U.S. adults surveyed in Dec. 2014 said “taking vitamins” was in their top five wellness habit plans for 2015. Yet, many supplements have flowing agents which suppress your natural killer cells, a key component of your immune system. As the vitamin and supplement industry grows into one of the fastest growing industries worldwide, it’s time for the big companies to come clean about the ADDITIVES in dietary supplements. (1)
A Press Release from the U.S. Justice Department, Office of Public Affairs on Wednesday, September 9, 2015 announced the owner of a dietary supplement company is being sentenced to prison for a multi-million dollar scheme in which the company adulterate dietary supplements.Source:
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/owner-dietary-supplement-company-sentenced-prison-multimillion-dollar-scheme-adulterate
It has been said, If you’re going to really succeed in your business,
you have to stand for something important.
And the toughest part of all that?
Well, for me, truthfully all of it is tough.
Have you ever asked yourself, “Who am I to do this?”. . .(I’m still asking!)
“Who am I to help the sick, the aging, the dying and
set them on a path toward wellness?”
If you’ve ever asked this same question then please keep reading.
Continue reading “Health Practitioners, Are We Really “Doing No Harm”?”
(Same great taste with the same efficacy and formula as our previous package.)
Cathy Margolin L.Ac., Dipl. OM – Founder of Pacific Herbs
P.S. Connect with us on Instagram: pacificherbs
References:
How many women do you know that have been diagnosed, are being treated for, have survived, or even lost the battle against breast cancer? The current statistic is that 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer!
Breast cancer is occurring in alarming numbers of American women and nobody, not even the top doctors on the subject i.e. Dr. Susan Love, (who I recently heard at a conference), have definitive answers regarding the causes.
During menopause, many women turn to HRT for relief. Evidence linking breast cancer with HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) was recently released. This study, the largest ever done, was called the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). It was first released in 2002 and now, more evidence from researchers following these women have found that HRT significantly increases a woman’s risk of being diagnosed with invasive type of breast cancer and cause death.
The new evidence suggests:
After the initial WHI report was released in 2002, HRT use declined and a drop in breast cancer diagnoses was also evident.
“What’s important about this study is that it really provides tremendous clarity regarding the risks of hormone replacement therapy,” says Dr. Freya Schnabel, of New York University’s Langone Medical Center.
“I think from this point onward any woman who’s considering taking hormone replacement therapy will need to genuinely consider these risks,” says Schnabel.
What I believe is most important for women suffering from menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, irritability etc, is to realize there are other options beyond HRT. Natural herbal remedies for menopause have been proven effective and have been used for generations of women. Women who chose to see health providers such as Acupuncturists, Homeopaths, Naturepaths and other Complementary Medicine practitioners know there are many other options for natural menopause relief.
Women really don’t need to suffer with hot flashes, poor sleep and low libido. Natural Menopause Relief does exist and it does work. If you are suffering with menopause symptoms, learn about other safer options than HRT.
The American Menopause Society recently published the results of a study on the use of Chinese herbs as a menopause treatment. It's always nice to see a clinical trial like this published in English (many are in Mandarin only) and this study was completed in a manner consistent with top notch clinical protocol. The study was double-blind, randomized and controlled…..ahhhh the gold standard for clinical research.
Even three months after the study ended, the participants said their hot flashes did not increase after the study ended and they stopped using the menopause herbal remedy. This study shows, compared with Hormone Replacement therapy, Chinese herbs are a safe and viable alternative for menopause symptoms.
Although previous studies have found that Chinese herbs can help reduce hot flashes, those studies were not of the same quality methodology as this study, according to the researchers at Menopause: The Journal of The North American Menopause Society.
SOURCE: Menopause: The Journal of The North American Menopause Society, online February 25, 2013.
The question many women suffering with menopausal hot flashes and night sweats are asking is whether bio-identical hormones such as progesterone cream and phytoestrogen (plant sourced estrogen) are safe and effective AS the chemical hormones found in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drugs?
Many women today are being told "bio-identical" hormones are identical to those your body makes. Even though progesterone and estrogen bio-identical creams may be closer to what your body produces there are certainly risks in using any hormone therapy. Some doctors believe the risks are just as great as taking an hormone replacement therapy drug (HRT) others believe the jury is still out because we have no long term data since these products are still very new to the market. Risks may be tied to the dosage which varies greatly from women to women.
Bio-identical hormones made from plant sources may be perfectly safe in low doses, which is the way we would ingest these chemicals found in yams, soy beans and a handful of herbs but at higher doses may be harmful. Nearly every substance found in nature can be safe in minute doses yet toxic at a higher dose. Even water can kill us when taken in to large a dose over a very short time period. Knowing what dose is right for your body can be tricky depending on blood, urine and saliva testing which may not give an accurate reading of circulating hormones in your blood which changes daily and even hourly.
Bio-identical hormones, make no mistake can be just as powerful and dangerous as taking a prescription hormone replacement drug. Phytoestrogen used in minute doses the way we find in nature may be completely safe and effective. Asian women have a long history of eating soy beans nearly everyday of their life from childhood through adulthood and experience very few menopausal symptoms. The isoflavones in soy are known to act as a hormone balancing chemicals.
