Ginger Treats Heavy Menstrual Bleeding

- By Sayer Ji, Founder - October 27, 2014

In the first study of its kind, ginger is found to be an effective treatment for heavy menstrual bleeding in young women.

Heavy menstrual bleeding (menorrhagia) is one of the most common gynecological problems in women, accounting for approximately 15% of all primary care consultations or outpatient referrals to hospitals, and is treated conventionally with a combination of the following interventions: iron supplements, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), oral contraceptives, oral progesterone and a progestin-containing hormonal IUD marketed as Mirena.

Most of these interventions have serious, if not also life-threatening side effects, and which is why safe, evidence-based, natural alternatives are sorely needed today.

Thankfully, research on botanical therapies is exploding today, and a recent study published in the journal Phytotherapy Research shows that ginger may in fact offer an excellent natural solution for this all too common condition in women.

Titled, "Effect of Ginger (Zingiber officinale) on Heavy Menstrual Bleeding: A Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Clinical Trial,"[i] the doubled-blind, placebo-controlled study enrolled 92 young women experiencing heavy menstrual bleeding and who were found free of the following exclusion criteria:

(a) having irregular menstrual cycles;

(b) being diagnosed with any gynecological diseases such as endometriosis, ovarian cysts, etc.;

(c) taking regular hormonal medications or NSAIDs;

(d) vaginal infection or pelvic inflammatory disease; and

(e) overweight/obesity ((BMI > 25) or underweight (BMI < 18.5).

The study subjects were evaluated for six consecutive menstrual cycles.  After an initial 3-week assessment period, the participants were randomly allocated into two study groups: one receiving 250 mg dried ginger capsules and the other receiving placebo capsules filled with lactose (milk sugar), for another 3-week period. 

The results were reported as follows:

"The level of menstrual blood loss dramatically declined during the three intervention cycles in ginger-receiving group. The decrease of blood loss in ginger-receiving group was significantly more remarkable than that of participants receiving placebo (p < 0.001). Minimum number of participants reported adverse effects."

The study concluded:

"Considering the results of our study, ginger can be known as a highly effective treatment in the reduction of menstrual blood loss and the promotion of the quality of life of young women. It is cheap, easy to use and have fewer side effects than other chemical medications and invasive approaches."

The truly remarkable thing about using ginger to alleviate heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) is that this food-grade herb has also been proven to reduce pain and inflammation – symptoms which often come along with a dysregulated menstrual cycle (i.e. dysmenorrhea).  Ginger therefore may 'free two birds with one hand.' Truly, this is the beauty of botanical therapies: they often have as many side benefits as synthetic drugs have side effects.  For example, take a look at the over 100 health benefits ginger has been proven to confer on our database: ginger health benefits. This is not to say they are without potential adverse effects; however, when using 'spices' and foods as alternatives to drugs, the risk of such reactions are significantly reduced. And who could really be afraid of taking a little ginger? 

Why We May Need Viruses More Than Vaccines

- By Sayer Ji, Founder - November 28th 2014

A groundbreaking study published this month in Nature challenges a century old assumption about the innate pathogenicity of these extremely small, self-replicating particles known as viruses. 

Titled, "An enteric virus can replace the beneficial function of commensal bacteria," researchers found that an "enteric RNA virus can replace the beneficial function of commensal bacteria in the intestine." Known as murine (mouse) noravirus (MNV), researchers found that infecting germ-free or antibiotic-treated mice infection with MNV "restored intestinal morphology and lymphocyte function without inducing overt inflammation and disease."

The researchers found:

"Importantly, MNV infection offset the deleterious effect of treatment with antibiotics in models of intestinal injury and pathogenic bacterial infection. These data indicate that eukaryotic viruses have the capacity to support intestinal homeostasis and shape mucosal immunity, similarly to commensal bacteria."

Despite the commonly held belief that viruses are vectors of morbidity and mortality that must be vaccinated against in order to save us from inevitable harm and death, the new study dovetails with a growing body of research showing that our own genome is 8% viral in origin.

Reporting on the new study, in an article well worth reading, the Science Daily states:

"The new findings are the first strong evidence that viruses in the gastrointestinal tract can help maintain health and heal a damaged gut."

They summarized the study's findings as follows:

"The team infected germ-free mice and antibiotic-treated mice with MNV and found that the infection triggered the repair of intestinal tissue damaged by inflammation, restored intestinal cell numbers, restored intestinal cell function, and normalized tissue architecture. The results were apparent after just 2 weeks of MNV infection.

Infection with MNV also helped restore the gut's immune system. The investigators do not yet know how the virus supports the immune system. They did find, however, increased signaling by antiviral type 1 interferon proteins, suggesting the virus was playing a key role in driving the immune response.

The investigators also documented a doubling of T-cell levels in the blood and detectable levels of antibodies in the gut and blood of antibiotic-treated mice after MNV infection. These measures were consistent with a normalization of the immune response. The authors conclude that viral infection of the gut may be helpful once antibiotic treatment has wiped out intestinal bacteria.

