Louise H Connolly MD

What supplements should you choose?  This subject is a real tangled web fraught with deceptive salesmen, pseudoscience, and phony 50% off sales. Yet these were the medicines of our forefathers, cherished for millennia throughout the world.
 

The study of ancient traditional herbal medicine is fascinating and deep.  When two disparate cultures, say the Celts and the Ancient Chinese, treasured the same substance for the same reason, there’s usually something to it.  Don’t you think?  Many plants that we see daily have hidden potential. That ugly thistle which insists on growing out of bare rock might help your liver. According to legend, it gets its name from Mother Mary’s milk.  That common drought tolerant flower at Home Depot can stop heavy bleeding.  Achilles took this one to battle.  And it bears his name.  It just might help your heavy periods.  Then there are precious herbal substances preserved in our religious literature.  What is frankincense? Why was it so treasured? Yes, it was used as a perfume, but it has many other properties.
 

Plants have their own defenses against environmental insults. Their strength can become our strength.  Take those plants that grow above the Arctic Circle and poke their young shoots through the ice.  These plants understand adversity. Their extreme genetic flexibility ensures their survival.  Their essence can help you do the same.  Rhodiola, Schizandra, and Elethero belong in this category. The Russians studied them extensively during the cold war because they help PEOPLE “adapt” to extremes.  But pamper them for generations in a greenhouse they lose some of their power.
 

Adaptogens are usually mixed with tonic herbs.  Tonic herbs set the “tone”.  Are you upset and anxious?  Try an adaptogen and a relaxing tonic.  Stressed and fatigued?  Try an adaptogen with an energizing tonic.  Realize that many supplement formulas have been passed down for generations before written language was commonly used.  Thus there are marvelous stories which accompany them and helped people remember them.  I know many of these legends, they are beautiful.  Also you should know that in ancient India, it took one hundred years of successful use in order for an herb to become an accepted treatment.  I think of this when a drug rep shows up with the latest and greatest pharmaceutical product.  Ten years later we are beginning to understand its limitations and side effects.  The latest is often not the greatest after all.
 

No, we do not sell supplements. And yes, I know how to separate the snake oil from the fish oil.   I also know how to evaluate supplement quality.  But that’s a whole separate topic.  Come on in.  We’ll talk.  Feel free to teach me.  I’ll tell you some legends and help you.