16_stone
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RE: Best way to take DE
(07-04-2012 04:00 PM)James Wrote: (07-04-2012 07:10 AM)Whitey Wrote: Hi James,
I find this so very interesting. I devote to holistic health and eat the best I can and take the most beneficial things but it's really hard to keep it all together on what should and should not be eaten and taken. I tend to buy a lot of things and take them for a week or so, and then stop them if I see no noticeable benefit. I have a SLEW of things in my cupboards and it has my small kitchen all cluttered up.
I have seen a lot of this, people trying anything and everything under the sun trying to find what works. This is why it is so important that people learn more about how their bodies work and investigate products from non-sales sites to make sure the claims are not just hype.
Learning more about how the body works will help several ways. One it can help narrow down possible causes. Too often people self diagnose based on one symptom that they read on the internet somewhere is caused by......, and so they go with it. One problem with this is that symptoms usually have multiple causes.
Let's take fatigue for example. This could be from adrenal dysfunction, hypothyroidism, various forms of anemia, liver dysfunction, diabetes, medications, etc. So this one symptom tells us nothing, yet I have seen people self diagnose based on this one symptom numerous times. But let's say the person also has poor circulation as well. This narrows down the possibilities to most likely hypothyroidism and diabetes. Now throw in the symptoms of dry hair, dry skin, low body temperature, etc. and this narrows down the likely cause as a thyroid issue. Of course this does not tell us why the thyroid is off. Again this could be from a number of things. For example, I have seen a number of cases lately of people posting symptoms of iodine toxicity after following the dangerous advice of taking 100-150mg or more of iodine daily. Other causes include hypothalamic or pituitary disorders, hormone imbalances, chlorine, fluoride or bromine exposure, adrenal dysfunction, high rT3 levels, autoimmunity, poor iodine uptake, etc.
The second benefit to learning how the body works is to have a better understanding of how things will or will not work on the body, or how they can actually make things worse. For example, I have seen so many people self diagnose with "systemic Candida", which is extremely rare and would likely be deadly in a short time without proper intervention. A lot of this though has to do with the fact that most people making this claim have no idea what "systemic" really means. Anyway, one of the things I have seen so many people try is to kill the Candida, which simply will not work. Candida is a normal part of everyone's body, just like Staphylococcus bacteria. It is when these things overgrow that we have problems. But killing them does not work as you will never kill every last cell so they will simply grow back if the terrain is still in a state that supports their growth. The enzymes cellulase and hemicellulase for example are often promoted to kill Candida. If people really stop and think about it though digesting the Candida walls with these enzymes produce what? Glucose, which simply feeds the surviving Candida! These enzymes will also digest the fibers which the flora, that control the Candida growth, need to feed on. So the flora get starved out while the digestion of the fibers produce even more sugar to feed the Candida. Again, we cannot rely on sales hype for our health information. All that does is drain the wallet and often leaves people worse off than they started.
I don't doubt that a bit about what you say about AA, pumpkin seeds, and most everything else.
I have Liver / Gall Bladder / Parasite tincture that has Org Milk thistle seed, dandelion root & leaf, Oregon grape root, gentian root, wormwood, black walnut hull, ginger root, garlic and fennel seed. I bought it from Uny last year, I think you must know her. I'll take more of it. I was on their program last year but had problems that took me months to figure what they were caused by. I did great at first but then I started to have yeast GI issues, fatigue, intolerance of fruit and other foods I used to eat freely. At first I blamed it on raw ACV / raw honey I was drinking. It seems as tho raw Bragg's ACV is not a wise thing to put into my body. ACV and ALA are what seemed to louse up my GI tract. For years I had been able to eat as much fruit as I wanted to. This is the fist Summer in many years that I have to leave the fresh wild berries to rot on the plant because I have to limit fruit so much. It doesn't bother me much any more because I realize the mood/mental health improvements I've made from ALA chelating. I have better ability to make decisions and think too.