Treatment with MNV was also able to improve survival in antibiotic-treated mice receiving the damaging chemical dextran sodium sulphate."

As our knowledge of the critical role of microbes increases, a paradigm-shift is occurring in medicine that is only beginning to trickle down to clinical practice. If our very identity depends on 'germs' – e.g. the bacteria within our body account for 10 times more cells and 99% more genetic material that found in the human body itself – the discovery that the viruses in our body – the total number referred to as the virome – also perform indispensable functions in supporting and maintaining our health, turns on its head widely held assumptions about their role in contributing to human disease and various pathologies.

As reported in the Science Daily article, the senior investigator of the study Ken Cadwell, PhD, from New York University, states:

"We have known for a long time that people get infected all the time with viruses and bacteria, and they don't get sick." "Now we have scientific evidence that not every viral infection is bad, but may actually be beneficial to health, just as we know that many bacterial infections are good for maintaining health."

Consistent with the 'hygiene hypothesis,' natural infections during childhood and onward, may prime our immune system and help to balance the Th1 (innate) and Th2 (adaptive) poles of immunity, producing a healthy immune system as a result. Vaccines, by disrupting this evolutionarily determined balance, may be contributing to widespread immune dysregulation, both suppressing innate immune mechanisms as well as over-stimulating the adaptive pole, contributing to widespread autoimmunity in exposed populations.  

As science and molecular biology progresses and continues to reveal the inherent intelligence within the commensal relationship of the human body to the microbial universe, we are left with a crucial question: is the present-day globally orchestrated vaccine agenda really improving health, or does it belie a hubris that shirks the scientific evidence in favor of an agenda that wishes to exert control over the human body due to economic and socio-political agendas?

For additional research on why vaccines do not make sense evolutionarily, read our article on the topic: Why Vaccines Aren't Paleo and Vaccination Agenda: An Implicit Transhumanism / Dehumanism

Research: Bisphenol A (BPA) Causes 100x More Harm Than Previously Imagined

- By Sayer Ji, Founder - Saturday, December 6th 2014

A new study reveals just how profoundly mislead we are about Bisphenol A and its analogs: they are at least 100x more toxic than we previously imagined.

An alarming new study establishes that the commonly used chemical bisphenol A used in tens of thousands of consumer products, and its lesser known but increasingly prevalent analogs, bisphenol S and F, are several orders of magnitude more disruptive to the endocrine systems of the developing male human fetus than previous toxicological risk assessments were capable of determining.

The new study was published in the journal Fertility and Sterility and titled, "A new chapter in the bisphenol A story: bisphenol S and bisphenol F are not safe alternatives to this compound."

As we have documented extensively in the past, the authors of the new study raise concerns that as awareness of bisphenol A's clearly demonstrated toxicity grows and it loses favor within the marketplace, manufacturers are increasingly substituting it with chemically similar bisphenol compounds whose toxicities are less well characterized. As a result, consumers who conscientiously buy ostensibly 'BPA-free' products are being mislead into thinking they are bisphenol free and therefore safe.

The new study employed an innovative 'organotypic culture' system that took tissue samples from mouse, rat and human fetal testis, in order to create an experimental model that would accurately reproduce some of the dynamics observable within in vivo (living organism-based) systems that are not ascertainable within conventional in vitro (cell-based) models. They termed this experimental environment the fetal testis assay (FeTA) system.

Disturbingly, they found:

"With the use of a culture system that we developed (fetal testis assay [FeTA]), we previously showed that 10 nmol/L BPA reduces basal testosterone secretion of human fetal testis explants and that the susceptibility to BPA is at least 100-fold lower in rat and mouse fetal testes." [emphasis added]

In other word, the endocrine-disruptive effect of bisphenol A – particularly its ability to suppress the testosterone-mediated mascularization process during embryogenesis -- may be at least 100 times more toxic than previously believed.

How so?

Conventional toxicological risk assessments of novel new chemicals like bisphenol A are invariably performed on rodents, with effects (lethal dose 50%/LD50) extrapolated to humans based merely on body weight differences. What these do not account for is the contrasting ontological differences between cells of different species. Nor do these acute lethal response studies (LD50) account for the non-linear response between dose and effect (i.e. monotonicity). 

An accumulating body of scientific evidence has forced an acknowledgment today that the low-dose effects of chemicals on hormonal systems include the following counterintuitive response: a lower dose may have more profoundly disruptive effects on our hormonal system than higher doses.

This concept may be so counterintuitive, that it begs for deeper explanation. For instance, if chemical compound X at 1 milligram induces programmed cell death within an exposed cell, and .01 milligram of compound X induces a phenotypal change in the cell consistent with cancer, it will be the latter effect (the lower dose) that may be more detrimental in the long term, as cell death follows with stem-cell mediated replacement of the damaged differentiated cell; whereas chemically-induced carcinogenesis may result in the death of the entire organism).

