Have you ever found yourself browsing an online shop or cruising a shelf at your favorite herb store wondering . . . which one?
Which herb is right for me? One-thousand milligrams of this, or 50 grams of that? Do I really need the extra potency?
Should I go with capsules over tincture?
With so many choices, it’s easy to get confused about which herbs are right for you.
But one important question you should ask is, “Should I use the whole herb or the herbal extract?”
Comments by Tom Mower Public Post Facebook
“Herbs are absorbable to varying degrees. Curcuminoids from Tumeric have a low degree of absorption.
However Piper nigrum from black pepper increases it significantly and Sichuan pepper even more so.
This illustrates the difficulty. Inorganic minerals have only about a 3% absorption rate but chelate them with an organic and it can go upwards, depending on the organic component to as much as 97%.
Resveratrol from grape skin is a good example of easy absorption. It is so easily absorbed, even transmucosally. It goes unimpeded across the blood brain barrier too.
Herbs have power according to what it is and what concentration of actives it contains of course. By taking concentrated extracts from herbs or plants or even animals, there can be tremendous power often especially if other synergistic ingredients are also part of it.
Myself I see value in Herbs but think they should be maximized by synergistic ingredients.
HOWEVER, I do not use them generally but rather take a highly concentrated extract in order to maximize the power and effectiveness.
Many of the extracts I use are from 85-99% pure.
In short, if someone cares enough to research, they can find ways to make absorption rates increase significantly in most products but crude herbs have low level actives generally.
This is why you may not get the bang for the buck because to use other ingredients to make it more so, would result in lots of product to take. That is why the Chinese made so many decoctions in their formularies.”
Last Updated on March 27, 2023 by Katie Sisel Distributor
