Showing posts with label traditional chinese medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traditional chinese medicine. Show all posts

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Ginseng - is this Your Cuppa Tea?

In fact, like many traditional remedies, it has been claimed to be a cure for almost everything. They believe that it relieves stress, improves circulation, increases quality of life, cures flu, cures impotence, and even that it can stop cancer. Ginseng is a plant with a very important role in traditional Chinese medicine.
It is one of the biggest-selling items at Chinese-run shops, sold both to Chinese people and believers in traditional medicine. Obviously, scientists are quick to point out that it is difficult to test whether ginseng actually has any effects at all in a scientific sense, but that doesn't stop it from being wildly popular.
This huge demand has led to problems with the supply of the more potent wild ginseng, as it is being harvested faster than it can grow back, meaning that ginseng users have recently had to rely more on farmed ginseng. Today, ginseng is grown not only in China, but also in many East Asian countries such as Korea and Vietnam, and in the United States and Canada.
Areas where scientific tests seem to indicate that it might make some difference include impotence and cancer, but nothing has been proven conclusively. The fact that two cultures discovered it separately without influencing each other makes it seem more likely that there could be some truth in the traditional claims about ginseng. Although ginseng is usually thought of as a Chinese remedy, the ginseng that grows in America was independently discovered by Native Americans, who also used it for its medicinal properties.
Ginseng isn't that expensive in small quantities, so if reading this has made you curious, why not give it a try? There are many ways to eat and drink ginseng: the most popular is tea, but it is also possible to make soups, put it in food, or even just eat the plant's leaves as it is.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Green Tea Acne Treatment

If you are looking for a healthy way to help keep your acne under control without resorting to the typical over-the-counter topical drugs that may cause more harm than good, green tea may be a treatment worth looking into. Green tea has long been a staple of traditional Chinese medicine, taken to treat ailments such as acne as well as to improve general health. It has become popular worldwide both for its taste and the many health benefits it provides.
Green tea is definitely a healthy beverage, but is it really effective at treating acne? The answer seems to be yes, although how effective it is may depend on the severity of your acne (and just how much green tea you are willing to drink). The main reason for green tea's effectiveness is due to the fact that green tea is extremely rich in antioxidants. Thus, by drinking plenty of green tea you help rid toxins from your body and maintain a healthy cell structure.
Besides fighting off bacteria, research has shown that green tea can help reduce redness and inflammation, and even deter hormonal activity. Thus green tea can both speed healing and help prevent acne, which is often caused by the activity of hormonal shifts.
For acne treatment, green tea may be taken as a drink, a pill (green tea extract), or in a topical cream. Also, simply placing a warm teabag on acne lesions can help draw out toxins and promote faster healing.
For more dramatic results, many regimens recommend as much as 8 glasses of For more dramatic results, many regimens recommend as much as 8 glasses of green tea each day will help a little, but if you plan to use green tea as a main factor in your fight against acne, you will need a higher dose. For more dramatic results, many regimens recommend as much as 8 glasses of green tea each day will help a little, but if you plan to use green tea as a main factor in your fight against acne, you will need a higher dose. For more dramatic results, many regimens recommend as much as 8 glasses of green tea each day will help a little, but if you plan to use green tea as a main factor in your fight against acne, you will need a higher dose. Drinking a glass of green tea each day will help a little, but if you plan to use green tea as a main factor in your fight against acne, you will need a higher dose.

Green tea with honeysuckle is known as "pimple tea" in many Chinatowns. By far the most popular method is simply drinking green tea.
Unfortunately, this approach does not typically work as well as simply drinking green tea due to the fact that the nutrients are much more easily absorbed as a liquid rather than a pill. Taken as a pill, green tea is similar to vitamins for acne that focus on detoxifying your skin through antioxidants.
According to a recent study reported to the American Academy of Dermatology, a topical cream with 3% green tea extract produced similar results to a solution containing 4% benzoyl peroxide. Thus, green tea appears to be very effective as a spot treatment as well, without causing the dryness and irritation that generally go along with benzoyl peroxide. However, I would still recommend drinking the tea over using a topical cream, since the benefits of the topical treatment are limited to only the applied area, and do not include hormonal effects that can help you actually avoid, or at least diminish the intensity of, future acne.

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