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I hope your summer is starting out
nicely. I’m
looking forward to the sun and the sand although I’m
still getting my mind around the idea of displaying a maternity
bathing suit. I think this calls for, “Just put it
on and go” – as in no time for the mirror. It’s
the back that concerns me, not the front. I hope I
can get out of the ocean okay -- I’ll keep it to the
shallow part with the rest of the kids.
There was a lot of activity this
month about black cohosh – so
I will report to you on that. Speaking of herbs, I’ll
include a commentary that I particularly like on “Talking
to your doctor about alternatives”. And finally,
since I was told by my doctor that I can’t put on any
weight this month (he’s right, so don’t ask),
we’ll take a look at an important ingredient in my
new found love of cupcakes. Hydrogenated oil, seemingly omnipresent,
needs to be dumped like a committed boyfriend, who in reality,
is doing nothing but hurting you. Seemingly so sweet,
but so dangerous. See what happens to your thoughts
when you are pregnant? One becomes poetic (or romantic) about
cupcakes and grilled cheese (only with tomato).
ON MY SOAP BOX
I can’t help it. A new
black cohosh study came out last month and in my opinion,
it’s one with an agenda – but I’ll let
you decide for yourself. This study has not been peer
reviewed or published but was presented during an annual
meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology last
month. The study was a double blind study with 132
women, taking black cohosh for a month. It declared
that black cohosh was no less effective than placebo and
therefore should not be recommended to patients. It
of course failed to mention the other minimum 14 studies
that support it’s safety and usage.
There are several issues with the
study as pointed out by the American Botanical Council.
First, they tried to reproduce a popular German product – it
is unclear to what extent they were able to replicate this
product. Further, the NIH has done extensive research
on what they believe constitutes an effective black cohosh
(this is what we follow) – they could have easily have
gotten those specifications. In addition, these women
only took this product for a month – at 40mg. of black
cohosh a day, it’s no wonder that only 34% preferred
black cohosh compared to 38% for placebo. At that rate,
it very well may not have had enough time to have an effect.
These are all reasons that Oöna is
here in the market. Not
all black cohosh is alike and to treat it as such is a real
disservice to women. This is why we make such a big
deal about the quality of our ingredients and independently
test each batch. It’s also why we believe in
a “loading period” for the herb – so that
women can get relief faster.* It makes a difference.* At
the same time we certainly do not say that black cohosh works
for everyone, but it has been shown effective for a great
majority of women, close to 80% -- especially for symptoms
that would not be considered “severe”*. We
also make sure that you get enough, having talked with many
practioners, 40mg. a day of a lesser grade standardized black
cohosh will take a long time to work. Finally,
it’s also the reason we add chaste tree berry to our
formula – as chaste tree is known to work in a similar
fashion on the hypothalamus/pituitary access yet seems to
focus on the luteal or second half of the cycle.* Many
times menopause can exasperate PMS type symptoms, like bloating,
headaches, mood swings, etc. so the chaste tree berry is
a real complement to the black cohosh.*
http://www.nutraingredients.com/news/ng.asp?id=60079
AT THE SAME TIME
a new trial was
published in a peer reviewed journal, Obstetrics and Gynecology
adding to those studies that confirm the effectiveness
of black cohosh. This
was a 12 week trial with 304 women with various complaints
that took 40 milligrams of a standardized black cohosh product
or a placebo. At 12 weeks, depending on the complaint,
the black cohosh was considerably more effective than placebo,
especially for hot flashes. It also seemed that the
black cohosh was more effective for women in early menopause
(that’s not our experience, but I can see the logic).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=
pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15863547&query_hl=1
ONE MORE THING
The
University of Chicago got an additional $5 million dollar
grant for the next five years to study women’s herbs.
Part of the National Institutes of Health, The College of
Pharmacy's Center for Botanical Dietary Supplement Research
is one of five botanical research centers to receive the
grants from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative
Medicine and the Office of Dietary Supplements. The center
will use the funding to continue ongoing studies of five
plants including black cohosh, red clover, chaste berry,
valerian and dong quai in addition to six more. Hops,
an ingredient in beer, will be one of the new botanicals
studied.