This is another great example of what I was saying above. What was starting your food intolerances was not the apple cider vinegar, it was the Oregon grape root. Oregon grape root is one of the berberine herbs along with some others such as goldenseal, barberry and coptis (goldthread). These herbs are best avoided altogether. One of their major drawbacks is that they kill the intestinal flora, which are essential to our health. Kill off the flora and we end up with problems such as fungal Candida overgrowth leading to "leaky gut" and thus the food intolerances. Destroying the flora also leads to other intestinal infections, irritable bowel syndrome, decreased nutrient absorption, decreased vitamin synthesis, decreased serotonin synthesis, etc.
The use of berberine herbs for more than a week or two can also lead to damage to the intestinal lining also contributing to "leaky gut". Other adverse effects of these herbs can include hypoglycemia and depletion of potassium leading to cramping and high blood pressure.
Unfortunately, there are to many what I refer to as "textbook herbalists" who have no clue as to the chemistry or risks of certain herbs. They simply read in a book somewhere that "X" herb has been used historically for "Y" problem so they recommend that herb or add it to a formula without regards to interactions. For example, the most common formulating mistake I see is the addition of high tannin herbs, such as uva ursi or green tea, to formulations. The high tannin content of these herbs simply bind many of the active components of the other herbs rendering them useless to the body. Same reason old coffee grounds are used to destroy outdated medications. The tannins in the coffee grounds bind the medications so their ingestion will not have any effect.
This is also the reason I don't follow the teachings of certain old school herbalists like Christopher and Schulze. They rely too heavily on herbs simply based on their historical use, not based on what is most effective and safe. For example they rely heavily on herbs such as the berberine herbs and stimulant laxatives such as senna and cascara sagrada that I recommend people avoid. We have come a very long way in our understanding of herbs and their chemistry. And often there are safer and more effective herbs than the traditionally used herbs such as goldenseal, echinacea, horsetail grass (shavegrass), lobelia, etc.
I've been buying organic or wild crafted herbs from places like Pacific Botanicals but I don't think they have Chinese Licorice so I'm looking for a place to buy that. 1st Chinese Herbs doesn't have it either.
It is a bit difficult to find.
I've read a lot of your info on CZ and I hope you won't get tired of my questions.
Not a problem. I have been answering questions on forums for years. Luckily I have covered most topics so it saves me a lot of time when I can re-post answers or direct people to links of my articles or other posts with answers.
I don't think I'll be asking a ton of questions but I find it real interesting to hear what you have to say about many things, and I seem to agree with most of it, if it applies to me. I hope you feel that the questions I ask are good , not dumb questions.
Its pretty hard to come up with dumb questions. As long as people are asking serious health questions to actually learn I don't have a problem.
You seem like a really good person. You seem to remind me of a real nice man I used to know in New England that was a PhD / holistic healer but decided to take his life. He was more effective than anyone I think I'd ever consulted with but I guess he was not satisfied with life or himself. Not only was he smart, he was very caring.
Whitey
Thanks.
I hear you, James. I really wished I had more good knowledge on how the body works. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time to learn and I am being my own guinea pig a lot of the time. For example, my naturopath gave me shiitake mushroom powder once to strengthen my immune system and help clear my skin. It was mushroom powder mixed with protein powder and some flavours. I felt better while taking it, so I ordered shiitake mushroom powder and protein powder in bulk. Now I learnt that proteins block the absorption of nutrients... I take the mushroom powder straight now mixed with a whole bunch of herbs that failed the test of being a homemade shampoo alternative (fenugreek seed powder, yucca root powder, amla berry powder, & graviola powder). It gives me stomach pain when taken on an empty stomach and I don't know why. Seriously, I feel like I know nothing about how the body really works. Despite this, many people will ask me for their health-related problems because they feel that I know more than them about nutrition... this is sad. Also, I read in one of your posts that you are against taking massive amounts of different herbs. Well, on top of the above mentioned, I just tried to recreate some of your formulas - based on availability, the really cool herbs are not available to me anywhere  - and now we're talking a lot of herbs! Seriously, I hope that you give seminars, write books, the whole lot, if you're up for it, of course! Which books do you personally recommend for further study?
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