Ted Morrison

Maybe you take some echinacea when you feel a cold coming on or sip a little chamomile tea to soothe an upset tummy. Smart moves. But which natural health boosters should you take regularly—and when?

The answers are extra important during tough financial times, when more and more Americans are buying vitamins and supplements as they struggle to afford traditional health care.

And because women are the biggest users of supplements, it’s critical that they know which ones really work. To make safe and effective buys, try this age-targeted advice from leading women’s-health experts.

Your 30s

Calcium You may not realize that your bone health starts waning in your late 30s. That means it’s never too early to maximize bone density with calcium, says Mary Jane Minkin, MD, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Yale School of Medicine.

“Calcium may also ease menstrual cramps because it appears to regulate muscle contractions,” she says. Shoot for a total (through diet and supplements) of 1,000 milligrams a day during your 30s and 40s, and 1,200 to 1,500 in your 50s and beyond. Dr. Minkin recommends taking the cheapest brand that agrees with your stomach—the antacid TUMS E-X 750, whose active ingredient is calcium carbonate, works well and contains 300 milligrams of calcium per tablet ($5.49; Drugstore.com). If you love chocolate, try Viactiv; it contains 500 milligrams of calcium and just 20 calories per piece ($11.49).

Magnesium and Iron If you feel cranky at the end of your cycle, 200 milligrams of magnesium may help relax you, says Roberta Anne Lee, MD, vice chair of the Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. But you don’t need to take it every day. Daily iron pills might make sense, experts say, because plenty of women are iron-deficient as they age; they either don’t get enough iron from their diets or are low because of blood loss during their periods. Ask your doc to check your iron level with a simple blood test. If it’s low, aim for 18 milligrams of iron a day to keep your energy up.

Next: Omega-3 supplements

I’m a spice freak. It’s virtually impossible for me to pass up the chance to fritter time away in exotic markets of any ethnicity—which is why my husband will often remind me that “we’re supposed to be walking briskly, honey” when I pull him into some eye-catching, aromatic shop whose aisles are jam-packed with herbs and spices.

Once I’m inside a culinary casbah, I’m on the lookout for spices I’ve never tried before, because I love to cook and to experiment with new flavors. Recently, I came home with a little bag full of tiny seeds labeled as “black cumin.”

I know regular cumin, of course—I use it all the time in Mexican and Indian dishes. The black cumin seeds I bought didn’t look anything like the cumin I know—these obviously were from a different plant entirely.

I tasted them and liked their interesting thyme-oregano flavor—which, I discovered, was delectable when sprinkled liberally on broiled salmon filets. They also make a tasty addition to breadcrumb or panko toppings for sauteed chicken breasts or fish.

So I was intrigued when I got a press release a couple days ago from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Researchers there have been studying black cumin (Nigella sativa) and discovered that a chemical in its oil called thymoquinone (which, by the way, is also present in the essential oil of thyme—hence the flavor similarity), is an anti-inflammatory that seems to inhibit the development of pancreatic cancer in lab studies.

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Turns out, black cumin seeds and oil are used in traditional medicine by many Middle Eastern and Asian healers for a broad array of diseases, including some immune and inflammatory disorders, says Hwyda A. Arafat, MD, PhD, associate professor, departments of surgery and pathology, anatomy and cell biology at Jefferson Medical College.

The Greek physician Dioscorides supposedly used black cumin seeds to treat headaches and toothaches. One famous botanical historian, Maud Grieve, quoted Mohammed as saying that “black cumin cures every disease but death itself,” in her 1930s classic, A Modern Herbal.

Arafat and her team discovered that when they treated pancreatic tumors (developed in animals for the study) with thymoquinone, 67% of the tumors shrunk significantly, and levels of inflammatory markers in the cells dropped substantially.

What’s exciting about these results is that patients with chronic pancreatitis, which is associated with the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, might one day be able to benefit from black cumin oil treatment, says Dr. Arafat. “The herb and oil are safe when used in moderation, and have been used for thousands of years without reported toxic effects,” she says.

According to my favorite Indian cookbook author, Madhur Jaffrey, black cumin seeds (nigella) are sold as kalonji in Indian and Pakistani markets, and as siyah danch in Middle Eastern markets. She says they’re used in Bengal vegetable and fish dishes.

Try sautéing fresh spinach with ginger, hot chili, and a teaspoon of black cumin seeds, sprinkle it on fish before baking or broiling, or add a spoonful to lentils as you’re cooking them. Find black cumin seeds online at Zamouri Spices.

