).

Over 60% of women with menopause symptoms report that they are severe enough to interfere with their quality of life. As a result of these changes, many women will resort to hormone replacement therapy, taking synthetic hormones to try to control these symptoms. Since menopause is a natural transition, there may be some issues with artificially boosting hormones, when they’re naturally meant to decline, and there are potential side-effects and risks to this approach.

Fortunately, there are natural ways women can make this major life transition easier. Changes in diet, herbs, and supplements can all help reduce symptoms and maintain health through perimenopause and into postmenopause. This article will cover some of these natural supports for this change of life.

Blame it on Hormones

When it comes to menopause, you can blame it on hormones because hormonal changes create the physiological and psychological shifts that occur during menopause. Specifically, it is the decline in the production of estrogen and progesterone. To understand how you can support a healthy transition, you need to understand more about these two major hormones.

Understanding Estrogen and Progesterone

Estrogen is the hormone that creates feminine characteristics, just like testosterone creates male characteristics. However, estrogen is not a single compound and it exists in several forms. The one responsible for fertility during child-bearing years is estradiol (E2). Production of E2 begins at puberty and drops off dramatically after menopause.

E2 is primarily produced in a maturing follicle under the influence of the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). Although small amounts of E2 are produced by the adrenal glands, fat cells, breast tissue, and liver, E2 production drops off sharply at menopause.

E2 plays an important role in many body processes besides reproductive functions. It aids bone development and affects collagen production. This is why the loss of E2 will cause skin problems like wrinkles and dryness. E2 also influences cholesterol levels, blood sugar levels, circulation, and brain function.

However, there are other forms of estrogen originally produced before puberty that continue to be produced after menopause. Having good production of these estrogens makes menopause easier.

E1 is the main form of estrogen produced after menopause. It can be formed in the adrenal glands, liver, fat cells, and ovaries. Therefore, having healthy liver and adrenal gland function will make menopause easier.

E3 is a milder estrogen that does not stimulate the breast tissue or uterine lining like E1 and E2 do. E3 protects the intestinal tract, vaginal lining, and the breasts. Asian and vegetarian women have higher levels of E3 and lower rates of breast cancer. These diets are higher in plant estrogens known as phytoestrogens.

There are also chemicals that mimic estrogen. This includes synthetic estrogens used as drugs and in animal feed to increase milk and egg production. Pesticides mimic estrogen, and estrogen mimics are also found in some plastics. These chemicals are known as xenoestrogens, and they mimic the stronger forms of estrogen E1 and E2, which increases the risk of breast cancer and other health problems after menopause. So, avoiding these xenoestrogens and increasing phytoestrogen intake will aid in creating a healthy transition.

Estrogens play a role in about 400 functions of the body. So, it’s easy to see why declining levels of estrogen during and after menopause result in a variety of changes in levels of health.

Progesterone
The drop in progesterone is much larger than the drop in estrogen during perimenopause and menopause. This is because large amounts of progesterone are produced by the follicle after the egg is released. So, once ovulation ceases, levels of progesterone are also lower.

This reduction in progesterone affects many body processes. Progesterone plays a role in skin elasticity and bone strength. It has anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic actions and regulates blood sugar. Lower levels of progesterone due to menopause may contribute to hot flashes, mood changes (anxiety or depression), loss of libido, difficulty sleeping, weight gain, and breast pain

Supporting Hormones After Menopause

Many herbs and nutritional options can help maintain health as hormone levels adjust. Supporting the adrenals, utilizing phytoestrogens, and taking other hormone-balancing herbs can all help regulate hormonal production naturally.

Adrenal Function and Menopause

The adrenal glands are tasked with making estrogen and progesterone prior to puberty and after menopause. Therefore, supporting healthy adrenal function is the first secret to making the transition to menopause easier.

Estrogen and progesterone production starts in the adrenal glands. These hormones are made from cholesterol that has been converted into pregnenolone. Pregnenolone can be further converted to form either progesterone or DHEA. DHEA is then used to make estrogens—primarily E2 before menopause and estrone (E1) and estriol (E3) after menopause.

Here’s where the problem occurs. Stress causes the body to produce the stress hormone cortisol. A high-stress life, therefore, causes more pregnenolone to be turned into progesterone and less into DHEA, reducing the amount of estrogens produced.

The progesterone is also converted to cortisol, which lowers the levels of progesterone, too. Cortisol produces a more rapid aging process and contributes to weight gain, grey hair, and other changes associated with aging.

