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Natural Progesterone Cream

For many women, natural progesterone cream appears to provide significant relief from symptoms related to shifts in the female hormones estrogen and progesterone.

For younger women, such imbalances are often associated with PMS or endometriosis, and bring on symptoms such as irritability, breast tenderness, and pelvic pain. For older women entering menopause, decreasing supplies of estrogen can cause hormonal imbalances, producing hot flashes, mood swings, urinary urgency, and poor concentration.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, N, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal Remedies, P, Women's HealthTagged , , ,

Naringin

A flavonoid compound found in grapefruit, naringin gives grapefruit its characteristic bitter flavor. Grapefruit processors attempt to select fruits with a low naringin content, and often blend juices obtained from different grapefruit varieties to obtain the desired degree of bitterness. Naringin is believed to enhance our perception of taste by stimulating the taste buds (some people consume a small amount of grapefruit juice before a meal for this reason).

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Mushrooms

Along with the bold yet delicate taste that shiitake, maitake, and reishi mushrooms add to soups and other dishes, these gourmet delicacies are prized as herbal medicines. Traditional Asian healers have used them for centuries to strengthen the immune system and promote longevity. Recently, an extract from a different mushroom altogether–PSK (Coriolus versicolor)–was identified as a possible ally in the fight against cancer. While mushrooms other than these may well have specific health-promoting actions, they haven’t been as thoroughly researched for medicinal purposes.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Immune System, Knowledge Base, M, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal RemediesTagged , , , ,

Mullein

A roadside weed native to Asia and Europe and now common in North America, mullein flower (Verbascum thapsus and other Verbascum varieties) has long been used by folk healers to soothe irritated skin and treat respiratory problems. In fact, Native Americans, once introduced to the herb by settlers, quickly adopted the practice of smoking the plant’s dried roots and flowers to relieve asthma and bronchitis. At one point, mullein flower was even considered a remedy for tuberculosis.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Mistletoe

Long before holiday revelers started a custom of kissing under the mistletoe, traditional folk healers used this evergreen shrub to treat various ailments. While they recognized early on that the sticky white berries of the mistletoe plant were poisonous, they brewed the leathery leaves into a therapeutic tea, a remedy that has long endured for ailments ranging from nervous tension to skin sores.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Milk Thistle

Healers have used the prickly milk thistle plant to treat liver ailments for more than 2,000 years. Somehow these early practitioners figured out that preparations of this purple-flowered member of the sunflower family could stimulate the flow of bile from the liver, improving digestion and various liver-related ills.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, M, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal Remedies, TTagged , , ,

Methionine

The importance of adequate stores of the amino acid methionine cannot be underestimated. Methionine is particularly important because it supplies sulfur–a mineral–that helps to maintain healthy skin tone, well-conditioned hair, and strong nails. Because your body can’t produce this essential amino acid on its own, you must get it from methionine-rich foods, such as cheddar cheese, eggs, chicken, and beef. Supplements are also a source.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Menopause Herbal Combination

As indicated by its name, a menopausal herbal combination provides a number of helpful herbs in one convenient capsule, sparing you the inconvenience of taking an assortment of products. Standard components of such combination products include such traditional “female-healthy” herbs as black cohosh, chasteberry, dong quai, and soy. Many contain additional herbs such as kava and dandelion root that can help with specific symptoms, as well as key nutrients such as calcium, vitamins E , C, and B, and magnesium.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, M, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal Remedies, Women's HealthTagged

Melissa

Folk healers in the Middle Ages considered melissa (Melissa officinalis) something of a cure-all, relying on it for everything from indigestion to insect bites. Today, this mint-family member–often called lemon balm because of the citrus-y aroma of its leaves–is still used to prepare healing oils, tinctures, compresses, ointments, teas, and other remedies for a variety of complaints.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Melatonin