I did something really stupid last night, and I’m paying the price for it today, big time. I awoke after tossing and turning at around 3:30 a.m. But instead of doing what I usually do, which is to relax myself back to sleep by focusing on peaceful thoughts, I tormented myself with bad “what-if” thoughts.

Pretty soon, I was visualizing perfectly awful things happening to my loved ones. (I’m sure this had nothing whatsoever to do with my 22-year-old son’s newly acquired 1984 Honda motor scooter.)

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Because I’d run out of valerian capsules, the herb I normally take when relaxing thoughts don’t cut it and insomnia strikes, I reached instead for a couple of Tylenol PM tablets that I found in the back of the medicine chest. Big mistake. I woke up an hour later than usual, so groggy and out of it that I couldn’t make it to the gym for my morning workout. And when I sat down to write, nothing happened—my brain was fried. That’ll teach me.

My mistake reminded me that veering off the natural living path I try so hard to walk has its consequences. It’s noon now and I’m still cotton-headed and cranky.

Note to self: Don’t run out of valerian
Valerian officinalis is an herb with a distinctive odor that few appreciate—it’s been likened to old gym socks—but to me, it just smells odd and earthy. It’s too bad you can’t open herb bottles in the health food store to give a sniff, because an herb’s signature aroma is a good sign of its freshness and authenticity. (Herbal educators urge people who use herbs medicinally to get familiar with how they smell; a good way to do this would be to make friends at a reputable health store that stocks herbs in bulk and ask them to take you on an olfactory tour of their offerings).

Valerian has been used for centuries to improve sleep quality without making you groggy the next day. When taken before bedtime, valerian can shorten the time it takes to fall asleep and reduce the likelihood that you’ll awake in the middle of the night. What’s more, valerian relaxes muscle spasms, which makes it useful for easing painful menstrual cramps and tension headaches.

What’s more, valerian is known to be non-addictive and, unlike prescription sleep medications or even over-the-counter sleeping pills that contain the antihistamine diphenhydramine, there’s no interaction between valerian and alcohol.

As any good healer will tell you, however, if you’re reaching for the valerian or any other sleep aid regularly, you need help to find out what’s causing your chronic insomnia.

Helps people with restless legs syndrome
A study just published in the March-April issue of the peer-reviewed journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine suggests that valerian’s sleep-enhancing ability might even ease restless leg syndrome (RLS), a bedeviling and debilitating—for both the sufferer and his or her bed partner—sleep disorder that affects up to 11% of us.

The randomized, placebo-controlled study pitted the effects of valerian against a placebo for easing RLS symptoms. The researchers discovered that valerian improves sleep quality and reduces RLS severity for people whose RLS symptoms kept them awake at night and made them feel sleepy the next day. Interestingly, the herb didn’t help folks whose RLS didn’t make them feel sleepy.

“The treatment for RLS includes benzodiazepines and gabanergic medications, and valerian works as well as both of these classes of drugs,” the study author, Norma G. Cuellar, DSN, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, tells me. “If you’re taking these drugs for RLS, valerian may be an alternative,” she adds. It’s good news if valerian works for you, because it’s cheaper and has few, if any side effects, compared to drugs often prescribed for RLS.

“We know that you can take up to 1200 mg of valerian. If it works for you, you should use it,” says Cuellar.

It works for me, for easing my occasional insomnia. So I think I’ll head out to the health food store and pick some up today—and I’ll stash an extra bottle in my cupboard so I don’t run out. Nature’s Way brand valerian passed testing for potency by ConsumerLab.com, an independent testing lab; several other valerian products weren’t approved.

Previous posts by Sara Altshul:

Using toxin-free, all- or mostly natural cleaning products isn’t just a good idea for protecting the environment inside (and outside) your home—it can actually save you some dough. I haven’t done the math, but over a year’s time, I’ll bet you could piggy-bank the cost of a couple of nice massages if you swap homemade cleansers for the pricier kind that come laden with chemicals. And it’s easy! Here are a few of the cleansers I make for my house:

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My Mother-in-Law’s Shiny Floor Cleaner
My beloved, 90 year-old Italian mother-in-law, Nonnie Maria, has a simple potion that cleans and shines her wood floors, and now I use it on mine (also nice for wooden cabinets and furniture). She adds about ¼ cup of Murphy’s oil soap (an all-natural product made from tree oils) and a splash of white vinegar to a gallon of hot water, and mops her floors with the milky liquid. You don’t have to rinse, and the lemony aroma smells like a summer night in the Italian countryside.

