It is almost Spring, depending on where you are in the country. Time to start the annuals and to awaken the garden. Even if your garden is primarily ornamental, you can include medicinal herbs, many of which are lovely. And don’t forget to eat the weeds, once you know what they are and what is safe! Continue reading Grow Your Own Drugs
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Welcome to Acupuncture and Herbs by Karen Vaughan, L.Ac., Registered Herbalist (AHG)
 
   
And Organic Berries
 
   
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Do you think politicians or even the FDA could answer this question, posed by my friend Alan Tillotson? Fact A : Herbs, vitamins and nutritional supplements caused zero deaths in 2008 [in most years actually] Fact B: CT scans cause 30,000 new cancers and 14,500 deaths each year, with children being most at risk Which of these answers is the correct political action to take? A. We should crack down on the supplement industry B. We should crack down on the CT scan industry
Continue reading What is More Dangerous, Herbs or CT Scans?  Zi gen Lithospermum Burn cream, known as purple cloud ointment or shiunko in Japanese medicine is traditionally used under direct moxa where small “rice grain” cones are adhered to the body with the purple cream. But it is also used for burns, skin rashes, psoriasis and eczema.  Kitty in Spring Snow by Peter Pateau The herbal blog party for this month deals with herbs that help us emerge from Winter, making the transition into Spring. For me the promise awakens when the angle of bright sunlight changes to hit my back window, where buildings have blocked it all winter. The raised beds in the back may soon lose their snow so that the Jerusalem artichokes, anise hyssop and calamus can poke through. Meanwhile my sister in Seattle is surrounded by a riot of hyacinths and Rosie in Houston frets that she won’t have time to harvest the cleavers before the hot temperatures wipe them out.
LadyBarbara wrote Rising Spring about the quickening of the season and how she changes her diet for that new movement. Yael Grauer wrote Emerging from Winter With Herbs about her three favorite adaptogens and nasal irrigation. Rosalee de la Foret wrote about Spring violets, Emerging from Winter to Find Violet  Emerging rhubarb Sean Donohue wrote Skunk Cabbage: New England Bear Medicine about the plant that heats its way up through the snow and feeds the bears after the acorns are gone. Granny Sam Gahagan writes from her snow covered lair about Emerging from Winter in the Appalachians. (You westerners might not know that we still have winter, with more storms to come- makes it a bit hard to get into the Spring spirit when you have to dig the chickweed from under the snow.) Karen Vaughan writes about Nettles! her favorite spring herb, and year long food. Whether eaten, drunk or flogged on the skin, nettles stir up your vitality. April Moonflower, at Red Clover Mamma wrote about Herbs and Essential Oils for Emotional Detoxing Sarah Head has a beautifully insightful post on Emerging from Winter With Herbs, focusing on the emotional side. Stunning photographs. Stefan Chemlik, writes Emerging from Winter with a Chinese medicine point of view, focusing on the Liver. Scroll down to to his list of things you can do to clean up your act under Feeling fat, fuddled or fatigued? Feel free to copy this list to your website, and please visit the sites of the contributors. I love reading the different approaches our passionate herbalists have to this. And see the UK Herbarium blog party on the same topic on Elizabeth Marsh’s Apotheblogary. A special thanks to all participants and readers, and to Herbwifery.org, where the herbal blog parties were born! Photography credits: fishwrapper.wordpress.com/2008/04/, letterfromhere.blogspot.com/2009/03/tiptoeing-through-tulips-after-madisons.htm  Stinging Nettles: Urtica dioica “If they would drink nettles in March Nettles are the quintessential herb for getting over winter in my book. They push their way up in early spring, despite a dusting of snow. The small ones are bright and vital and don’t have quite the sting to them. But their roots mine the soil for minerals, often Continue reading Nettles! A new study by Siri-Tarino of the Children’s Hospital Oakland Like many people dealing with weight problems I have looked into surgery as a way of losing weight. It seems so inviting to have a quick fix and I saw medical studies indicating that bariatric (weight loss) surgery was the only way to permanently lose weight. And yet all of my patients who had surgery, from a Roux en Y gastric bypass to Lap Bands have had complications. And all but one, whose Lap Band is too new to tell, are still obese. Continue reading So You Think Surgery is a Good Way To Lose Weight? A Korean meta-study reviewing data from 27 studies found that acupuncture was effective in relieving menstrual pain. Over 3000 women were studied in total, with treatments ranging from Traditional Chinese Medicine to herbal injections into acupuncture points. The analysis from Kyung Hee Medical Center found that patients with severe period pain reported a greater reduction in their symptoms when using acupuncture than when using pharmacological treatments. Acupuncture could help period pain, researchers say
Acupuncture may be an effective way of easing severe period pain, a South Korean review of 27 studies suggests. Researchers said there was “promising evidence” for acupuncture in treating cramps, but that more work was needed. More at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8518745.stm
Continue reading Niacin Outperforms Drug At Lowering Cholesterol This amusing video shows a homemade substitute for Nyquil, which contains a number of ingredients you might not want to put into your body. His uses Southern Comfort as the alcohol, but if you click through to Vimeo there are a number of comments with other home remedies. I prefer to use either Thieves’ Vinegar or honey, fresh garlic and ginger syrup. Or a drop or two of essential oil of rosemary over the glands and at the nape of the neck. KniQuil from Hot Knivez on Vimeo.  Meat and Vegetables We are badly in need of a study that compares good vegetarian to good meat-containing diets using quality foods, with high vegetable content and good quality fats in both diets. Too often vegetarians are compared to a standard American population, health-conscious vegans are compared to non-health conscious omnivores and studies on omnivores with low meat diets are extrapolated to suggest that a diet with no animal food altogether may be superior. The study should isolate the effects of gluten from other starchy foods and meats from fish. Continue reading What Does Research Say About the Health of Eating Meat?
BMI (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) does not distinguish between the weight of muscle, fat or bone and has a statistical artifact that tends to classify tall children as overweight. Continue reading Kids with High Body Mass Index Not Necessarily Fat  Cordyceps ophioglossoides Cordyceps sinensis has been part of my anti-cancer formulas for many years, since Thai doctor Santi Rosswong suggested that I add it to my reishi formulas for stamina. It appears from recent research that the herb stops cell proliferation as well. Cordyceps is a strange herb, a fungus that colonizes then kills an insect, as shown in a BBC video (with one of the other 680 described cordyceps species found on 6 continents.) When the Cordyceps sinensis fungus attacks a Continue reading Cordyceps for stamina, against cancer
Allergy tests have extremely high rates of false Continue reading Going Gluten and Dairy Free
Over the last 30 years, despite countless efforts at change, poor hand and clothing hygiene has Continue reading 247 Hospital Patients Die Daily Due to Doctor’s Not Washing their Hands
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