Black Cohosh

Herbal Remedies and Medicinal Cures for Diseases, Ailments & Illnesses that afflict Humans and Animals
Aloe Vera • Astragalus • Bankoro • Bilberry • Bitter Gourd (Ampalaya) • Bitter Orange • Black Cohosh • Cat's Claw • Chamomile • Chasteberry • Coconut • Cranberry • Dandelion • Echinacea • Ephedra • European Elder Tree • Evening Primrose • Fenugreek • Feverfew • Flaxseed • Garlic • Ginger • Ginkgo • Ginseng (Asian) • Golden Seal • Grape Seed • Green Tea • Hawthorn • Hoodia • Horse Chestnut • Kava • Lavender • Licorice • Malunggay Moringa Oleifera • Milk Thistle • Mistletoe • Passion Flower • Peppermint Oil • Red Clover • Ringworm Bush (Akapulko) – Cassia alata • Saw Palmetto • St. John's Wort • Tawa Tawa • Turmeric • Valerian • Yohimbe •
accept the bitter to get better

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Black Cohosh Bottle Brush Flowers

Dietary supplement is a product that contains vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, enzymes, and/or other ingredients intended to supplement the diet. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has special labeling requirements for dietary supplements and treats them as foods, not drugs. Manufacturers and distributors of dietary supplements and dietary ingredients are prohibited from marketing products that are adulterated or misbranded. That means that these firms are responsible for evaluating the safety and labeling of their products before marketing to ensure that they meet all the requirements of DSHEA and FDA regulations.

Wars of ancient history were about possessions, territory, power, control, family, betrayal, lover's quarrel, politics and sometimes religion. But we are in the Modern era and supposedly more educated and enlightened . Think about this. Don't just brush off these questions. Why is RELIGION still involved in WARS? Isn't religion supposed to be about PEACE? Ask yourself; What religion always campaign to have its religious laws be accepted as government laws, always involved in wars and consistently causing WARS, yet insists that it's a religion of peace? WHY?? There are only two kinds of people who teach tolerance: The Bullies. They want you to tolerate them so they can continue to maliciously deprive you. Do not believe these bullies teaching tolerance, saying that it’s the path to prevent hatred and prejudice. The victims who are waiting for the right moment to retaliate. They can’t win yet, so they tolerate.

Black Cohosh

The medicinal herb Black Cohosh as an alternative herbal remedy for rheumatism, arthritis - Black cohosh is a plant native to North America.Common Names--black cohosh, black snakeroot, macrotys, bugbane, bugwort, rattleroot, rattleweed

Latin Names--Actaea racemosa, Cimicifuga racemosa Picture of Black Cohosh

• Black Cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa) has been used for thousands of years by Native Americans. It has become more well-known in the Western world through research on its supportive effect on hormone functioning and support of the female reproductive system. (Liske E. "Therapeutic efficacy and safety of Cimicifuga racemosa for gynecologic disorders".Adv Ther. 1998 Jan-Feb;15(1):45-53. Review.) (Frei-Kleiner S, Schaffner W, Rahlfs VW, Bodmer Ch, Birkhäuser M. "Cimicifuga racemosa dried ethanolic extract in menopausal disorders: a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial". Maturitas. 2005 Aug 16;51(4):397-404. Epub 2004 Dec 10. PMID: 16039414.)

What Black Cohosh Is Used

For Black cohosh has a history of use for rheumatism (arthritis and muscle pain), but has been used more recently to treat hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, and other symptoms that can occur during menopause. Black cohosh has also been used for menstrual irregularities and premenstrual syndrome, and to induce labor. Herbal remedy for menopausal symptons.

Herbal Remedy Products with Black Cohosh as part of the ingredients

Fertile XX™ - Herbal remedy to help promote effective female reproductive system support for fertility and healthy natural ovulation Promotes fertility by supporting female reproductive health Helps maintain menstrual cycle regularity Supports healthy, regular ovulation and egg production Encourages healthy fertility hormone levels Tonic benefits support healthy conditions for conception Promotes healthy libido and sexual pleasure Maintains balanced mood for sustained well-being Promotes overall systemic health and functioning

MellowPause™ - Herbal remedy to support hormonal balance, healthy sleep patterns and reduce common hot flashes during menopause Reduces common hot flashes Supports balanced mood and routine calmness Maintains healthy sleeping patterns Supports hormonal balance during perimenopause and menopause

How Black Cohosh Is Used

The underground stems and roots of black cohosh are commonly used fresh or dried to make strong teas (infusions), capsules, solid extracts used in pills, or liquid extracts (tinctures).