Simple Dish Scrub Powder
It doesn’t get any simpler than this: use baking soda as you would any commercial scrub powder. It won’t scratch non-stick or other surfaces, and it tackles all but the most serious baked-on messes. Just follow with a hot water rinse to kill germs. As non-toxic alternative, try Bon-Ami, an inexpensive scouring powder made from mineral abrasives and biodegradable detergent; it shines without scratching. I use this to clean lightly soiled pans and countertops.

All-Purpose Cleanser
Mix a couple of tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice with a teaspoon of borax in a spray bottle filled with warm or hot water. Spritz on surfaces and wipe clean.

Vinegar and Newspaper
To make your windows sparkle, just fill a bowl with white vinegar, and use newspapers instead of rags to apply the vinegar and wipe the windows dry. I don’t know if some magical synergy between the newsprint and the vinegar makes this work so well, but nothing makes glass disappear like this combo.

I first caught wind of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) during the aftermath of 9/11. I’d heard that some therapists were treating Ground Zero workers, survivors, and volunteers with a bizarre-sounding “tapping” technique that was said to be astonishingly effective for easing post-traumatic stress disorder.

The technique fell off my radar, and I didn’t hear much about it until just the other day when someone sent me a DVD called Try It On Everything, a film about EFT’s effects on a random group of people with a variety of healing challenges, including profound grief, cancer, fibromyalgia, and chronic pain.

The film shared the insights of some interesting and accomplished healers, demonstrated EFT’s potential, and certainly piqued my curiosity.

To learn more about EFT, I visited Carol Look, a psychologist and hypnotist who teaches EFT to therapists; she’s one of Try It On Everything’s participating healers.

Look describes EFT as “psychological acupuncture.”

She told me that EFT melds acupuncture (in which a practitioner uses a needle to stimulate certain points along the body’s electrical pathway to release energy blockages that contribute to illness) with the mind’s power to heal the body. Instead of acupuncture needles, though, you use your own fingers to tap on a series of points on your hand, head, face, and body.

As you tap the points, you utter an affirmation aimed at your particular problem. EFT practitioners believe that emotional problems are blockages in your body’s “electrical system” and that combining fingertip pressure at key points with affirmative statements will free the blockages.

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Tapping my spider phobia away
I asked Look to demonstrate EFT on me, and she asked me what problem I’d like to address. The first thing that popped into my mind was my stupid spider phobia (which I’ve had for as long as I can remember, for no good reason). She asked me to think about an incident when I’d been freaked out by a spider.

I told her about the time when I’d moved from my New York City–home into a cozy little house in rural New Jersey with my sons, then 10 and 12. As I was cooking dinner in my new kitchen, a gigantic, hirsute arachnid scuttled across the floor near my feet.

I screamed, freaked out my sons (who then doubled over in laughter as they watched the scene that unfolded), grabbed a plastic dustpan, and hunted down the creature before slamming the dustpan down on him. It shattered and the spider, to my horror, crawled out from under a piece of it to escape and lurk God-knows-where. Just recalling the episode makes my skin crawl.

Look said she’d try to dampen my anti-spider emotions with EFT.

She took me through the tapping ritual, which you can discover here. Before we started, she asked me to repeat the story, and rate how creeped out I felt on a scale of 1 to 10. At the first recitation, I was an 8.

She demonstrated the tapping ritual she wanted me to follow and had me repeat after her, “Even though the spider disgusted and frightened me, I fully and completely accept myself.” At every tapping point—there are nine spots—I’d say the same affirmation, with a few variations, and then she asked me to rate how I felt again when I recalled the episode.

Honestly, I did feel a little less upset. Maybe a 6. We repeated the tapping again and this time, I could say that I wasn’t very upset at all, maybe a 3.

So is it worth it?
I know that I’m pretty suggestible. The connection between my mind and my body is tight. When I practice deep breathing, for example, I can measure my blood pressure and see it descend. So maybe I’m the perfect candidate for EFT.

But the reason I think it’s a worth a try is because it’s a technique you can do yourself, you don’t need any expensive equipment, and it’s harmless. So the downside’s nil, but the upside’s impressive.

Look suggests that people who have more complicated emotional issues seek the help of a trained EFT therapist. But since anyone can take an EFT course and call him or herself a therapist, find out how long they’ve been practicing EFT (it’s only been around since the 1990s, so at least try to find someone who’s had five years or so of practice).

And personally, I’d look for someone who’s been trained and licensed as a psychologist, too—not that a degree automatically makes someone a healer, but it at least assures you a person has a master’s degree and has passed the appropriate state tests for licensure.

You can find EFT practitioners at Emofree.com. To get a copy of the DVD, go to TryItOnEverything.com.

