My favorite herbs for post-menopausal women are horsetail, oatstraw, red clover, stinging nettle, seaweeds, and the plants rich in flavonoids. These gentle green allies are more like foods than drugs; they offer bone-creating, heart-protecting, disease-preventing, sex-enhancing optimum nourishment to the woman in the second half of her life.
SEAWEEDS
The weeds of the ocean have so much to give us. Let them help you:
* Prevent and relieve osteoporosis
* Maintain strong, flexible bones
Seaweeds contain lavish amounts of every mineral needed to create and maintain solid bone mass. Kelp is an exceptionally rich source.
* Lower blood pressure and cholesterol, increase cardiac efficiency
* Eliminate varicose veins and hemorrhoids
Japanese research confirms the cardiotonic and hypotensive effects of seaweeds.
* Maintain healthy thyroid function
* Relieve incontinence, vaginal dryness, and persistent hot flashes
* Nourish the glandular and urinary systems
Seaweeds are superb sources of the nutrients most needed by the endocrine, circulatory, and immune systems. Regular use helps maintain adequate production of all hormones, especially thyroid hormones. Lavish use may reverse hypothyroidism.
* Increase immune functioning
* Increase stamina
* Minimize the effects of stress, chemicals, and radiation
* Lengthen life span
Algin in seaweed escorts damaging compounds harmlessly out of the body. Free radicals are also eliminated. Vitamins E, C, and A are found abundantly in seaweeds. I use seaweed to protect myself from air pollution, chemicals in my food, and the thinning ozone layer. It can be used freely for several days before and after any X-ray, from dental ones to mammograms.
* Improve digestion
* Restore sexual interest and enjoyment
* Ease sore joints
* Bring a glossy glow to hair and skin
As befits denizens of the ocean, seaweeds are especially good at nourishing juices: digestive juices, joint juices, emotional juices, erotic juices. Seaweed helps them all flow.
All seaweeds are edible, so you can gather your own, if you wish. Kelp, wakame, khombu, dulse, hijiki, and arame are sold at Oriental and health food stores.
Dosage:
As a vegetable, 1/2 ounce/15 grams dry weight, weekly.
As a condiment, unlimited daily use.
CAUTION: The iodine in kelp may aggravate hyperthyroid conditions.
STINGING NETTLE
Urtica dioica, Urtica urens
Brennessel, Ortie
Some post-menopausal women tell me stinging nettle is so nourishing and energizing they find themselves unexpectedly having a normal menstrual flow after regular use of it.
The more usual effects of nettle are to:
* Nourish, strengthen, rebuild kidneys and adrenals
* Ease and eliminate cystitis, bloat, and incontinence
* Rehydrate dry vaginal tissues
Nettle has a miraculous ability to heal and restore adrenal/kidney functioning. Stories continue to make their way to me of women who have avoided dialysis, gotten off dialysis, and so repaired their kidneys that replacement surgery was canceled, thanks to sister stinging nettle.
Nourish your post-menopausal adrenals with nettle infusion and they'll produce enough estrogen to keep you looking and feeling juicy.
* Nourish and energize the endocrine glands
* Nourish and rejuvenate the cardiovascular system
* Normalize weight
* Ease and prevent sore joints
* Relieve constipation and reduce hemorrhoids
* Nourish supple skin and healthy hair
Nettles' super supplies of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and micro-nutrients nourish every bit of you, encouraging optimal functioning in all aspects of your being. Nettle influences hormones through its wealth of lipids (triglycerides, fatty acids, tocopherols, sterols, galactosyl-diglycerides) and restores health to the cardiovascular system burdened with cardiac edema and venous insufficiency.
* Create strong, flexible bones
Nettle infusions, vinegars, and soups are fantastic sources of calcium, magnesium, potassium, silicon, boron, and zinc: the strong bone sisters. Nettles are also a source of vitamin D, a crucial nutrient for flexible, healthy bones.
* Stabilize blood sugar
Rich in chromium, manganese, and other nutrients restorative to glandular functioning, nettles, I suspect, help prevent adult-onset diabetes.
* Reduce fatigue and exhaustion; improve stamina
Nettles nourish your energy at the deepest possible levels with intense supplies of iron, chlorophyll, and copper.
* Reduce and eliminate headaches
* Nourish and support the immune system, prevent cancer
* Nourish and heal the digestive system
* Nourish and strengthen the nervous system
Nettles are an optimum source of the vitamins critically important for health: vitamin B complex (especially thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin), carotenes (vitamin A), and vitamin C (ascorbates and bioflavonoids).
Enjoy cooked nettle greens all spring, but be sure to harvest and dry enough for winter-time infusions, too. I pick nettles only before they flower. Fresh leaves steeped in olive oil impart a rich taste and innumerable healing qualities to the oil. Nettles make a great vinegar, too.
Dosage:
Infusion of dried herb, 1-4 cups/250-1000 ml, a day.
CAUTION: Do not use flowering nettle for food or medicine.
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Vibrant, passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation for her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on health and nutrition. She challenges conventional medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic knowledge of herbal medicine. Unabashedly pro-woman, her animated and enthusiastic lectures are engaging and often profoundly provocative.
Susun is one of America's best-known authorities on herbal medicine and natural approaches to women's health. Her four best-selling books are recommended by expert herbalists and well-known physicians and are used and cherished by millions of women around the world. Learn more at www.susunweed.com