single question which often comes u...

single question which often comes up regarding Chinese medicinal botanicals is: should we take single herbs or combination remedies? There's no easy answer to that, since the answer really hangs on whether (or not) we want to experience the herbs within the words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following of herbal remedies which are, in move round within the cultural context of healing traditions that have been using herbal remedies for centuries, if not millennia.

In spells of Traditional Chinese Medicine -- which grew disclosed of the Tibetan and Ayurvedic curative milieux -- herbs were originally part of culinary/medicinal "recipes," hence their later offshoot into combination remedies, and the like.

While, today, these herbs are somewhat divorced from the peace of the base cooking or culinary traditions, they have enough -- in fitting combination -- many would argue, of their original synergies to bring out effects similar to those which would have followed consumption of the botanicals as composings in the original recipes.

"Another mistake arose from the fact that the scientists usually worked with a single herb, yet the benefits of Chinese herbal medicine mostly frequently result from the combination of herbs," wrote CP Li, MD in Chinese Herbal Medicine, a now historically-fascinating little work that was put out at the John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced application of mind in the Life Sciences and the U Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW), in 1974

Prensky's studys on herbal synergy

In a March 20th interview with William L Prensky OMD L.Ac., a leading figure, in the U in teaching and practicing Chinese medicine and credentialing practitioners (see December 1996 "Editor's Desk"] Prensky explained that "The traditional Western approach finds that common herb works and then applies it across-the-boards for a [given condition]. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, herbs are combined the two for synergistic properties and to ameliorate [lessen] any possible side-effects."

single in kind "treatment" area which has a number of herbs cogitation to be effective in restoring balance and imparting potency is that grouping of herbs known to be beneficial to women in addition to a variety of other applications for which they are known.

Efrem Korngold, L.Ac., OMD would caution us against "typecasting" any herbs as "women's herbs," however. Korngold who, along with Harriet Beinfield, L.Ac., roll ons a Traditional Chinese Medicine practice in San Francisco and who co-authored an important passage called Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide To Chinese Medicine (1991) pointed gone out in a March 18 conversation, that "herbs are not gender-specific." His seemingly self-evident in addition instructive point is, of course, that herbs can become known for favorite applications (such as for PM etc) Nevertheless, it should be remembered that there are centurys of other uses to which herbs can be propose limited only by the quantity, and quality, of research and clinical experience which are brought to bear to discover and bring on the outside other uses.

Chinese gooseberry is valuable for women

That being said, single in kind herb considered valuable for women is Actinidia chinensis, or, bring forward simply: Chinese gooseberry, or kiwi.

Is this the same kiwi we eat? It actually is, although a fortunate marketing strategy by New Zealand popularized this Chinese fruit beneath the name "kiwi." What we call "kiwi" is, in fact, native to the Yangtze River valley of Northern China, with semens having been brought over by means of missionaries to New Zealand at the divert of this century. Chinese gooseberry fruit is rich in vitamin C making this the two a nutritive and medicinal fruit.

According to James A. Duke PhD and Edward s Ayensu, Ph.D., in their Medicinal Plants of China, extracts from the Chinese gooseberry plant have been used in respect to: "esophageal and liver cancers; rheumatoid arthralgia [severe joint pain]; urinary stones; fever; [nervousl tension; [ and] cancer." Extracts from the kiwi fruit, itself, have been used for quenching thirst and as an astringent.

Combination remedies which include Chinese gooseberry "are sometimes used for painful and difficult menstruation," Prensky added. It is also contemplation according to research out of China, that a constituent in the plant, actinidin, is responsible for beneficially modulating vital fluid viscosity, thereby helping to obstruct excessive blood accumulation and clotting. it is also believed that Chinese gooseberry can be effectively combined with like herbs as Dong Quai and Dan Shen to improve elimination and vital current flow.

As William Prensky impose it: "It is the elegance of the combination which defines the elegance of the [remedy]"

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