Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Author Mike Adams uses and strongly recommends Amazon herb products, and at the same time, he has no financial relationship with the Amazon herb Company and is not a distributor. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 It's a plastic tub that holds water, combined with a very small water pump that dribbles water (sort of like a tabletop fountain pump) through a series of plastic channels, a set of fluorescent lights with an auto-timer, a few nutrient tablets and herb seeds. $150 seems like a steep price to pay for such things. If the unit actually produced a fine mist using spray nozzles and a high-pressure pump, that would be different. But it for a device that simply dribbles water over plant roots, $150 seems like a steep price to pay.
The lights are good, though. |
Joerg Gruenwald, Ph.D.
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 Production: Hedge Mustard is the fresh flowering herb of Sisymbrium officinale.
Other Names: Singer's Plant, St. Barbara's Hedge Mustard, English Watercress, Erysimum, Thalictroc
ACTIONS AND PHARMACOLOGY
COMPOUNDS
Cardioactive steroid glycosides (cardenolides, 0. |
| Scullcap
See Scutellaria Lateriflora
Scurvy Grass
See Cochlearia Officinalis
Scutellaria Lateriflora
Scullcap
DESCRIPTION
Medicinal Parts: The medicinal part is the pulverized herb of the 3 to 4-year-old plant which is harvested in June.
Flower and Fruit: The pink to blue flowers are in short lateral false spikes. The calyx is fluffy, dorsiventral, flattened with 2 rounded, entire lips. The lower lip has a helmet-shaped, concave appendage. There are 4 ascending stamens with pairs of ciliated anthers. The fruit is a globular to flattened-ovoid warty nut. |
| DOSAGE
Mode of Administration: The herb is ground as a drug for infusion.
LITERATURE
Hegnauer R, Chemotaxonomie der Pflanzen, Bde 1-11: Birkhauser Verlag Basel, Boston, Berlin 1962-1997.
Kern W, List PH, Horhammer L (Hrsg.), Hagers Handbuch der Pharmazeutischen Praxis, 4. Aufl., Bde 1-8: Springer Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1969 (unter Succisa pratensis).
Scarlet Pimpernel
See Anagallis Arvensis
Scolopendrium Vulgare
Hartstongue
DESCRIPTION
Medicinal Parts: The medicinal part is the frond. |
| Savin Tops
See Juniperus Sabina
Savory
See Satureja Hortensis
Saw Palmetto
See Serenoa Repens
Scabiosa Succisa
Premorse
DESCRIPTION
Medicinal Parts: The medicinal part is the dried herb.
Flower and Fruit: The flowers are purple-blue, globular and long pedicled composite blooms, with a 2 to 3 rowed involucre. The florets are all the same size. The epicalyx has thorn-tipped teeth and the calyx has 5 bristles. The corolla is fused and has 4 tips. There are 4 stamens and 1 inferior ovary. The fruit is a nutlet.
Leaves, Stem and Root: The plant grows from 15 to 80 cm high. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 According to the Food and Drug Administration, there is no such thing as an herb, food or supplement that has any biological activity whatsoever on the human body (other than simply providing calories), and any person who dares to make such a claim is immediately considered to be in violation of the FDA's authority. Any substance that has any therapeutic effect whatsoever on the human body is considered by the FDA to be a "drug" and must be approved as such -- a lengthy process costing about $800 million and requiring the favor of an agency that practically works for Big Pharma. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Bottom line on the Amazon herb Company
You won't find a nicer bunch of people, nor a better lineup of products, than the folks in the Amazon herb Company. If I wasn't writing about this company, I would have joined as a distributor long ago. This company does it all right: Business ethics, sustainable business models, preserving the culture and ecosystems of indigenous tribes, helping improve the health of customers, helping distributors earn a living doing something they love... the good news just keep on rolling. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| REPPED: There's a new countertop herb garden device on the market called "AeroGarden," and it's being sold by catalog companies, online retailers and even some home product stores. Marketing text written about the AeroGarden device claims the unit, "...uses aeroponics, a form of gardening tested by NASA and used to grow crops in space where plant roots are exposed to a fine mist of nutrients." (Source: Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, Spring preview 2007, page 50).
Editor's note: The AeroGrow company has responded to the initial publication of this article in a concerned, constructive manner. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Mike: It's worth mentioning, too, that in the world of Chinese herbs that people may not know, the Tamiflu anti-viral drug is, of course, sourced from the star anise Chinese herb.
Wolfe: That's amazing.
Mike: Did you know that when they manufactured that, there's a stage at which it is highly explosive?
Wolfe: No, I didn't know that. I'm not surprised.
