By Cathy Margolin
on June 30, 2009
Last summer my family took an unforgettable trip to Alaska and spent lot of time in a van. We quickly learned Alaska is too big for road trips, but we did see incredible scenery. I always find some off the wall crazy family activities, so in keeping with tradition, I decide the family must pay a visit to a reindeer farm just north of Anchorage. Our teens had their i-pods and they are accustom to my crazy ideas of fun, so off we went. I had an ulterior motive, I wanted to learn about Lu Rong, deer antlers from a source, and this was a golden opportunity I couldn’t miss.
In Chinese Medicine, the deer antler also known as Lu Rong is a prized and highly sought after commodity. Deer antler has been used for hundreds of…
By Cathy Margolin
on June 27, 2009
I’m a coffee drinker only in moderation. Now, I’m re-thinking that moderation, as I learn more about coffee. A cup of coffee is 2% caffeine and 98% other bioactive ingredients. To say the least, it is a complex beverage. People seem to forget that the coffee bean is an herb. Indeed, the coffee plant belongs to the Rubiaceae family, which is a source of several different Chinese medicinal herbs, including gardenia fruit. As an herbal medicine, effects were well known by 1908 when the Indian Materia Medica was published.
At the proper dosages, the coffee bean has the ability to improve health in several ways. Drinking coffee can increase cardiovascular health and lower the risk of colon cancer, gallstones, cirrhosis, and Parkinson’s disease A typical dosage for this type of herbal medicine is in the range of…
By Cathy Margolin
on June 24, 2009
FDA Rules for Current GMP Effective June 25th
This week is another important milestone for the Dietary Supplement industry. June 25, 2009 is the deadline the FDA (Food & Drug Assoc) has given for medium sized companies, (those with more than 20 employees) to comply with cGMP or Current Good Manufacturing Practices. What this means to the consumer is another step closer to more consistency in over the counter herbal supplements and all dietary supplement. The cGMP regulations protect the consumer by providing standards for ensuring purity, identity and strength of composition for each product produced.
All told it’s taken 14 years to get to this point. The FDA made allowances for smaller businesses to comply giving them an additional 3 years if they had less than 500 employees. Companies with greater than 500 employees were required to comply…
By Cathy Margolin
on June 21, 2009
Lately this is my favorite topic and formula to make in my herb granule pharmacy .. because the calls I receive go something like this. "I took it once & I'm off the couch and back to normal", "I can't believe those herbs work", "Why didn't you tell me before", "I didn't take a single motrin this month", I could go on and on, but you get the idea. So here's some information about the herbs in the PACHerbs PMS Relief formula & some interesting information on well conducted research on menstrual pain. Don't just mask the pain with NSAID's try an approach that's worked for centuries, Chinese Herbal Medicine. An international nonprofit organization, known as the Cochrane Collaboration, studied the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicine in relieving menstrual pain compared to western drugs. Their conclusion:…