By Sara Altshul

Sneezing, a runny nose, itchy eyes—nagging allergy symptoms like these can put a damper on anyone’s enjoyment of spring’s tender beauty. And the treatments your traditional doctor may offer aren’t much less annoying than the symptoms: weekly desensitization injections, drugs, and nasal sprays laced with steroids.

I know this firsthand. Back before my days as a natural medicine writer, I was saddled with allergies that sent me from doctor to doctor in search of relief. After skin testing finally suggested I was sensitive to certain spring-flowering trees, I endured weekly allergy shots, took drugs that made me dopey, and still I suffered through the entire season.

Matters worsened when I moved from Manhattan to a house in the country. As much as I loved my new home, I was miserable for those lovely spring weeks when I should have been celebrating the beauty that surrounded me.

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Homeopathy to the rescue
Then, thanks to an assignment to write about homeopathy, I experienced a dramatic cure that ended my allergies on the spot. Truly. Call it a placebo effect, call it mind over matter, call it whatever you want. The fact is that after one two-hour visit to a homeopath, I was cured of my spring allergy symptoms. Now, years later, I’m still symptom-free.

When I got the assignment to write about this 200-year-old medical practice that defies credulity, I decided to pit homeopathy against my stubborn allergy symptoms. I found Joyce Frye, DO, an osteopath trained in homeopathy. At the time I saw her, Dr. Frye was practicing in Philadelphia; she has since joined the University of Maryland School of Medicine integrative medicine staff.

Homeopathy didn’t make much sense to me. In fact, it sounded completely wacky. Homeopathic remedies are made from plant, animal, and mineral sources, diluted to such an extent that not even a molecule of the original substance may still remain. The theory is that by ingesting minute amounts of a substance that would normally cause symptoms (such as an allergic reaction) in a healthy person, you can trigger some kind of healing response, instead.

I didn’t expect homeopathy to work on my allergies, but since it seemed safe enough to try, I gave it a shot in the interest of research.

Next page: Fear of spiders + breast cancer = allergy cure?

A bright-yellow spice has generated a big buzz in research labs all over the country. It’s turmeric (Curcuma longa), a tropical plant that’s related to ginger, and it’s one of the many curative spices native to Asia, India, and China.

Indian cooks use turmeric powder liberally in cooking—it’s what gives curries that mellow yellow color. And for thousands of years Chinese and Indian healers have used turmeric’s dried root to treat conditions including digestive woes, wounds, arthritis, skin conditions, and menstrual problems. Those healers were onto something, say modern researchers and physicians.

Brand new research validates ancient science

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Just last week, a press release from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign appeared in my inbox. A biochemistry professor there, Lin-Feng Chen, PhD, and his team discovered more about how a key protein, NF-kappa B, works: They actually deciphered the molecular code that controls its function.

NF-kappa B is known as the master regulator of the immune system, and when activated it triggers the process of inflammation (a process that’s implicated in many chronic conditions that deteriorate health). “NF-kappa B, the protein central to the inflammatory process, has to be tightly controlled, otherwise things could go crazy within the body,” says Chen in the press release.

Next page: Targeting arthritis, depression, Alzheimer’s, and more

This winter has been utterly miserable, weather-wise—snowstorms, followed by several frigid days and ice-slicked sidewalks. I’ve had it. The calendar may say it’s spring, but the weather hasn’t warmed up. I’m taking matters into my own hands and getting a jump on this season of hopeful beginnings. I’m starting with gardening—here’s how.

Force your soul to bloom: See some flowers

I visited the Philadelphia Flower Show last month to spring-ify my mood. The crowds were daunting, but the Italian-inspired gardens were treats for my winter-weary soul—even if the stunning displays with their color riots of flowering plants (Someone please tell me how you get roses, daffodils, irises, and azaleas to bloom at precisely the same moment!), immaculately-trimmed hedges, sculptures, ponds, fountains, and even a wildly painted 40-foot birch tree, would be impossible for any mere mortal to achieve. Still, it was a sweet hint of what spring will soon bring.

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I’m still aglow remembering how lovely it was to see all that botanical beauty. If there’s a flower show or botanical garden in your neck of the woods, do yourself a favor and visit; your soul will thank you. Visit the Garden Clubs of America website to find out what’s blooming near you.

Plant a pot garden

No, not that kind of pot. I mean, of course, the pots you fill with dirt and seeds, and plop down on whatever patch of outdoor space or windowsill you can call your own. I just succumbed to the lure of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog and ordered $50 worth of exotic red lettuces, sweet peas, Italian and Thai basil, cilantro, chives, purple tomatillos, multi-colored hot and sweet peppers, “black” cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, white Japanese eggplant, yellow Indian cucumbers, golden beets, and I think some purple string beans.