So, which should you choose, bio-identical hormones or synthetic hormone replacement therapy for your menopausal symptoms? How about neither! There is a third option that women in Asia have used for centuries and the Western world is just beginning to see on store shelves. Traditional Chinese herbs are another option for menopause symptom relief. You can learn more about it here.
A two and half years study finds no improvement from eating soy as a menopause treatment for cognitive function including what many menopausal women label as “brain fog”.
Brain fog often times refers to the common menopausal symptoms including difficulty in remembering daily events and activities. If you are experiencing memory loss or brain fog as part of your menopausal symptoms be aware that the addition of soy to your diet will not help. Although their were no harmful effects, (stick to organic soy) this study showed no improvements for visual memory and thinking ability.
Dr. Victor Henderson of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., and his co-authors randomly assigned 313 post-menopausal women aged 45 to 92 to take either 25 grams of soy protein daily or a placebo with milk protein that looked and tasted the same.
The participants were given tests that measured their memory and other thinking abilities at the start of the study and again after 2.5 years.
“For healthy post-menopausal women, long-term dietary soy isoflavone supplementation in a dose comparable to that of traditional Asian diets has no effect on global cognition but may improve visual memory,” Henderson and his co-authors concluded in Tuesday’s issue of the journal Neurology.
If you are looking for a memory boost, try ginseng!
This study was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the Office of Dietary Supplements and the Office of Research on Women’s Health.
This interview will give you some insight into the book "Stop Your Bitching…naturally" The Step By Step Guide to Balancing Your Hormones and Ending PMS & Menstrual Cramps. Evita at Healthytarian.com did a super informative interview with Cathy which covers a great overview of the book. Hope you enjoy it.
Breast cancer has climbed to 1 in every 8 women and now the finger is beginning to point to drug manufacturers. Wyeth and Pfizer have made combination hormone drugs for over 30 years and these HRT drugs (hormone replacement therapy) are commonly used for menopause treatments. About 10,000 cases against these pharmaceutical giants have already been filed and Pfizer has spent nearly $900 million to resolve about half of them.
Some go to trial, others settle more quietly out of court. Just last week, a Utah jury found Wyeth responsible for one woman’s breast cancer and awarded her $5 million in compensation. Utah does not allow for punitive damages.
Studies, such as the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, released this statement with it’s results: “Women using Hormone Replacement Therapy (“HRT”) are more likely to develop breast cancer than those who are not using HRT.”
The National Institute of Health completed the Million Women Study in Britain a few years ago. Based on the results, the NIH concluded that the “Current use of HRT is associated with an increased risk of incident and fatal breast cancer; the effect is substantially greater for oestrogen-progestagen combinations than for other types of HRT.”
One expert testified that his research showed as many as 15,000 cases of breast cancer per year occurred in women taking the combination hormone drug. Yet the “defense witnesses told you the same thing, the same story line, that Wyeth wanted them to tell you over and over — that no one knows what causes breast cancer,” said Russell T. Abney, another attorney representing Okuda. “We are not arguing that Ms. Okuda didn’t have an abnormal cell in her body. What we are arguing is that [estrogen plus progesterone] promoted that abnormal cell to grow.”
Women don’t have to choose between drugs and cancer for debilitating symptoms of menopause. There are other choices of menopause treatment.
References:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12927427
Worried about your bone density? As woman age, they are more susceptible to bone fractures. Bone mineral density is something every woman over 50 should have checked.
In Asia, a Chinese herb formula call Fufang has been studied for over five years on post-menopausal women. The results of this 194 person study of women ages 47 to 70 years, was significant. Fufang, a blend of several Chinese herbs used twice daily (10 grams each serving) were found to improve the bone density of the study participants.
All the women were given an oral blend of the herbs used which included Epimedium, The Fufang contained several herbal compounds including Epimedium, Rehmannia, Dioscore,Cornus, Cinnamomum cassia, Drynaria fortunei, and Morinda. You will find these and other herbs in
and
Both the control group and the treatment group were also given 600 mg of calcium and 400 iu of Vitamin D daily. There were no notable adverse events in either group.
As women age they are more suseptible to hip fractures and other bone problems. Hip replacement surgery has become all too common.
Maintaining healthy bones is part of healthy aging.
The study concluded, in addition to the beneficial effects of oral herbal Fufang for the prevention of postmenopausal bone loss, this 5-year multi-center clinical study demonstrated for the first time its potential for reduction in fragility fracture incidence.
References:
1. Journal of Bone Mineral Metabolism. 2012 Jun 22 PMID: 22722637 PubMed
2. J Bone Miner Res. 2007 Jul;22(7):1072-9.
3. Epimedium-derived phytoestrogen flavonoids exert beneficial effect on preventing bone loss in late postmenopausal women: a 24-month randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled trial. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17419678
4. Effects of epimedium total flavonoids phytosomes on preventing and treating bone-loss of ovariectomized rats]. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12774407
5. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1757-7861.2011.00129.x/abstract
6. Phytomedicine. 2010 May;17(6):414-23. Epub 2009 Sep 10. Icariin isolated from Epimedium pubescens regulates osteoblasts anabolism through BMP-2, SMAD4, and Cbfa1 expression. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19747809
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