Modern society often causes high levels of stress which tax the adrenal glands. This increases the severity of problems that can occur during menopause. This is why supporting adrenal health is one of the first things to consider for natural hormone balance.

Adaptogens and DHEA

Adaptogens are an important category of herbs that can help reduce stress levels and support adrenal health. Taking adaptogens can help increase levels of DHEA and reduce levels of cortisol, making more estrogen and progesterone available to the body.

Because of these benefits, try taking adaptogens starting with perimenopause and continuing through with postmenopause. Some of the best adaptogens to take regularly include ashwagandha, cordyceps, American ginseng, Asian ginseng, licorice, Shatavari, maca, and Schisandra. It is also useful to consider specific menopausal symptoms when choosing which adaptogens to take.

You can also supplement directly with DHEA, which can help to up-regulate estrogen production and down-regulate the production of cortisol. A formula containing false unicorn and chaste tree, which help regulate female hormones before, during, and after menopause may also be helpful.

Utilize Phytoestrogens

There are many plants that contain phytoestrogens, which can also help ease the transition through menopause. Women who consume a lot of these plant-based estrogens tend to have fewer and less severe menopausal symptoms than women who don’t.

One of these foods is soy. Asian women who regularly consume soy products like tofu have lower rates of hot flashes than American women. There is also evidence that soy can help prevent bone loss and healthy weight after menopause. However, in order to get these benefits, soy foods need to be consumed regularly.

It should be noted that soy is not the only legume to have phytoestrogens. Many other beans contain them as well, including black beans, chickpeas, peanuts, and mung beans. Other foods that supply phytoestrogens include whole grains (wheat, rye, oats, and barley), flaxseeds, sesame seeds, and leafy green vegetables. This is why a more plant-based diet also helps with menopause. It reduces exposure to xenoestrogens and increases intake of phytoestrogens.

Hormone Balancing Herbs

Several herbs have been used to help balance hormones. Remedies that help support the estrogen side include licorice, hops, red clover, dong quai, and black cohosh. Essential oils that have an estrogen-enhancing effect include pink grapefruit, clary sage, and geranium. Herbs that support the progesterone side include wild yam, chaste tree berries, and false unicorn. Consider a formula that contains herbs that help to support both sides.

Bioidentical Hormones

If you find these herbs and nutritional remedies are insufficient to help your menopausal transition, you don’t need to resort to synthetic hormones. First, try finding a doctor who will prescribe bioidentical hormones. These natural hormones are identical to the ones produced by your body and will be less likely to produce harmful side effects.

More to come next week

 

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

This article is reprinted with permission from herbalist expert Steven Horne.

You can read part 1 of this series here.

Supporting your body is an important aspect of stress management. If your body is depleted of vital nutrients, or you are always doing things that stress your body without taking time to unwind, you’ll end up experiencing more unhealthy eustress.

Give Your Body the Nutrients It Needs

The production of neurotransmitters and hormones requires nutrients, which long periods of stress can deplete. The healthier your diet is, the better you’ll be able to cope. Unfortunately, one way people attempt to soothe their stress is to eat junk food, particularly sugary foods. This is because simple sugars temporarily increase the levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain. Unfortunately, refined carbohydrates also spike the blood sugar and are followed by a big let down or crash about two hours later. In contrast, if you eat complex carbohydrates like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, you’ll get a more sustained lift and the nutrients your nerves need to function properly.

There are also nutritional supplements that can help. Vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins are particularly important for the nervous system during stressful times. An anti-stress vitamin supplement containing these important vitamins along with herbs to help calm your nervous system can be very helpful.

Neurotransmitters require amino acids from protein, so when stressed, it also helps to make sure you’re getting adequate protein. An algae supplement containing spirulina, blue-green algae, and chlorella may be helpful for this.

The mineral silica aids resiliency in the nervous system. If you aren’t getting enough silica and other minerals to keep your hair, skin, fingernails, bones, joints, and teeth healthy, you’ll also have a harder time coping with stress. So, as surprising as it may sound, a hair, skin, and nails formula, which contains horsetail, dulse, sage, and rosemary, may also help you be more resilient under stress.

Two other minerals that may be helpful when you feel you’re under a lot of stress are magnesium and zinc. Both are responsible for helping to produce calming neurotransmitters in the brain, which can aid feelings of relaxation and the ability to sleep. Magnesium is especially important if you feel tense and edgy, finding yourself easily irritated or upset by small things. Zinc is important if you feel cranky and irritable.

