Licorice/was: Need Help- Stomach Upset

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/30/03 5:44:27 PM Eastern Standard Time,

karenr@... writes:

> If you're interested in exploring traditional Chinese tonic herb formulas,

> I'd recommend Ron Teeguarden's site, www.dragonherbs.com. Very pretty site,

> too! Or you could ask some clinical herbalists on the forum at

> www.planetherbs.com, although it tends to be a little quiet over there. My

> question there about hoodia hasn't been answered yet.

Oh, wow! My mom and I used to sell Equinox products which was an MLM. It

got shut down by a class action lawsuit because the structure of the company

violated Michigan's " pyramid scheme " laws. This was the company that

distributed

Master Formula's shark liver oil, which I linked to earlier, which is

probably far and away the best liver oil type product I've seen (but too

expensive

for me). They also sold Ron Teeguarden's " Emperor's Chi. " drink.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>This is a little of the subject, but I found out a month or two ago that

>the green tea I'd been using had licorice root in it. I usually read

>ingredients, and didn't for some reason with this product. It appears

>that *all* of Yogi Tea's green teas contain licorice, which frankly pisses

>me off because from what I've read licorice is *not* a tonic, and

>certainly not for men because of it's hormonal effects. Any opinion on this?

>

>I don't understand why a responsible company would mix non-tonic herbs

>with tonic herbs, and not clearly label it as such to boot.

>Chris

Well, as long as we're talking about *traditional* herbalism, at least the

traditional part is on topic!

It's an interesting issue, at least to me because I love herbalism.

Licorice actually is a tonic herb in Chinese herbalism, meaning it

strengthens and tones various system, especially the kidney/adrenals. It's

used in almost every formula, proportionately very little compared to the

other ingredients, because it has the ability to " harmonize " the formula

and bring together the disparate elements of the formula to create a

synergy that works. It's the type of thing you just don't argue with a

master Chinese herbalist over <lol>!

It has so many healing properties it's hard to itemize them all, and some

properties are best understood within the Chinese medical paradigm. It's so

ubiquitous because it's an amphoteric, it normalizes either hyper- or

hypo-functions.

But more relevant to this conversation, Chinese licorice root is very

different from other varieties. The Chinese licorice is glycyrrhizae

glabra, as opposed to glyc.. uralensis. The glabra has some very different

properties, is more calming than the other.

But a more important issue I think is that these herbal formulas are

devised according to the art of formulation which takes many years to

master. So looking at the properties of any one individual herb doesn't

really tell the whole story about how the herb will act once it hooks up

with its other buddies within the formula. And individual herbs alone are

practically never used by clinical herbalists.

Those Yogi tea formulas are based on traditional formulas, so I'd guess

they're pretty well balanced, although I'm no expert at formulation for

sure. Also, beverage teas are usually brewed much weaker than you would

take a medicinal herb tea.

And as for the hormonal effects, they are very subtle, and certainly

licorice is used in traditional herbal formulas by men. The estrogen-like

chemicals bind to estrogen receptor sites, and so they don't simply add

estrogen to the body but can also block it if there is too much. And then

when the licorice constitutes only about 5% of the formula, as it

traditionally does, then its hormonal effects aren't an issue. Bottom

line-- use traditional formulas.

If you're interested in exploring traditional Chinese tonic herb formulas,

I'd recommend Ron Teeguarden's site, www.dragonherbs.com. Very pretty site,

too! Or you could ask some clinical herbalists on the forum at

www.planetherbs.com, although it tends to be a little quiet over there. My

question there about hoodia hasn't been answered yet.

-

[Guest guest]

> My mom and I used to sell Equinox products which was an MLM.

Brings back memories of Sunrider. I used to look at their literature trying

so hard to find anything that mentioned a product :-)