What the Science Says about Black Cohosh

• Study results are mixed on whether black cohosh effectively relieves menopausal symptoms.
• Studies to date have been less than 6 months long, so long-term safety data are not currently available.
• NCCAM is funding studies to determine whether black cohosh reduces the frequency and intensity of hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms.
• There are not enough reliable data to determine whether black cohosh is effective for rheumatism or other uses.

Side Effects and Cautions about Black Cohosh

• Black cohosh can cause headaches and stomach discomfort. In clinical trials comparing the effects of the herb and those of estrogens, a low number of side effects were reported, such as headaches, gastric complaints, heaviness in the legs, and weight problems.
• No interactions have been reported between black cohosh and prescription medicines.
• Black cohosh has recently been linked to a few cases of hepatitis (inflammation of the liver), but it is not clear whether black cohosh caused the problem.
• It is not clear if black cohosh is safe for women who have had breast cancer or for pregnant women.
• Black cohosh should not be confused with blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), which has different properties, treatment uses, and side effects than black cohosh. Black cohosh is sometimes used with blue cohosh to stimulate labor, but this therapy has caused adverse effects in newborns, which appear to be due to blue cohosh.
• It is important to inform your health care providers about any herb or dietary supplement you are using, including black cohosh. This helps to ensure safe and coordinated care.

News About Black Cohosh

Exploring Black Cohosh, Hot Peppers, in Breast Cancer Treatment

• Source:http://wnpr.org/post/exploring-black-cohosh-hot-peppers-breast-cancer-treatment

By Jenifer Frank

Dr. Erin Hofstatter, a young research scientist and breast cancer specialist at Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital, often prescribes tamoxifen, raloxifene and similar drugs to her patients. The drugs “reduce your risk (of cancer recurring) by half … but they come with baggage,” she tells her patients, “hot flashes, night sweats, leg cramps, small risk of uterine cancer, small risk of blood clots, small risk of stroke, you have to get your liver tested.”

Hofstatter’s unease with standard treatments for breast cancer has spurred her to seek alternative, safer ways to treat breast cancer. To this end, she has begun a study of black cohosh, in the pill form of an herb from the buttercup family, used for thousands of years by Native Americans to treat menopausal symptoms.

Dr. Erin Hofstatter, a young research scientist and breast cancer specialist at Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital, often prescribes tamoxifen, raloxifene and similar drugs to her patients. The drugs “reduce your risk (of cancer recurring) by half … but they come with baggage,” she tells her patients, “hot flashes, night sweats, leg cramps, small risk of uterine cancer, small risk of blood clots, small risk of stroke, you have to get your liver tested.”

Hofstatter’s unease with standard treatments for breast cancer has spurred her to seek alternative, safer ways to treat breast cancer. To this end, she has begun a study of black cohosh, in the pill form of an herb from the buttercup family, used for thousands of years by Native Americans to treat menopausal symptoms.

Just as practices like acupuncture and meditation – once considered, at best, nontraditional are now widely used to help patients cope with the side effects of cancer treatments and other illnesses, natural products – foods (blueberries, walnuts, soy), herbs like black cohosh and plant-based anti-oxidants like capsaicin (which makes hot peppers hot) have become accepted subjects for research.

But far from simply embracing these practices or foods, scientists now apply rigorous scientific methods to what are considered non-traditional medications to determine just how effective – or ineffective -- they are. A similar scientific focus is being directed at exercise, diet, and meditation. Research is also going on into something called energy healing.

“I think that when we think about therapies, whether for breast cancer or anything else, we do need to think outside of the box and evaluate things that we may not have been open to evaluating in the past,” said Dr. Anees Chagpar, director of The Breast Center - Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven. “Because there are natural therapies that may be very useful and helpful.

“[T]here is a paucity of scientific evidence and research to back up these complementary and alternative approaches. And so I think that anything that we can do to help shore up the knowledge that we have about their utility is a good thing,” she said.

Alternative Medicine’s Integration

Once marginalized by the medical establishment, alternative medicine has now become part of the establishment. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that comprise the country’s premier research institution, the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

NIH data show that funding for NCCAM research projects has climbed from $54.3 million in 2000, to $97.6 million in 2014 – an 80 percent increase. Among the grantees in 2014 is Yale University, which received nearly $1 million for four research projects into complementary and alternative medicine – including one study, with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation – that is testing “mindfulness meditation” for children suffering from fibromyalgia or chronic pain.

In addition, the American Board of Integrative Medicine plans to give its first accreditation test in November. The exam will include questions on “Mind-Body Medicine and Spirituality” and “Whole Medical Systems” (such as homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine and the ancient Indian system, Ayurveda), as well as on nutrition, dietary supplements and “Lifestyle, Prevention and Health Promotion.”

The Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine, which began in 1999 as a small group trying to draw attention to and expand the use of integrative medicine, has grown into an organization of 57 medical centers, many connected to some of the country’s most prestigious medical schools and health organizations. The consortium includes the integrative medicine programs at Yale and UConn’s schools of medicine, and the Integrative Medicine Center at Griffin Hospital in Derby, which collaborates with Yale.

Alternative medicine’s evolution is at least partially fueled by public enthusiasm. A widely quoted 2007 survey, by the National Center for Health Statistics, shows that in 2006, Americans spent $33.9 billion out-of-pocket on alternative medicine. Some health professionals say this shows the widespread dissatisfaction with the traditional health system.

“Our current health care system is not sustainable. It’s not working, it’s too expensive, and people are really not that healthy,” said Dr. Mary P. Guerrera, a family practice physician at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford who also directs the integrative medicine program in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Given the popularity of alternative treatments, “It’s important for future physicians and health professionals to learn about [them],” she said. Guerrera said she’s seen “a huge bump” in the number of fourth-year medical students taking the elective course she teaches, “Integrative/Complementary and Alternative Medicine.”

Deborah Pacik, a second year UConn medical student and a longtime licensed acupuncturist, has treated cancer patients for pain, nausea and depression. “Patients have felt more energy, less nausea, more appetite, less dry mouth, and calmer and clearer with acupuncture,” she said. Deborah Pacik, a licensed acupuncturist, treats cancer patients. Credit Tony Bacewicz / C-HIT

But alternative medicine continues to have its critics. They can be found on such websites as Quackwatch.com and The Skeptic’s Dictionary. Dr. Steven Novella, a researcher and assistant professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine, founded the take-no-prisoners website Science-Based Medicine, of which he is editor. On September 29, the site’s managing editor, Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist, posted his latest attack on alternative medicine: “Quackademia Update: The Cleveland Clinic, George Washington University, and the continued infiltration of quackery into medical academia.”

Rigorous Investigations

A growing number of researchers are ignoring that skepticism by using scientific methods to measure and quantify the efficacy of unconventional treatments.

The NCCAM’s website is packed with warnings about not replacing traditional medical care with an alternative measure, and with understated dismissals of some claims from the marketplace. (On the acai berry, sold in fruit juice and as supplement: “There is no definitive evidence that acai has any special health benefits.”)

Chagpar, at Yale, summarized the attitude and motivation of many researchers: “There really needs to be further rigor to look at [complementary and alternative] therapies with the degree of scientific inquiry that we put routine drugs through.”

Hot peppers

In his 27 years as a surgeon and researcher at the Yale School of Medicine, Dr. John Geibel’s research has focused on the lower digestive system. But these days, he’s also excited about the anti-carcinogenic power of capsaicin on breast cancers. Capsaicin – capsicum is any plant from the nightshade family -- is the substance that gives hot peppers their heat, and, perhaps counter-intuitively, it has been identified as having some value as a pain reliever.

Geibel, vice chairman of the Department of Surgery at Yale, noted that genetic screening has been effective in determining whether some women will get breast cancer. “But even if you come in and perform the mastectomy, it’s difficult to impossible to remove every single [cancer] cell,” he said.

Earlier studies have shown capsaicin’s ability “to slow down or even stop the machinery of [cell] division,” he said, pointing to one in which capsaicin stopped the growth of prostate colonic tumors in a dish. What if, he posited, after a surgeon has removed a malignant tumor from a breast, the doctor can “coat the underlying tissue area with a capsaicin-based preparation to prevent any residual cells” from reproducing?

Geibel said he initially tested capsaicin on breast cancer cells in a culture to determine the dose and the best way to deliver it. “The next phase is to now take some tissue from an individual,” he said.

“It’s a relatively simple natural product,” he said. The goal of using products like capsaicin is “to have a destructive effect on the tumor, rather than a destructive effect on the individual.”

Energy Healing

With training in molecular and cellular biology, Dr. Gloria Gronowicz, a professor at the UConn Health Center, has long been looking into the effects of energy healing on tumor growth and metastasis, working most recently with a breast cancer model in mice. Energy healing on tumor growth is an area of study for Dr. Gloria Gronowicz.

Energy medicine, which includes Reiki, qigong and a practice named “Therapeutic Touch,” actually involves no direct touching of a patient or an object being studied. Rather, practitioners work with what they say is the energy emitted from their hands, which they call biofields.

A paper published in May by Gronowicz and others, in the Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, said that Therapeutic Touch had prevented cancer cells in a breast cancer model from spreading, though it had not shrunk the size of the primary tumor.

“Let us use everything to help patients,” Gronowicz said of the growth in research into alternative treatments.

Black Cohosh

Hofstatter, the Yale researcher, first heard of black cohosh from the gynecologic oncologist who runs Yale’s Sexuality, Intimacy and Menopause Clinic. The oncologist asked if Hofstatter would approve of giving Remifemin – a pill form of black cohosh – to one of the young doctor’s patients.