Take Time to Care For Your Body

While it’s important to try to do something constructive about the problems you’re facing, this doesn’t always mean doing something to tackle the problems head-on. Taking the time to unwind and de-stress can be an important step in reducing distress.

In The Pleasure Prescription, Dr. Paul Pearsall explains that pleasurable experiences do more good than stressful experiences cause harm. This is good news, because while you can’t avoid all problems and stressful experiences, you can create pleasurable experiences to counteract them.

The key is that these experiences need to be physically pleasurable, causing pleasurable sensations in the body. Mental activities, such as watching videos, playing games, or even reading don’t soothe the body. Examples of things that do help include getting a massage, soaking in a hot tub or bath, taking a walk in nature, and surrounding yourself with pleasant fragrances, calming colors, or relaxing sounds. Playing with children, being affectionate with one’s partner, or engaging in a relaxing hobby or activity are other examples of pleasurable experiences one can create.

The pleasure prescription involves making a list of ten activities you find physically pleasurable and devoting at least 20-30 minutes each day to one of those activities. Making time for such activities can be likened to sharpening a saw or axe when cutting wood. A sharp cutting instrument makes the job easier, and following the pleasure prescription will make the job of dealing with stressful situations easier.

If you’re having trouble thinking of things you can do, here’s a good place to start. Try taking an Epsom salt bath every night. Run a tub of water as hot as is comfortable for you and add 1-2 cups of Epsom salt to the bath along with some relaxing essential oils. Lavender, chamomile, rose, jasmine, and ylang-ylang are all good choices. (Mix 10-20 drops of the oil with a little liquid soap when adding them to the bath.) Light some candles, put on some relaxing music, dim the lights, and soak for at least 15-20 minutes.

Get the Help You Need

Even the best of us can get overwhelmed from time to time, so don’t be afraid to reach out for help when life gets too difficult to handle. Seek help from friends, family, and spiritual leaders, or get some counseling to help you sort through the things that are distressing you and gain the skills you need to cope. It also helps to pray and seek Divine strength and wisdom to help you cope with life’s difficulties.

Using Herbs to Manage Stress

If you need help relaxing and coping with stress, use herbal remedies. They can both help you relax and increase your ability to cope with stress.

Nervines are the herbs that can help you relax. Along with the nutrients previously mentioned, you can try taking a nervine formula, especially in the evening to help you unwind and sleep better. Herbs that are helpful include hops, valerian, passion flower, skullcap, vervain, California poppy, and motherwort. Try taking a formula containing herbs like this.

A good relaxing formula can also contain non-herbal ingredients like l-threonine, magnesium, zinc, B-complex vitamins, and CBD. CBD can help dial down your stress reactions because it aids a feedback process in the nervous system that calms down the stress-inducing neurotransmitters.

Adaptogens are herbs that can help increase your ability to cope with stress. They can help you have more physical and emotional resilience when facing life’s challenges. Examples of adaptogens include ashwagandha, cordyceps, eleuthero, holy basil, maca, reishi mushrooms, rhodiola, schisandra, and suma. If you’re feeling tired and are struggling to cope with life’s problems, try taking an adaptogen formula containing herbs like these.

Avoid using drugs or alcohol to relax or cope with stress. While these substances may temporarily mask stressful feelings, they won’t help resolve the problem.

As you learn and practice these different stress management skills, remember to have faith that whatever life hands you, you really can handle it!

 

Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash

This article is reprinted with permission from herbalist expert Steven Horne.

Life is filled with challenges, conflicts, problems, and sometimes hardships and tragedies. Some of these are personal, others involve major world events, the news of which can create stressful feelings. For example, in recent years there has been a global pandemic, food shortages, rising cost of living, multiple wars, and a range of natural disasters.

It’s important to learn how to deal with the stress you feel over world events and your own personal challenges because chronic stress adversely affects your health. Feeling stressed interferes with digestive function and can lead to indigestion, gastritis, constipation, or diarrhea. Stress also creates muscle tension, which can cause various types of pain, such as back pain, neck pain, and headaches. Stress increases heart rate and blood pressure and is a contributing factor in heart disease. It depresses immune function, which leaves you more susceptible to infections and illness. It may also be a contributing factor in diseases like cancer and dementia.

The good news is that all of these health risks can be reduced or even eliminated by learning better stress management skills. That’s because stress is not just about what happens; it’s also about how you react to it. So, in this article, we’ll be exploring what stress is and how you can respond to it in healthier ways.