Just planning the planting—not to mention the harvest—instantly lifted my mood, and with any luck, my $50 investment should return me all the salads, salsas, ratatouilles, and stir-fries my family and I can eat. I’m not enough of a math whiz to tally up what this will save me on my veggie purchases over the coming months, but I can tell you that growing my own means that all of us around here will be getting a lot closer to eating our ideal nine daily servings of fruits and vegetables every day.

PS: Check out this website for cool ways to recycle old tires into planters, and this article for the healthiest potted plants for your home.

Next page: Gardening heals broken hearts, improves self esteem, counts as exercise

By Sara Altshul

I’ve been on a health kick since the New Year and I’m proud to report I’m doing pretty well. After learning that all my numbers—blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose—were heading skyward (quite unlike my 401K), I put myself on a low-carb diet, cut out sugar and snacks, slashed portions to what a normal woman should eat instead of what an athlete-in-training should eat…and since January, I’ve lost about 15 pounds. My blood pressure’s normal now and my cholesterol numbers are all edging in a much healthier direction.

But my glucose level is still up there in diabetes territory, so much so that now I take a drug to control it. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to get down to the magic 110 to 120 range. So I followed my doc’s advice to faithfully monitor my blood sugar levels daily with a glucose meter that lets me enter other relevant information, including what my stress levels are.

I just reviewed weeks of stored data—and had a gigantic duh moment.

Why I’m stressed
One things was immediately apparent: I reported myself as being “stressed” on way more days than I thought. My stress doesn’t come from anything real (except that my 401K is a shadow of its former self), but from the worry about all the bad things that could happen: Losing assignments, going into debt, having construction cranes topple over on me during a city stroll, you name it. Don’t even get me started on the arachnophobia that prevents me from cleaning out the basement closets. Apparently, worry is all it takes to mess with my chemical balance.

Though I’ve written about the stress-blood sugar connection many times before, somehow I thought I was personally immune to it. Note to self: Just knowing that something is true and writing about it doesn’t mean it won’t happen to you.
Next page: Could meditation work for me?

Laser acupuncture is what you get when you marry ancient healing wisdom to state-of-the art medical technology. It’s a good union: Turns out, the product of this mixed marriage is an effective treatment for painful conditions including carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, arthritis of the knee, and children’s chronic headaches.

Acupuncture, which practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have employed for 2,500 years, give or take a few centuries, is performed with hair-thin needles along invisible pathways (meridians) that traverse the body. According to TCM philosophy, qi, or vital energy, flows along these meridians. Sometimes, for any number of reasons, qi flow can become disordered or blocked; acupuncture normalizes qi imbalances that TCM practitioners believe can lead to illness. Acupuncture is clinically proven to be so effective that it’s transitioned from alt med to mainstream and is covered by many insurance plans. It’s used for conditions as diverse as arthritis of the knee and infertility.

I read the other day that Martha Howard, MD, medical director of the Wellness Associates of Chicago (see Dr. Howard’s protocol for beating winter blues) uses laser acupuncture to successfully treat carpal tunnel syndrome, which prompted me to learn more about this new-old treatment. What I discovered intrigued me.

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Laser acupuncture 101
Laser acupuncture, which until now I was admittedly not very up on, uses low-level red-beam wavelengths that penetrate the skin shallowly to a depth of just 0.8 to 1 mm—roughly the thickness of five sheets of paper. It’s been around for years: The Chinese began studying it in the early 1970s, and in this country, Margaret A. Naeser, PhD, LAc, a research professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, has been researching it since 1984. In 2002, she proved that laser acupuncture treatments were more effective than sham treatments for reducing carpal tunnel syndrome pain.

My wonky self finds it fascinating that it’s easier to conduct studies on laser acupuncture than it is on needle acupuncture. Here’s why: With needle acupuncture, researchers have to come up with some kind of placebo treatment against which they compare the real treatment. Problem is, even when you needle someone in the “wrong” place (i.e., places not on the correct meridian point for the condition you’re treating) you get real effects that can throw off the study results. A placebo treatment is supposed to be totally inert, which so-called sham acupuncture can never really be.

But with laser acupuncture, you simply blindfold the participant or use some other device so she can’t see what you’re doing. Then you use a real acupuncture laser or a fake one—the participant will feel nothing at all, not even the slight twinge of an acupuncture needle. So you have a truly inert treatment against which to measure the real treatment.

Next page: Gentle enough for kids; effective for pain relief