Blog Posts

Around one in three adults report having some degree of insomnia. A new study shows that putting these two powerful sleep herbs together can help. Having trouble sleeping can be an annoying problem even if you don’t suffer from full blown, chronic insomnia. This double-blind study looked at a combination of two sleep herbs on 40 people who had sleep problems one or two weeks a night and who had poor sleep quality that fell short of the diagnostic criteria for actual insomnia.

Migraine headaches are ridiculously common. They can cause intense, throbbing pain; nausea; vomiting and sensitivity to light and sound that can seriously affect your quality of life. This new study suggests that getting more of one simple vitamin could help. This study compared levels of vitamin B12 in people who suffered from migraines to the levels in people who didn’t. The migraine group was further divided into people who suffered chronic migraine and people whose migrai

A promising new study provides evidence that spirulina can improve symptoms and quality of life in people with irritable bowel syndrome. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) affects 5-10% of all people. It affects women more than men. Because of the pain, and because 38% of people with IBS experience depression and 40% experience anxiety, IBS can seriously affect quality of life. Recent research is expanding our knowledge of IBS. It appears that gut permeability allows immune cells

Rates of obesity and of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are on the rise. Artichoke is a powerful natural remedy for the liver. This study put artichoke to the test against overweight people with NAFLD. As many as 90% of people who undergo bariatric surgery for obesity have metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), the new name for NAFLD. Previous research has shown that artichoke extract can reduce hepatic stenosis, the excess fat in your liv

A billion people in the world suffer from migraine headaches. New hints are emerging that can help remedy that. Migraines can be triggered by a number of factors. Many of them, it turns out, are associated with mitochondrial function. And several nutrients that have been suggested to protect against migraine are involved in mitochondrial function. This well-designed study set out to see if getting enough of those nutrients could play a role in the prevention of migraines. The

Fibromyalgia is a common, but still too little discussed, condition characterized by chronic, widespread musculoskeletal pain, sleep problems, fatigue, mental distress and cognitive impairment. This new study suggests a safe, natural solution that might help. Fibromyalgia affects between 2% and 8% of all people and probably about 2%-3% of people in the United States and Canada. For some reason, fibromyalgia favours women: in adults, women are twice as likely to have fibromyal

Though it gets a lot less attention than calcium or vitamin D, without vitamin K, your bones would be like chalk. This new study helps explain why. Your bones need calcium, but they also need a hormone called osteocalcin. Osteocalcin helps attract and bind calcium to your bones. And osteocalcin is produced by vitamin K. This new systematic review and meta-analysis of the role of vitamin K included 9 controlled studies of 2,570 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. The form

There are many important traditional herbs for calming and sleep. A new study has put the science behind the tradition for this sleep herb. Skullcap has an important history as a versatile and effective nervine. It has been used for stress, tension, anxiety and insomnia and is often taken throughout the day to prepare you to ease into a good night’s sleep. This new double-blind study gave 66 people with moderate insomnia either a placebo or 400mg of skullcap extract standardi

With screen time becoming greater and greater, around half of all children and adolescents experience computer vision syndrome (CVS), or digital eye strain. In this double-blind study, 64 children were given either a placebo or 4mg of the carotene astaxanthin for 84 days. There was a significantly better 20% improvement on CVS scores, a validated questionnaire for measuring CVS. In addition to significantly improved eye strain, astaxanthin also led to significantly greater im

Some herbs don’t get the attention they deserve despite an impressive body of research. One of them is olive leaf extract, a powerful herb for high blood pressure. It’s hard to believe, but 22.6% of Canadian adults have high blood pressure. Harder still to believe is that nearly half of Americans over the age of 20 do. Worse, only 24% of Americans with high blood pressure have it under control. Impressive research is piling up that olive leaf extract is an effective herb for