Understanding Stress

Stress is rooted in the fear response. Anything you perceive as frightening will trigger a stress reaction. When you perceive something dangerous, your brain sends a chemical message to the pituitary gland via the hypothalamus to release adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). This stimulates the adrenal glands to release the hormones cortisol and adrenaline into the bloodstream.

Adrenaline is also the neurotransmitter in the sympathetic nervous system called epinephrine. Adrenaline/epinephrine is what causes the rush when something is startling or frightening.

This stress response isn’t meant to cause harm. Rather, it’s designed to help you survive. It primes the body for action so that you can escape the danger, fight back against the threat, or react in other ways that can save you in life-threatening emergencies.

Some stress is actually exciting. It’s why people go to amusement parks, engage in extreme sports, or watch horror movies. A good challenge triggers a mild stress response that provides energy to deal with the situation. This positive stress, which helps you feel focused and motivated, is known as eustress. It is distress that we want to minimize. Distress is the negative stress that you experience in situations when you don’t feel able to handle the situation. This chronic distress is what leads to feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and eventually exhausted.

Learning how to manage stress

Stress management involves learning and applying skills that will help you turn unhealthy distress into positive eustress. It’s kind of like adjusting the stress volume to a comfortable level. The expression “turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones,” is another way of viewing this process. An obstacle in your path can either trip you up or can be used as an opportunity for personal growth and development.

Perhaps the best way to think about this process is to compare stress management to exercise. Regular exercise puts a eustress on the muscles that causes them to become stronger. However, if you hurt yourself trying to perform a task your muscles aren’t conditioned to handle, you can experience a distressing injury.

It works the same way with the things that cause stress. If you exercise your stress management muscles regularly, you can increase your ability to handle life’s difficulties without having them negatively impact your health. But, if you’re mentally, emotionally, and spiritually out of shape, these same events can cause harmful distress.

There are many stress management skills you can learn. As you practice these skills you’ll find yourself able to handle life’s challenges. To get started here are two of the most important skills to start practicing.

Practice Calming Down

An important aspect of the fear reaction or stress response is that it can temporarily shut down your rational thought processes. This helps you react instinctively to the current situation without overthinking. These instinctive reactions include getting angry and fighting, running away, or freezing to avoid attention. These responses work well if you’re facing a wild animal, but they don’t work very well if the source of stress is an unexpected bill, an IRS notice, or watching some bad news.

For example, getting angry and arguing with a bill collector or IRS agent is likely to make the situation worse, not better. And it’s not going to help to yell at your TV or computer screen or take your anger out on the people close to you.

Likewise, running away won’t help. While you can physically run away from some problems, it is much easier to run away emotionally by turning to distracting habits. For instance, spending hours playing video games, watching videos, or scrolling through social media are all ways to emotionally distance yourself so you don’t have to think about or face what is causing stress. People also run away by drinking or using drugs. But none of these escape behaviors relieve the cause of the stress.

So, when something is causing you distress, you need to ask yourself, “Am I in any immediate physical danger?” If not, you need to practice calming down and engaging your rational brain, so you can act on the situation rather than reacting to it.

The easiest way to do this is with deep breathing. Stop whatever you are doing and start to consciously slow down your breathing. As you breathe deeply, you can also start a process of autosuggestion. For instance, you can think, “I am relaxed,” or “Everything will be OK,” or “I’ll get through this.”

You can give yourself a hug, wrap your arms around your shoulder and give yourself a squeeze. It may also help to allow yourself to shake or tremble to discharge the tension in your body. Once you feel more calm and relaxed, you can move to the next step.

Do Something Constructive

Remember that the stress response is priming you for action. So, one big stress management skill is to learn to take action when you feel stressed. It’s important to calm down and think first so your actions will be constructive, but doing something, particularly something physical, will put the energy created by the stress response to positive use.

So, once you calm down take a piece of paper and start writing down constructive actions you can take to help you deal with whatever is distressing you. Then pick one and start doing it.

Remember that all problems, no matter how big, are solved by many small steps, taken one day at a time. Taking these actions, even small ones, will exercise your stress management skills.

If the problem is one that you can’t do anything about, such as news of a tragedy or problem in the world, then make a list of things you can do to take better care of yourself. For example, you can take a walk to clear your head or decide to eat healthier food or take some supplements that help your body deal with the stress so you’ll be better equipped to handle it.

We will get into some more ways to help your body handle stress next week.

 

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Editors note: This article is adapted from an article written by herbal expert Steven Horne and is reprinted with permission. Please note that it is for informational purposes only.

