From
"lucylupus":
could rooibos help lupus pains like yerba mate did ?
is rooibos in your book ?
in 7 years of yerba mate in the morning i never even needed 1 aspirin .
10 days without yerba mate the pain is draining me away.
i am so grateful to ask you this right now.
Hi Lucy!
I am so sorry you have lupus. I don't know why you find that yerba mate helps it, I have not seen any studies on that. They have not been done.
Perhaps antioxidants from the tea have an antiinflammatory effect? I don't know! That is just a wild guess on my part.
The only concern about yerba mate, is that there is some association of people who drink it for a long time, and esophogeal and digestive tract cancers. This is controversial, but it is something to certainly consider. Do keep getting regular check ups and tell the Dr. about that possibility of a link to cancer, so they can make sure you are OK in the that regard.
The caffeine that is in yerba mate is not a problem, despite what people may tell you. If you feel awful when withdrawing from yerba mate it may very well be caffeine withdrawal, which can feel very bad. Despite the problems with withrawal, regular, moderate caffeine intake is actually associated with several health benefits. Other caffienated drinks that also have a good dose of antioxidants are regular green or brown tea, and coffee. They might make you feel better, too.
I wish I had rooibos in my book, but I ran out of time before my publishing deadline! In the next edition I want to include more herbs, including rooibos or "red bush tea", since it has become so popular. But there are hardly any good scientific studies on it. The good news is that rooibos is not known to have any obvious negative effects, so you should have as much as you like. It has no caffeine, and since it is not made with the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) it is considered "herbal" tea. Rooibos does contain some good antioxidants.
For lupus, there is some evidence that taking flaxseeds might help, and also vegetables in the broccoli family: broccoli, cabbage, and brussel sprouts, that is. Both contain agents (lignans in flaxseeds and indole-3-carbinol in the cruciferous vegetables) that switch estrogen into a less active form of estrogen, and estrogen is thought to play a role in the symptoms of lupus. So some researchers theorize that flaxseeds and cruciferous vegetables in the diet might help people with lupus.
Good luck and I hope that helps!