Melatonin is a hormone manufactured and released into the bloodstream by the pebble-size pineal gland nestled deep within the human brain. Surprisingly, scientists only became aware of melatonin’s presence in 1958. Children tend to excrete large amounts of this hormone, while older adults produce relatively little. But individual levels of melatonin vary widely. About 1% of the population naturally has quite low levels, while another 1% has levels 500 times above the average.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, M, Mental Health, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal RemediesTagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Marshmellow

Since ancient times, Europeans have relied on the root of the marshmallow plant (Althea officinalis) to concoct cough and sore throat remedies. Interestingly, the “Althea” in the herb’s botanical name comes from the Greek word for “heal” or “cure.” And the plant’s common name–marshmallow–comes from the habitat that it favors: marshes and other damp environments.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Immune System, Knowledge Base, M, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal RemediesTagged , ,

Magnesium

Essential for hundreds of chemical reactions that occur in the body every second, the mineral magnesium has received surprisingly little attention over the years. Recent findings, however, suggest that it also has important health-promoting benefits, from an ability to prevent heart disease to a role in treating such chronic conditions as fibromyalgia and diabetes.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, M, Natural Apothecary, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal Remedies, Preventive MedicineTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lysine

Lysine is one of numerous amino acids that the body needs for growth and tissue repair. It is classified as one of the nine “essential” amino acids because you need to get it from outside sources such as foods or supplements–in other words the body can’t make it on its own.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Athletic Performance, Blog, Knowledge Base, L, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal RemediesTagged , ,

Lycopene

Lycopene provides the red color to tomato products and is one of the major carotenoids in the diet of North Americans and Europeans. Lycopene is a prominent member of the carotenoid family. In plants, lycopene is similar to other carotenoids, serving as a light-absorbing pigment during photosynthesis and protecting cells against photosensitization. Interest is growing in lycopene because of the many recent epidemiological studies implicating lycopene in the prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease. A diet rich in foods containing carotenoids is associated with several health benefits. Lycopene has unique structural and chemical features that may contribute to its biological actions in humans.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, L, Men's Health, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal RemediesTagged

Lipotrophic Combination

Nutritional supplements known as lipotropic combinations (or lipotropic factors) are designed to enhance liver function and increase the flow of fats and bile from the liver and gallbladder. By definition, a lipotropic substance decreases the deposit, or speeds up the removal, of fat (lipo=fat, tropic=stimulate) within the liver. Lipotropic combinations are well known in naturopathic medicine but are little used by conventional physicians.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, L, Naturopathic Medicine, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal RemediesTagged , ,

Licorice

Few herbal remedies have been as widely used or as carefully examined over the centuries as licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra), a botanical member of the pea family that is still widely cultivated in Greece and Turkey. The herb’s key therapeutic compound, glycyrrhizin, is found in the rhizome (or underground stem) of this tall purple-flowered shrub. Hundreds of other potentially healing substances have been identified in licorice as well, including compounds called flavonoids and various plant estrogens (phytoestrogens). Researchers are currently excited about the diverse healing properties of licorice, from its anti-inflammatory abilities to its capacity to soothe stomach upset and control coughs. Even the National Cancer Institute has investigated the medicinal benefits of licorice.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Digestion, Knowledge Base, L, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal RemediesTagged , , , , , , , , ,

Lecithin and Choline

Lecithin is a fatty substance manufactured in the body and widely found in many animal- and plant-based foods, including eggs, liver, peanuts, soybeans, and wheat germ. Lecithin is often used as an additive in such processed foods as ice cream, margarine, and salad dressings, because it helps blend (or emulsify) fats with water. Lecithin is also available in supplement form.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Lavender

Recognized around the globe for its fresh and heady fragrance, the lavender plant (Lavendula angustifolia), a flowering evergreen shrub native to the Mediterranean region, also boasts a long history in herbal healing.

Romans scented their baths with it (in fact lavare means to wash in Latin), and the Tibetans still make an edible lavender butter to use as part of a traditional treatment for nervous disorders. Today, the essential oil of lavender is widely used across Europe–both topically and internally–for a host of ills, from anxiety to sunburn.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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