I've learned a bunch of odd things writing Herbs Demystified.
I can finally spell “hemorrhoids” without looking it up.
Half my readers assume I'm an ardent herb advocate who wants everyone to use herbs instead of traditional medications. The other half seem equally convinced that I disapprove of herbs and want to take them away from everyone. They are all wrong. It must be hard not to be able to categorize me. I'm just really interested in plant molecules.
Some supplements and herbs are contaminated with heavy metals, like mercury and lead. Some are contaminated with drugs. Consumerlab. Check them out.
There is a scientific journal called Colon.
Wild yams can grow up to 800 pounds. In traditional cultures they are given as gifts. You would remember getting one.
Uva ursi is an herb which can turn your urine greenish-brown.
I learned that the placebo effect can be amazing for certain conditions. Not for broken legs. But reading a study where menopausal women took soy isoflavones for hot flashes, I was amazed at how effective it was...oh no, wait. That was the placebo group. Lesson: Our minds are more powerful than we think.
Scientific articles can have funny names. Like, “Childhood Constipation. Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?” I think it depends on which end you are looking from.
At the Eccles Medical Library at the University of Utah Hospital, on the end of each journal-filled bookcase, there is a label describing which journals can be found alphabetically on each shelf, for example, from “Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica to Cancer Science,” and “Experimental Brain Research to Geriatrics”, for example. But on the last one, someone keeps crossing out the “to” and writing “on”.
Performing a web search on various phrases occasionally turns up a sponsored site which mechanically inserts your phrase into their text: “We hope you found __________!” So, when I searched on “diarrhea and bloody stools” this returned the eager phrase, “We hope you found diarrhea and bloody stools!”
Often my own web searches turn up my own website. But I know ahead of time that I don’t know the answer to my own question.
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