If you missed part 1 of this discussion, you can catch up here.

Respiratory Recovery for Long COVID

The SARS-Cov-2 virus has a spike protein on its surface that attaches to a cell receptor known as ACE2. ACE2 receptors are found in many systems of the body, but are prominent in lung, heart, and kidney cells. As the virus attaches to the cell receptor it is able to inject its DNA or RNA into the cell and highjack the cellular mechanisms for DNA or RNA replication.

This damages the cells and triggers an inflammatory reaction that activates the innate immune system. The immune system may also overreact, which can lead to tissue damage. Since the lungs were a major site of COVID infection, we’ll start by looking at respiratory symptoms from long COVID.

Aids to Respiratory Recovery
People who were seriously ill with COVID may have some residual lung damage, often in the form of a scarring of lung tissue known as fibrosis. Pulmonary fibrosis makes lung tissue less elastic and more rigid, which decreases the ability of the tissue to expand and contract, lowering the exchange of oxygen. This can lead to shortness of breath, becoming fatigued during exercise, and eventually respiratory failure. This also happens in emphysema or COPD.

Working with respiratory symptoms that are the aftermath of COVID is no different than working with other respiratory problems. It starts with assessing the state of the respiratory system. Here are the things to look at.

Assessing Respiratory Status
First, is the mucus production abundant? Is there an excess of mucus drainage or mucus being coughed out of the lungs? Or, is mucus production deficient? Is there is a dry, hacking cough or sinus irritation with very little drainage. One can also use the tongue to help determine this. If the tongue is moist, with a heavy coating the system is congested. If it is dry with a scant coating, there is a lack of mucus secretion. If the mucus is abundant, drying remedies are needed. If it is deficient, moistening remedies are needed.

Second, what is the color of the mucus? Yellow or green mucus generally indicates infection and heat (irritation). This is often caused by a bacterial infection or severe allergic reaction. White or pale mucus is associated with a more cold condition, and is typical of viral infections or mild allergic reactions. These indications can often be seen on the tongue as well, which may have a white or yellow coloring. Yellow or greenish mucus calls for cooling remedies, while white or pale mucus calls for warming remedies.

Two other factors that help determine the appropriate remedies are bronchial constriction and a lack of elasticity in the lungs. Constriction is characterized by asthma-like symptoms which involve a feeling of constriction in the respiratory passages that inhibits breathing. Inhalation tends to be difficult. When there is a lack of elasticity, there is typically wheezing and exhaling may also be difficult. Constriction requires antispasmodic remedies. A lack of elasticity requires lung tonics that aid healing of damaged lung tissue.

Selecting Respiratory Remedies
With this understanding, here are some of the remedies that can be used to aid the respiratory system following COVID or any other lung infection. In addition to the list of remedies for each category, you’ll also find secondary properties of some of the remedies, which helps you see how they work on more than one category of symptoms.

To get rid of excess mucus you can use warming (stimulating) expectorants. These are herbs with an aromatic quality that help to move congested mucus out of the respiratory passages. They may temporarily increase coughing or sneezing as they aid the expulsion of congested mucus. Remedies include fenugreek (moistening), onion, grindelia or gumweed, pine bark or resin (drying), yerba santa (drying, relaxing), thyme, myrrh (drying), and horseradish.

If the lungs are dry, you need moistening expectorants. These remedies are demulcent in nature and help to increase and thin mucus secretions. They should be taken with plenty of water to help hydrate the lung tissue. These include fenugreek, marshmallow, licorice (cooling), plantain, and mullein.

When mucus is yellow or greenish in color, herbs containing berberine are often indicated. These include goldenseal, Oregon grape, or barberry. Inhaling the essential oils of eucalyptus or pine may also help.

If airways are constricted, antispasmodics may be helpful for opening air passages. These include lobelia, khella, and skunk cabbage.

Finally, nourishing and supporting lung tissue with herbs that act as respiratory tonics are also helpful. These include cordyceps, astragalus (moistening), elecampane, and prince seng.

Additional Aids for Long COVID

In addition to problems with respiratory recovery, there are several other areas that may need support when dealing with long COVID. These include the cardiovascular system, autonomic nervous system, glandular system, and digestive system.

Aids to Cardiovascular Care
One of the problems people have reported with long COVID is increased blood clot formation, which can lead to pulmonary embolism, stroke, and sudden death. The mechanism for this is not fully understood, but suggests that people who are experiencing cardiovascular symptoms from long COVID may need blood thinners to support their health and recovery. Natural remedies that can help prevent blood clots in the cardiovascular system include nattokinase, fish oil (omega-3 essential fatty acids), and vitamin E.

