Herbal Information Specialists, excess sweating, food irradiation

By Jonathan Evans Herbal Information Specialist /Business Representative for the Herbarium Special to PRIME Hello readers, happy spring, such as it is. I recently became a certified Herbal Information Specialist (HIS). This is the only nationally recognized program of its kind. The HIS program is sponsored by the American Botanical Council and the Herb Research Foundation. The HIS course is designed to give the successful candidate a background in the legal and regulatory status of phytomedicines and familiarity with the regulatory agencies and their interaction with the herbal industry. The course also includes information on the 29 most common herbs in the market, their uses, contraindications, clinical studies results and safety information. To become certified, the student must complete five examinations covering all aspects of the herbs and regulations. This certification gives you, the customer the confidence that the information you receive is safe, accurate and up- to-date pertaining to your supplements. The education program is ongoing and must be renewed each year with another exam series. This is The Herbariums commitment to giving our customers the best information we can through a nationally recognized source. This month's reader's questions: Dear Jonathan, My daughter has the problem of excessive sweating; we have been to the Endocrinologist and still no improvement. Is there anything you can suggest to help her? Anne Dear Anne, One thing that I can recommend is an old remedy in Kathy's notes. We've suggested this many times over the years. Try drinking cold sage tea, two cups a day, and one cup in the morning and one cup in the evening for a month and see how she does. Update Anne came in three weeks later to get more sage. She said it has made a huge difference and was the only thing that helped her daughter. Dear Jonathan, I heard your show last week and you were talking about food irradiation. But I was in and out of the car, so I missed a great deal. What's the story? Bill Dear Bill, It is going to take me a bit to explain this and I will devote next months column to it, but in a nut shell, The Food and Drug Administration wants to relax the regulations on labeling of irradiated foods. It seems the Grocery industry feels the word "irradiated" has a negative connotation and it scares the average consumer. . They want to change the term to "pasteurized" and only label foods if irradiation changes its characteristics. [See June's Nature's Rx for a complete discussion of food irradiation] The average consumer is quite correct. Food irradiation is quite unnecessary, and can have great negative effect on the foods you consume. Check our website at www.theherbarium.com for more information, and the address of the FDA to make your feelings known. There is a ninety-day comment period and it is important that the consumer be heard. Please do not let the government and its friends try and pull the wool over your eyes. FDA acts on alternative therapies It was too late to include in this column, but the FDA and its friends are trying to limit access to supplements and alternative care, such as Chiropractic, Reiki and other therapies by changing definitions of certain words to make therapies a medical term. If this happens, a practitioner would be guilty of practicing medicine without a license. Again, check out our website for FDA action alerts at www.theherbarium.com I know this sounds a bit crazy, but it is really happening. Please send your questions on botanical remedies to Natures Rx : Jonathan Evans via e-mail at info@theherbarium.com, or by regular mail at The Herbarium, 264 Exchange Street, Chicopee, MA 01013.