Where can I find unbiased information about various natural supplements?

Question

I would like to find the best available information

that I can about various natural and herbal supplements, ie: alternative medicines; health

supplements and their uses. I currently take

prescription meds for depression and anxiety,

which I have serious reservations about. Where

can I find information, not from a herbal supplements sales site. Researched information

that is not in the business of making money from the sales of the supplements. Thank you.

Answer 1

I have heard of great success stories of products made by a company called JBNI in WA State. Their website is jbni.us and they have a product for depression that my wife has recently started taking and it is called Leitzin. It is all natural and she seems to react well to it.

Answer 2

go to vitacost.com. you can search what your looking for such as "headache" type search it'll give you what will take care of the ailement and the info on the herb

Answer 3

You can go to most any of the sales companies like http://www.swansonvitamins.com http://www.vitacost.com or http://www.puritanspride.com to find out the basics of what each vitamin/herb/supplement do, but to find out more information that's not biased (like for sales), there are a few websites to check out:

http://www.herbmed.org/

http://www.pubmed.org/

http://www.aims.unc.edu/resources/knowle...

http://www.lef.org/

If you'd like to E-mail me, I can also try to help you with any questions you may have. Good luck!

Answer 4

Go speak with a herbalist. It will probably cost you, but at least you can be sure the information you're getting is accurate and not someones sum up of some article they found on the Internet. They can also direct you with dosages and possible causes of the depression and anxiety, which many times can be reduced or eliminated with changes to the diet.

Answer 5

A few articles:

Depression:

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/healthco...

http://ezinearticles.com/?Natural-Treatm...

Anxiety:

http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/conditio...

http://www.healthmad.com/Alternative/Nat...

Best of luck!

Answer 6

It's impossible to find unbiased info, really. The best you can do is to go through as much information as possible from both sides, taking into account their agenda and sources. Be sure to focus mainly on peer-review research journals, since these have rigorous standards to ensure that verifiable, reasonable material is published.

Answer 7

You can buy a copy of Prescription for Nutritional Healing by Balch and Balch, MD for about $25, which is extremely cheap in the scope of things.  Certainly it's cheaper than an appointment with an orthomolecular MD, which path you might want to follow as well.  Regarding anxiety and panic attacks:  First things to do is make sure you've removed ALL caffeine and sugar sources from your diet, including coffee, soda, chocolate, teas (including yerba mate and even green tea for awhile), and are eating enough protein EARLY in the day, like from breakfast onwards.  Believe it or not, vegetarianism and even worse, veganism, can really aggravate anxiety, depression and hypoglycaemia symptoms.  It's even worse if candida overgrowth is at the root of all your symptoms.  Some folks are EXTREMELY caffeine and sugar sensitive and really don't know this until they're off the offending foods for awhile.  Also add lots of lemon and chlorophyll to your diet. (Try using Kyogreen or other chlorophyll supplement, like liquid alfalfa (Alfalco) as this will deeply nourish your body, and cool your liver, which can be a huge cause of psychiatric symptoms such as you describe.  )Try drinking chamomile or linden (tilia) teas.  Other herbs to look at would include hops, passionflower, valerian, oatstraw, blue vervain, and many others.  You could try these as tinctures or infusions (teas).  For some folks teas as simple as Sleepytime (Celestial Seasonings) or Dream Time (Bigelow), before bedtime, will do the trick, and apple juice, lemonade and chamomile tea all mixed together and served w/ ice and mint is a DELICIOUS summer drink.  Added ginger ale is nice, too.  Try out some Bach Flower Rescue Remedy.  Add it to every bottle of water you drink, and sip on it all day.  I find it really takes the edge off anxiety and it works w/ my kids and pets, as well.  Herbalgram is an excellent publication out of Austin, TX, for all your research needs.  Consult Rosemary Gladstar, Kathi Keville, Susun Weed, Candace Cantin-Packard, Michael Moore, Michael Tierra, Christopher Hobbs, Earl Mindell, Balch and Balch (Prescription for Nutritional Healing, Prescription for Herbal Healing).  These are ALL very famous people in the US herbal community.  There are many others as well, and there's a HOST of European (especially English, Scotch and Irish) and Asian folks to read up on, too.