Gale Malesky - Natures Medicines: The Definitive Guide to Health Supplements: From Asthma to Weight Gain, From Colds to High Cholesterol--The Most Powerful All-Natural Cures

Sometimes, the keys to good health come in very small packages.

Many of those packages are sitting, right now, on the shelves of your nearest drugstore, supermarket, or health food store. Thats where youll find supplements that scientists, nutritionists, and doctors have distilled from natures storehouse of healing remedies.

Some of these supplementstruly, natures medicinesare derived from fruits and vegetables. Others come from mineralsyes, the same minerals that make up stone and soil. Still others are highly concentrated versions of many herbs that have been used for centuries in healing teas, tinctures, and tonics.

Alongside the nutritional and herbal supplements, however, youll also find substances so unusual that they almost seem bizarrefrom bee pollen and brewers yeast to shark cartilage and fish oil. Even some living, beneficial organisms have their place among natures medicines.

Faced with so many choices, how do you know which of these natural supplements are right for you?

Thats where this book comes in.

In this updated edition of Natures Medicines, youll find out exactly how and when to take these supplements to improve and maintain your health. Youll discover how they can protect you from disease, keep your immune system powered up, and help you maintain sturdy, strong bones. Some will free you from aches and pains; others can help relieve heartburn or indigestion. Natures medicines can even help your blood carry all of the necessary nutrients to your cells.

The benefits dont stop there. In these pages, youll discover how to keep your skin healthy and flexible and free of itching, rashes, and infections. Youll learn how to restore worn-out tissue; fight cancer; and help your liver, kidneys, and bladder do the cleanup chores that theyre supposed to do. Youll find out which supplements can help keep your heart healthy, your arteries clean, and your lungs clear.

In this book, you have a complete, authoritative guide to the most effective supplements that are currently available. Youll find specific, sound advice from many experts, including medical doctors, researchers, and a wide range of naturopaths, herbalists, and other practitioners of alternative medicine.

Look in Part 1 to learn how natures medicines were first discovered and how to choose from among the many vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other supplements that are available today. Then turn to Part 2 for an A-to-Z guide to the healing powers of the worlds most effective natural medicines. In Part 3, you can look up your specific health concerns to find out which of the powerful healing supplements can help protect you or speed your recovery from disease.

There are many ways to use this wealth of information. Want the most up-to-date and reliable evidence about leading supplements? Youll find that in Parts 1 and 2. Want to know which remedies are most highly recommended by leading experts for specific health concerns? Turn to Part 3 for authoritative answers, plus advice on appropriate dosages.

On every page, youll learn how natures medicines go hand in hand with other health measures, such as a nutritious diet and stress-relieving, immunity-boosting exercise. By combining these strategies, you can provide the best all-around health care for yourself and your family.

At the same time, however, its important to know which of natures medicines might not be appropriate. Before taking any supplement, you should note the cautions that are described in the Supplement Snapshots in Part 2. If you are pregnant, nursing, or have a chronic illness, be sure to consult a medical doctor or other qualified health-care practitioner before using any of the supplements described in this book. If you are taking prescription medication or treatments (such as chemo, radiation, or physical therapy), always talk to your doctor about possible interactions or side effects before taking supplements. Also, do not give these supplements to children.

Hippocrates got it right in one sentence: Let food be thy medicine.

It took an additional 2,000 years of observation, plus a century of modern scientific research, to find out why food has the healing powers that Hippocrates ascribed to itand the details are still being worked out.

Take vitamins, for instance. Ancient Greek and Egyptian physicians prescribed liver juice for night blindness. They had no way of knowing that their prescription contained a remarkable amount of vitamin A. It wasnt until 1930, in fact, that Swiss researchers determined the chemical structure of vitamin A and its precursor, beta-carotene. We now know that people who dont get enough vitamin A can experience night blindness, an early symptom of deficiency.

The discovery of vitamin C followed a parallel route. By 1601, some astute observers had noted that consuming citrus fruits prevented scurvy, a disease that wiped out countless crews of sailors who lived on salted meat and dried biscuits while at sea. It took two more centuries before British navy ships were required to carry rations of lime or lemon juice, and even then, the advocates of this practice had no idea why these tart fruits helped prevent the dreaded sailors disease. It wasnt until more than 100 years later that vitamin C was finally isolated.

As vitamin C revealed the power of vitamins, iron was the telltale clue to the potential of minerals. Metals of heaveniron-rich meteoriteswere used therapeutically by the ancient civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean. The oldest surviving manuscript, the Ebers Papyrus, details two iron-rich remedies. In 1932, iron deficiency was officially recognized as the cause of chlorosis, a type of anemia found in teenage girls, and we were also well into the 20th century before scientists proved that iron is a component of hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells. Now its universally recognized that we all need iron to help rebuild blood.

Scan the shelves of your local pharmacy, and youre likely to see a multitude of multivitamin/mineral supplements. Obviously, each contains a wide variety of vitamins and minerals, and if you carefully compare labels, youll find that some brands have a little more of this, while others have a little more of that. Beyond shaking the bottles, checking the prices, and comparing labels, how should you look for a multi?

No matter what the state of your health, its smart to take a supplement that contains 100 percent of the Daily Value (DV) for most essential vitamins and minerals. The trouble is, none of the multis contains 100 percent of what you need. If you eat a healthful diet, youll get many of the vitamins and minerals that youll find in a multi, but many diets come up short on the following nutrients, experts say. You can get them by taking a multi along with a few individual supplements. Here are the suggested amounts.

Vitamin A/beta-carotene: 5,000 international units (mixed carotenoids)