Headed by Norman Farnsworth, PhD, the center is addressing
the dire need to study the safety and efficacy of dietary
supplements. A proponent of standardization, he explained
that botanical products are much more complex than single
drugs. Plants can have many active compounds, some of which
may be expressed only under ideal growing conditions. Farnsworth
compared the situation to growing coffee, which can vary
in taste depending on growing conditions and locations.
"Plants produce different amounts of chemicals from one year to the next," Farnsworth said. "You have to have chemical
and biological standardization to ensure the consumer gets
the same product every time."
"We're trying to establish a framework by which one would address this
problem and that could be adopted by others," added Richard van Breemen,
UIC professor of medicinal chemistry and co-director of the center.
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050520.120224&time=
12%2013%20PDT&year=2005&public=1
TALKING TO YOUR DOCTOR
about alternatives is very important,
especially since many women shy away from doing this. It’s
mostly due to fear that our doctors won’t understand
or won’t approve. But in all honesty, the practioner
really does need to know what we are taking and their reaction
to our point of view is information that we need. I’m
not trying to suggest that every health care professional
agree with us, but I am suggesting that we should be heard
and that we should listen to their degree of knowledge on
the subject. As an example, I am confident that I
am pregnant due to acupuncture and herbs. I did go
to a fertility specialist but declined drugs etc as a first
choice. From my own research I found that the success
rate of acupuncture (along with herbs) is quite comparable
if not better to IVF (depending on the issue, I had no known
issues besides age). It can also be used with IVF to
further the success rate of that procedure. I must
admit that the fertility specialist’s attitude toward
acupuncture and herbs (Oöna PMS1) was at best discounting
and at worst disdain -- but it said more about him than me…why? He
knew very little if nothing about it. I really like
this woman, Kat James, take on alternatives and talking to
your doctor. I hope you agree.
http://www.informedbeauty.com/talk2doc.shtml
BUY BUY MY LITTLE CUPCAKE
I’m going to
make this short and sweet (pun intended) and give you the
411 as I’m running out of room on my newsletter. Remember
when everyone thought margarine was the way to go? This
was because we were told to stay away from animal fat (butter)
and margarine is made from vegetable oil. The problem
now is that margarine is hydrogenated oil (a.k.a. trans-fat)
which means that it is an oil that is made into solid fat. They
simply use hydrogen atoms to convert it.
Well, to make a long story short, the body doesn’t
know the difference between butter and something that was
turned into butter. Even worse than saturated fats
(animal fat) trans fats raise low-density lipoprotein
(LDL) or "bad" cholesterol levels – and
lower the high density liproprotein (HDL) or “good” cholesterol. Saturated
fats do raise LDL but they also raise the levels of HDL or
good cholesterol. So with trans fats, it’s a
double wammy.
The result is a build up of fatty plaque in the arteries
resulting in heart disease. It is now believed that high
consumption of trans-fats can increase chances of heart disease
50% and reducing trans-fat can decrease the chance of diabetes
by 40%. The real issue is that trans fats are everywhere – just
name it. 95% of cookies, 100% of crackers, 80% of frozen
breakfast foods as well as cereals, candies, baked goods,
granola bars, chips, snack foods, salad dressings, fats,
fried foods. Of course, anything with shortening which
brings me back to cupcakes. Shortening is what cupcakes
are all about – it makes them light an airy and yummy
(the same goes for doughnuts). But like I said – it’s
over, except for my new child’s birthday bashes. You’ll
see me gobble one down.
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/71/81217.htm
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0913F73F5E0C
708DDDAB0894DD404482&incamp=archive:search
That's it for this month! As always,
check out our website for lots more information at www.oonahealth.com. In Good Health,
The Oöna Team
Questions or comments? Write valerie@oonahealth.com
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