Case in point:

"Using the FeTA system, we previously reported that basal testosterone secretion by human testes was not affected by 10,000 nmol/L DES, but it was reduced by concentrations as low as 10 nmol/L of BPA. Conversely, 10 nmol/L and 100 nmol/L BPA did not affect testosterone secretion by both mouse and rat testes, and 10,000 nmol/L BPA was needed to observe a significant reduction (58)."

The researchers also noted that during the development of the nascent male human in embryogenesis exposure to bisphenols in the 6.5th and 14th gestational weeks – the window known to be critical for what is known as the ''masculinization programming window' – these chemicals are likely contributing to the alarming worldwide increase in male reproductive disorders, such as such as "hypospadias [abnormally placed urinary hole], cryptorchidism [the absence of one or both of the testicles], incomplete development or agenesis of prostate and seminal vesicles, and reduction of the anogenital distance (AGD) [ the distance from the anus to the genitalia] and penis length."

Clearly, conventional toxicology, where the assumption is that a higher concentration of a toxic substance is linearly connected to a higher quantifiable adverse response, is no longer realistic. Living systems are highly dynamic and complex and one can never predict how a xenobiotic chemical will affect it. Any biologically incompatible chemical, introduced at a critically important developmental window, could result in untold adverse effects. The point is to eliminate unnecessary exposures, instead of abiding by what regulators consider 'an acceptable level of harm.'

Clearly, the time is now to call for a ban of bisphenol containing products. While 3.4 millions tons are produced annually, with 20% of this being used as epoxy resin to coat food and beverage metallic cans, we can no longer pretend, given the latest research, that this chemical is not causing massive damage to exposed populations. The researchers comment:

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a widely studied typical endocrine-disrupting chemical, and one of the major new issues is the safe replacement of this commonly used compound. Bisphenol S (BPS) and bisphenol F (BPF) are already or are planned to be used as BPA alternatives. With the use of a culture system that we developed (fetal testis assay [FeTA]), we previously showed that 10 nmol/L BPA reduces basal testosterone secretion of human fetal testis explants and that the susceptibility to BPA is at least 100-fold lower in rat and mouse fetal testes. Here, we show that addition of LH in the FeTA system considerably enhances BPA minimum effective concentration in mouse and human but not in rat fetal testes. Then, using the FeTA system without LH (the experimental conditions in which mouse and human fetal testes are most sensitive to BPA), we found that, as for BPA, 10 nmol/L BPS or BPF is sufficient to decrease basal testosterone secretion by human fetal testes with often nonmonotonic dose-response curves. In fetal mouse testes, the dose-response curves were mostly monotonic and the minimum effective concentrations were 1,000 nmol/L for BPA and BPF and 100 nmol/L for BPS. Finally, 10,000 nmol/L BPA, BPS, or BPF reduced Insl3 expression in cultured mouse fetal testes. This is the first report describing BPS and BPF adverse effects on a physiologic function in humans and rodents.

On a Brighter Note...

While chemicals like BPA represent a source of great harm, there is plenty of research revealing that we can mitigate and/or undo some of the damage associated with its ubiquitous exposure, when eliminating it all together is not an option. In line with our mission: Education Equal Empowerment, we have gathered up abstracts from the National Library of Medicine indicating the in-built resilience of biological systems to attenuate the adverse effects of these chemicals, such as: 

• Genistein: This phytocompound, found in physiologicallly significant concentrations in soy, red clover and coffee, is capable of reducing the adverse effect of bisphenol A exposure. Read Studies.
• Alpha Lipoic Acid: This compound commonly found in health food stores has been found to mitigate bisphenol A-induced testicular toxicity. Read Study.
• Probiotics: The beneficial bacterial strains Bifidobacterium breve and Lactobacillus casei reduce the intestinal absorption of bisphenol A. Read Study.
• Folic Acid: This vitamin (albeit synthetic; choose folate whenever possible), has been found to attenuate the adverse epigenetic effects of bisphenol A, such as hypomethylation of DNA. Read Study.
• Black Tea: This natural herbal compound reduces the adverse effects of bisphenol A on cells. Read Study.
• Kimchi Probiotics: A bacterial strain in this fermented cabbage extract has been found to degrade bisphenol A. Read Study.
• Royal Jelly: Produced by worker bees for the queen, this supernal elixir has been found also to inhibit the estrogenic and proliferative (potentially cancer-promoting) effects of bisphenol A. Read Study

Clearly, the best case scenario is avoiding exposure to bisphenols whenever possible. However, simply accepting a thermal receipt at a purchase, or consuming a meal whose ingredients derive from canned foods, makes avoidance a very difficult proposition. We hope that this research will foment a movement to pressure manufacturers and regulators to clamp down on the use of bisphenols.