Mike: I was reading this in Fortune magazine. I kid you not. At some point this stuff is like plastic explosives. It can go up in flames if they don't handle it very carefully, so that's a lesson when you try to extract chemicals from nature. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 The new line, called "Liquizon," replaces the company's existing line of encapsulated herb powders.
This Liquizon line of products includes the company's flagship formulas like Illumination (a combination of eighteen rainforest herbs) and Una de Gato (also known as Cat's Claw, a potent immune modulator and a formula used by many who are either preventing cancer or fighting cancer). Other Liquizon products include Warrior, Sumacazon (based on suma and maca), Recovazon (for recovery from injury or physical exertion), Calmazon (reduces stress, calms the mind and body), Arcozon and others. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 You take an herb like rhodiola rosea that's been used for over 2,000 years. To the best extent of our knowledge of the hundreds of millions of people who have used that herb, nobody has ever died from taking it at any dose.
Keep it safe. Keep it healthy and keep it inexpensive. These are going to be like, $1 a day to get a sexual effect, not $9 or $10 a tablet for something that might blow the arteries in your head. Let's get real. Is that too strong?
Mike:No, no that's right in line. That's the message that people want to hear. They want real solutions that don't compromise their safety. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| Why I use the Amazon herb Co. products
Even though I'm not a distributor, I am a regular customer. I use their products daily: Everything from Aquazon (a blue-green algae formula) to Recovazon (a combination of natural rainforest medicines that I believe greatly accelerates healing and recovery from physical exertion).
Each time I write about the Amazon herb Company, readers ask me how they can get involved. Who do they call? Where do they order? |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Rarely are people told to just take one herb, like echinacea. It's usually part of a formula just like I'm recommending, along with the antipathogens. Alternative cancer treatments are even more involved -- using nutrition supplements, antioxidants and particular herbs. There may be 10 things in the protocol. What the medical people like to do is pull them out one at a time and test them individually.
When they test, they have criteria that determine if something is a placebo. It needs to be effective more than 30 percent of the time. |
| My favorite example is ginseng as an herb. You go on the market and you can find it for as little as $5 a pound. The good stuff -- the wild-crafted or organic -- will run $400 to $600 a pound, depending on the seasons. You can put either on your label as ginseng, but they don't produce the same results.
Mike: Isn't this true about echinacea? Isn't there huge variation in the potency?
Barron: Absolutely. There's a great test for the potency of echinacea. Every herb has its signature characteristic. |
| Fifty ingredients in a 500 mg tablet gives you like a ten-thousandth of a gram of each herb. And since its probably weighted to the top ingredients, so the bottom ones in there are probably just two to three milligrams each. In the industry, we call it pixie dust. They sprinkle pixie dust in the formula just to put it on the label.
Mike: I think I found pixie dust in Herbal Essences Shampoo. That may have been homeopathic, too.
Barron: Actually, we can talk about homeopathies a little bit, too. There's a knock against it that's just not true. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 A few minutes later, I'm enjoying the most impressive medicinal herb that nature has ever created. (Click here to see the new PhotoTour showing step-by-step pictures of how to fillet aloe vera and remove the inner gel.)
When I say aloe vera is the most impressive medicinal herb invented by nature, I don't make that statement lightly. Of all the herbs I've ever studied -- and I've written thousands of articles on nutrition and disease prevention -- aloe vera is the most impressive herb of them all. (Garlic would be a close second. |
David Winston, RH(AHG), and Steven Maimes
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 Phytochemical explanations for the observed actions of adaptogens are not clearly understood, and studies are not conclusive as to which compounds within each herb are responsible for its adaptogenic activity. Some studies have shown that components thought to represent the main active ingredient of an adaptogen actually consist of an unrelated mixture of various and often common plant constituents. There is ongoing research in this area. |
| Women, who are seven to ten times more likely then men to develop anemia, can benefit from this herb, and it also relieves some perimenopausal symptoms such as muscle pain and cloudy thinking.
I regularly use this plant along with kudzu root (Pueraria lobata), cyperus root (Cyperus rotundifolia), and black cohosh root (Cimicifuga racemosa) for the chronic muscle pain of fibromyalgia. It also can be useful for neck and back pain, restless legs syndrome (when taken with magnesium), and arthritis. |
Brigitte Mars, A.H.G.
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 Edible Uses
Bay leaf is a classic culinary herb and is used to flavor myriad dishes. The whole, dried leaves are usually too tough to eat and have sharp edges that can lodge in the throat, so remove them from dishes or teas before serving.
