How to Get More Bang For Your Herbal Buck

There's a belief, 'You are what you eat'.

Not quite.

It is not what you eat but what is delivered and absorbed by your cells that counts. With so many today suffering inflammation, 'leaky gut' and malabsorption we are absorbing less nutrients from our food. With this in mind, herbal tinctures and formulas would do better to include 'bio-enhancers' to increase their bio-availability.

"Huh. What's that?" you may say.

Before I explain, some background...

There are countless herbal supplements available both online and off-line. But do they actually work? I would say very few. Why?

THE LAND OF LITIGATION
Lawyers love to litigate. In the United States, health supplement manufacturers were sued for millions of dollars after their products purportedly 'Made people sick'. Except they didn't, really. Speculators were taking advantage of a little-known phenomenon called a Herxheimer Reaction (or 'healing crisis'). A short-term (from days to a few weeks) detoxification reaction in the body.

As the body detoxifies, it is not uncommon to experience flu-like symptoms including headache, joint and muscle pain, body aches, sore throat, general malaise, sweating, chills, nausea or other symptoms. This is a normal — and even healthy — reaction that indicates parasites, fungi, viruses, bacteria or other pathogens are being effectively killed off.

The biggest problem with a healing crisis is people stop taking the supplement or medication causing the reaction and thus discontinue the very treatment helping make them better. 

During retreats I am pleased when I see a 'healing crisis'. It tells me the program is working and clients' vitality is strengthening to the point they start throwing off disease.

DILUTION AND DOSES
Supplement manufacturers avoid the healing crisis by diluting their products until they are virtually useless. Recommended doses do the same. 1 capsule 2x per day will do little. 5 capsules 4x per day and now you are talking. How many people are aware of this?

ABSORPTION
Many herbal drugs and extracts produce impressive lab findings yet demonstrate less real-life activity. This is due to poor solubility or improper molecular size, resulting in poor absorption and hence poor bio-availability. The Ancients have the answer. 'Bio-enhancers'. Herbs that increase the potency of other herbs.

Ayurvedic formulas have used bio-enhancers for centuries, such as black pepper and ginger. Moringa (The Miracle Tree) has its own bio-enhancer within the seed pods. 

To give extra bang for your buck, I add piperine to my Moringa powder. Piperine (black pepper) increases the potency of herbs by 10-200x. e.g. Absorption of Turmeric is increased by 10x by adding black pepper. Looking at the supplements industry I see few suppliers doing this. On the contrary the unscrupulous, dilute their herbs with cheap fillers, ground-up house plants, twigs and who knows what else. 

If you aren't seeing any results from the supplements you are taking it is most likely you have a poor quality product or problems absorbing nutrients.

'Bio-enhanced' supplements will help.

Be well

Paul