“I was actually fearful of black cohosh to begin with,” Hofstatter said. “It basically is a plant-based estrogen, and so many times, breast cancers can be fed by estrogen.” But she found ofstattetwo 2007 clinical trials that showed black cohosh acting as a protective agent in breast cancer development.

The more she researched, “the more I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, I may have just struck a pot of gold!’ ” she said. “Not only does it not appear to significantly increase the risk of breast cancer, but actually there’s data to suggest it’s protective, both in breast cancer survivors and potentially preventive in women who’ve never had breast cancer.”

Her study, funded by Yale through the American Cancer Association, focuses on women diagnosed with DCIS, ductal carcinoma in situ -- a common, noninvasive cancer that can develop into an invasive disease.

The trial takes advantage of the time between a diagnosis of DCIS and the surgery, generally two to four weeks. Right after diagnosis, the patient will take Remifemin twice daily until her surgery. Hofstatter thenH will compare the pre-surgery DCIS cells and those in the tissue removed during surgery to see if the number of DCIS cells has dropped.

“What I liked about the study is that I felt the risk to the patient was minimal” -- because she was going to have surgery anyway – “and that it would provide good information regardless of what we showed.”

Hofstatter, who received her grant in 2011, is still recruiting subjects for the study, and hopes to have her roster filled by 2015.

And she is clear-eyed about her hopes for black cohosh. “I have no idea if it works,” she said.

“The reason we’re doing the trial is because I do not know if it helps. For all I know, it could be bad -- that’s the thing about research.”

Join C-HIT on Tuesday October 21, starting at 5:30 pm, at Gateway Community College in New Haven, for a community forum on the latest inroads and challenges in breast cancer detection, research and treatment, while showing your support for in-depth journalism. For information and to register click here.

This story was reported under a partnership with the Connecticut Health I-Team (c-hit.org).

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Black Cohosh: An Herb for Hot Flashes?

• Source:http://www.empowher.com/menopause/content/black-cohosh-herb-hot-flashes

By Diane Hoffmaster

For some women, menopause symptoms are mild and can be controlled with simple lifestyle changes. For others, menopause symptoms make it difficult just to survive the day with their sanity intact. Hot flashes, moodiness, and irregular periods may be so bad you need more than a fan and a 30-minute workout session to relieve stress. When menopause symptoms get to be too much to handle, many women start looking for alternative remedies to help bring them relief. One option that has been studied for its possible menopause symptom relief characteristics is black cohosh.

Black cohosh is an herb whose roots have been used for medicinal purposes for hundreds of years. According to Drugs.com, it grows from Ontario, Canada south to Tennessee and west to Missouri at forest edges. Over the years, it has been used to treat joint pain, influenza, smallpox, rheumatism, headache, cough, and some nervous system disorders. Recently, it seems to be gaining popularity as a method to treat menopause symptoms.

The parts of the black cohosh plant that are used medicinally are the fresh or dried roots and rhizomes (underground stems). They can be found in health food stores, some drugstores, and online. There are many forms to choose from, including teas, capsules, tablets or liquid extract forms. How black cohosh works in relieving menopause symptoms is not yet known. There is a possibility that black cohosh exhibits some estrogen-like activity, but the evidence is contradictory.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded and analyzed numerous studies regarding the effectiveness of black cohosh as a remedy for menopause symptoms. Some study results indicate black cohosh may help relieve menopausal symptoms, but other study results do not. Studies of black cohosh have yielded conflicting data, mainly because of the short time frame studied and differences in the quantity of black cohosh taken by study participants.

While studies on black cohosh show conflicting results, many women are taking this herb as a possible solution for their menopause symptoms. If you choose to try this for yourself, what is the appropriate dose? According to WebMD, the dose of black cohosh used in studies for menopausal symptoms has been 20-40 milligram tablets of a standardized extract taken twice a day. More than 900 milligrams a day of black cohosh is considered an overdose. Directions for other forms of black cohosh will vary. Six months is the maximum amount of time anyone should take black cohosh according to some experts.

Black cohosh is not without side effects. Some people may experience headaches and upset stomach after taking this herb. People with aspirin allergies or liver problems or who are pregnant or nursing should not take this supplement. If you are taking prescription medications, talk to your doctor before starting black cohosh.

Black cohosh may provide relief of common menopause symptoms for some women. While studies on this alternative therapy are inconclusive, if you are suffering from menopause symptoms and need relief, black cohosh may be a possible solution.

Photos of Black Cohosh flowers and Plants

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  Bee and Black Cohosh

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  Black Cohosh Flowers

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  Black Cohosh Flowers

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  Pods

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