Other Uses
Ancient Greeks and Romans regarded bay as a symbol of victory and nobility. Olympic athletes, poets, scholars, and military heroes received wreaths of bay to place on their heads. Roman senators wore bay chaplets on their heads (though perhaps this was to cover their bald spots). |
| Medicinal Uses
Among the Minas people of South America a saying exists, "Until a father reaches sixty, the son is his; after that, the son is catuaba's," in reference to the herb's renowned aphrodisiac qualities. It benefits both women and men as an aphrodisiac, in part by enhancing sexual desire by decreasing stress. Catua-ba is used to treat agitation, anxiety, erectile dysfunction, exhaustion, hypochondria, insomnia, low libido, poor memory, and skin cancer.
Though it is in the same family as coca (from which cocaine is derived), catuaba does not contain cocaine alkaloids. |
Maesimund B. Panos, M.D. and Jane Heimlich
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 It is very difficult for an herbalist to tell specifically why he would use this or that herb in a formula." In this system that depends on the herbalist's intuition and experience, it is standard practice to increase the effect of a formula by combining a number of herbs.
This "artistic" approach to preparing medicine has its dangers. A great many medicinal herbs are toxic, particularly when the person ingests a large amount. But the self-help herbalist has no way of knowing what constitutes a "safe" dose, since this information is seldom provided in herb books. |
Brigitte Mars, A.H.G.
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| A possible side effect from large amounts of this herb is diarrhea. Some people will experience a "healing crisis" or worsening of their symptoms before benefits are realized.
Range and Appearance
Cat's claw is a woody liana (vine) growing up to 100 feet in length; when fully grown a single vine can weigh more than a ton. It is native to the Amazon, where it can be found in old second-growth forests, especially in Peru. The leaves are simple and ovate, with a few secondary veins along the midvein. The flowers of U. tomentosa are yellow-gold in color, while those of U. |
Andreas Moritz
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 While many herbs will help liver function and assist in maintaining clean blood, the following are among the most prominent ones:
Milk thistle herb (1 oz.)
*Contrary to the opinion of some natural health practitioners, I have never seen any evidence of comfrey's having harmful side effects, only benefits, especially for the liver.
See additional herbs in the Botanical Names section of the Appendix.
For maximum effectiveness, it is best to use all these herbs, in combination, if possible. |
| Golden rod herb (2 oz.)
Directions:
Take 1 ounce each of the first three herbs and 2 ounces each of the rest of the herbs, and thoroughly mix them together. Keep them in an airtight container. You may put them in the refrigerator. Before bedtime, soak 3 tablespoons of the mixture in 2 cups of water, cover it, and leave it covered overnight. The following morning, bring the concoction to a boil; then strain it. If you forget to soak the herbs in the evening, boil the mixture in the morning, and let it simmer for 5 to 10 minutes before straining. |
| Chicory herb (2 oz.)
Uva ursi (2 oz.)
Hydrangea root (2 oz.)
Gravel root (2 oz.)
Marshmallow root (2 oz.)
Golden rod herb (2 oz.)
Directions:
Take 1 ounce each of the first three herbs and 2 ounces each of the rest of the herbs, and thoroughly mix them together. Keep them in an airtight container. You may put them in the refrigerator. Before bedtime, soak 3 tablespoons of the mixture in 2 cups of water, cover it, and leave it covered overnight. The following morning, bring the concoction to a boil; then strain it. |
David Winston, RH(AHG), and Steven Maimes
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| Because these are not traditional uses for this herb, further studies are needed in humans to confirm its effectiveness.
• Licorice {Glycyrrhiza glabra, G. uralensis), which was discussed under adaptogens, has been shown in several animal studies to improve memory. Researchers have speculated that its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, as well as possible promotion of cholinergic transmission in the brain, are the reasons it shows this benefit.
• Huperzine A is extracted from the Chinese club moss (Huperzia ser-rata). |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 A lot of people get crazy spam: "Take this herb, your penis will be longer." That's not what I'm talking about.
Mike: Yeah.
Kilham: I'm talking about genuine, legitimate, sex-enhancing herbs. I also think that we're seeing a very significant increase in interest in the anti-inflammatory herbs -- turmeric, ginger, hops, powerful anti-inflammatories. Now that we're getting so much negative press about Vioxx, Celebrex, and Naproxen, it's inevitable that we'll see a gigantic increase in the use of herbal anti-inflammatories, so I'm all over those.
Mike: What about anti-cancer herbs? |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Amazon herb products operate at three levels
At the biophysical level you have products like Fiberzon, which help support peristaltic action in the digestive tract and help clear out waste products that far too many people have sitting around in their large intestine for days at a time. If you can't eliminate waste products from your body, then you are essentially poisoning yourself by reabsorbing your own waste rather than getting rid of it.
At the biochemical level, there are a great many phytochemicals and phytonutrients in the Amazon herb product line. |
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