There may also be residual heart damage due to COVID. This may have been caused by a lack of oxygen due to the respiratory problems caused by COVID infections, but it’s also possible that the virus may have directly infected the heart and or blood vessels causing inflammation to these tissues. For these problems herbs that act as tonics to the cardiovascular system may aid healing. These include hawthorn, arjuna, and linden. Also helpful will be antioxidant fruits such as bilberry, blueberries, black cherry, pomegranate, and cranberry juice.

Stress and neurological damage may also result in problems with heart rhythm. In this case, working on restoring balance to the nervous and glandular system will be helpful as is discussed next.

Neuroendocrine Rebalancing
Following a serious viral infection like COVID, the autonomic nervous system (ANS) can become dysregulated, a condition called dysautonomia. The glandular system may also be disturbed causing neuroendocrine (nervous and glandular) disfunction. A variety of symptoms can emerge from this neuroendocrine dysfunction. These include circulatory problems, heart rate and blood pressure variability, fatigue and intolerance for exercise, sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating or remembering things (brain fog), and gastrointestinal upset.

If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms rest is very important, especially getting a good night’s sleep. If you’re having difficulty getting to sleep, melatonin may be helpful. To help sleep try taking both a 5 mg sublingual melatonin, which is fast acting for getting to sleep, along with a 5 mg sustained release melatonin to help you stay asleep. Melatonin is also helpful for reducing blood levels of the excessive inflammatory messengers called cytokines, which was often a problem with COVID.

Magnesium is another important nutrient that may help the nervous system. A large percentage of the population is deficient in magnesium and adequate levels improve sleep, reduce anxiety and irritability, and relieve muscle tension.

You can reduce inflammation in the nervous system with curcumin, which has also been helpful for many people suffering from cognitive issues after COVID. Curcumin also helps control inflammatory cytokines and helps block viral replication.

Zinc and quercitin may also be helpful. Quercitin can help reduce inflammation in the nervous system and brain fog. It also helps zinc get into the cells where it can inhibit viral replication. The World Health Organization suggests that one out of six respiratory infections world-wide are caused by zinc deficiencies.1

Thomas Easley reports that lithium orotate can be helpful for long COVID problems involving anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance. He recommends taking 5 mg per day and upping the dose every few days until sleep quality improves or the maximum dose of 20 mg. per day is reached. Lithium can help reduce neuro-inflammation and improve mood.

Adaptogens and tonics for the adrenal glands may also be helpful for rebalancing the nervous and glandular system. Ashwagandha root is a good choice. It’s a slow-acting tonic for anxiety and needs to be taken in larger doses (5-15 grams per day) for several weeks to see the best results. Thereafter, a maintenance dose of 1-2 grams per day should sustain the effect.

Another option is cordyceps. Cordyceps is a tonic for balancing nervous function and is also a beneficial tonic for weakened lung and kidney tissue.

Aids to Reviving Gut Health
Mood can also affect gut health and gut health can affect mood. About 30% of people will have digestive problems after COVID. Many people experience loose stools and symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) after COVID.

This appears to be related to changes in the microbiome. Thomas Easley found that andrographis (3 or 4 capsules several times a day) and cinnamon (1 capsule several times a day) could help correct the loose stool problems.

Probiotics will also be helpful for restoring gut health, but they need to be taken in large doses to be effective, up to 50 billion bacteria or more each day. It’s also important to increase intake of prebiotics, which act as food for these intestinal bacteria.

Fruits and vegetables contain indigestible fibers that help to feed friendly bacteria, which is why a mild food diet, mentioned earlier, is probably helpful during convalescence. It also helps to consume herbs high in inulin, such as burdock, dandelion root, and chicory. Jerusalem artichokes are a vegetable that is high in the prebiotic inulin. Start slowly with these remedies as you may experience excessive gas at first.

Generally speaking, most of these issues will resolve themselves over time as the nervous system is able to rebalance itself. Some general health practices that will aid this process include moderate exercise, eating smaller meals, drinking more water along with taking some natural salt, and working to manage stress.

Parting Thoughts

Although there are more possible symptoms associated with long COVID, this information is enough to get started. If you’re suffering from long COVID, be assured that there is hope and seek professional assistance to help you complete your COVID convalescence successfully.

 

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash