Life Saving Supplement + Maitake Mushrooms

Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Hello, everyone. I'm back and we're going to talk about a lot today. Basically, we're going to talk about a lot. So I had a listener, I had a listener write in and ask about why I don't talk about a lot of the things that I'm doing in my life that I only talk about things that you can learn about. And I don't really have an answer for you. I thought about it, I'm like, I'm not sure. I guess I just get really excited about having you learn and myself learn about different types of herbs, plants, how to help your dog and things like that. But I, I guess I can mix a little bit of Rita Hogan into my podcast. I'm, I, obviously I accuse my partner of being emotionally stingy all the time and maybe I'm being emotionally stingy. So I'm going to, I'm going to do better. I'm going to share more. So I have a share. I recently went on a. It was three and a half weeks, like speaking and vacationing. I feel self care is super important. So I went up to the sequoias, the giant sequoias up in Sequoia National Park. It was glorious and just so healing and lovely. And even though the air is much thinner up there, it's in California at like, I think it's at like 7,000ft or 6,000ft or something like that. Even though the air is thinner up there, I felt like I just got so much more of it. So it was just really beautiful. I'm going to share some pictures on my Facebook page of the sequoias. I'm going to try to do that sometime. Today we are gearing towards my favorite holiday of the year, which is October 31st. Love, love, love Halloween. The way it represents kind of moving into fall and into the wintertime, into the downtime, into the dark. I love that. And I, on my vacation, I also visited Yosemite. This was my second time in Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. The national parks are such a beautiful thing to revere and be with. And I, I would, I would probably give a lot of myself to ensure that they, you know, they remain for eternity because they've been here so much longer than we have and the Resiliency of the plants in that. In those parks are. Is just phenomenal. So I really recommend going to see those parks if you can. If you can make the time, you can do it on the cheap and you can also do it more high end. It just depends on how you want to experience these parks. We definitely did it on the cheap. We camped, brought Figgy Nubbins, my little black pug and just had a fabulous time camping. Before we went to Yosemite, we I was speaking at the thriving pet expo. This is the second time I've spoken at the thriving pet expo. It's Thriving Pet expo dot com. I don't know when the next one's going to be, but what a great event. I mean, just a phenomenal event. It was me, Billy Hokum of Green juju, Katie Kangas, Dr. Katie Woodley, Dr. Barry Sands and Dr. Odette Souter. And the two crazy cat ladies, Jay and Adrienne. We had such a blast. It was so wonderful. All the people that were attending were just phenomenal. Learned so much from my colleagues talks. I hope someone learned something from mine. I spoke on the lymphatic system and I really had a blast doing it. And then, like I said, we went on a vacation and then came back to spend the last day of my vacation before we drove back. We drove from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California. So we were driving back on the coastal highway, which was gorgeous. Very time consuming, but gorgeous. And we went. My friend Carrie and I went to the Feeding Real Dog Summit or Feed Real Dog Summit, where I listened to so many great speakers, including Rodney Habib, speak about dog health. It was strange being just a, you know, a participant, but I absolutely loved it. You know, a lot of people are like, are you going to speak today? Are you going to speak today? Are you going to speak today? And it was really refreshing. Just saying, you know, I'm not. I am going to sit here and listen and learn from my colleagues and what colleagues they were. So just like the thriving pet expo, just wonderful speakers. We had Rodney Habib, he did the keynote speech. We'll talk about that in a minute. Dr. Ruth Roberts, who I have wanted to meet for a very long time. Angela Ardellino, who is at CBD Dog Health, she did a really fun, excellent talk on mushrooms and cannabis. And Kay Stewart of the Freed Real Institute. Wonderful. And then Amy Renz. Amy Renz is from her. Oh, God. You know, I actually had never heard of Amy. I heard of Amy, but I had never met Amy. And I. She's from Goodness Gracious. So that is a, like a. It's a human grade dog food for pets. And I, I heard of Amy, but I had never met Amy and I didn't know much about her. And I really, really enjoyed her Talk along with Dr. Ruth and Angela and Kay. It was a really great day. It was a single day. The thriving pet expo was two days and so it was a single day. It was really packed of just really wonderful information and lots of fun. Rodney Habib of the Forever Dog was the keynote speaker. He was super fun, had a really great time listening to him. I attended the cocktail hour afterwards and met a lot of people that I have heard about but, you know, didn't meet in person. So I had a lot of fun meeting people. I was super, super, super tired during that day. So I, I don't know. I can't be held responsible for my actions, I don't think. I, I can't even barely remember because I was so tired from camping and just being gone for three and a half weeks. It was just a wonderful vacation. But you know, when you come off of Yosemite national park and go to an intensive talk kind of based expo, you know, you gotta keep your brain cells together, right? I was like, oh my God, what am I doing? What have I done? What have I done to myself? But I ended up having such a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time. And the cool thing is, is that this is just something fun. When I was there, I was talking to the lovely PJ Broadfoot who was on the speaker panel. And PJ is just, she's a hero of mine. Dr. PJ Broadfoot, if any of you have the pleasure of working with her, she is phenomenal and just a wealth of knowledge and a lovely human being. She was on the speaker panel and I was talking to her and this was like the question and answer panel. There were other speakers on the question and answer panel and I'll tell you about them in a minute. But talking to PJ about a dog with osteosarcoma and someone grabbed me from behind, you know, with my like, with their hands around my eye and stuff, I'm like, who's that? Who's that? It was Rodney. And the cool thing is Rodney told me that I was one of his heroes and that he was so excited to get to meet me at the feed reel summit, which I was like, what? What? Yeah, right back at you, Rodney. Kind of crazy, but he is just, just such a nice, cool guy and his brain is always on and I know exactly how that feels. Rodney and I definitely have probably have to work hard at finding our namaste. Okay. I definitely have to work hard at relaxation and different relaxation techniques to shut the brain down. But the speaker panel. So it was PJ Broadfoot, Dr. Katie Kangas, who was at the thriving pet expo. Rachel Frissaro, who I've always wanted to meet, lovely, lovely, lovely human being, did a great job at speaking. She really engaged the audience, which I love, love, love. And the lovely Kimberly Gaultier. She is keep the Tail Wagon blog. She is a blogger. Rachel has a YouTube channel. PJ is a veterinarian and Katie Kangas is ultra veterinarian. Kimberly had also had a great talk. PJ had wonderful things to say and Katie Kangas had wonderful things to say, especially about dental health. So really great discussion panel, had a fabulous time and then I went home and started driving back the next day with my partner and my puppy and had a really great time. Took us about three and a half days to get back, got lost a few times, went to a Danish city called Slavang and got our Danish on. My partner Heather is Danish, has Danish citizenship along with American citizenship. And so spending the half day in this little Danish town in California was a blast. And we got to spend some an overnight with the lovely Becky Kebler, who is someone I met through the thriving pet expo and Facebook and has become a dear friend of mine. And just wonderful, wonderful human being. She had a really cool house and wonderful little dogs that she rescued from the Chinese meat trade. She has done a lot of work with that and just phenomenal, phenomenal human being. So a little about what I have done. That is what has been going on in the last few weeks of my life. I am definitely back to work, back to work, working on getting my level one herbalism course out, working on my tick course, getting some of my courses out, out, out. I found out from my publisher my book is not going to be out when I thought it was going to be out. So I'm just patiently waiting on my first edits and that will my book will come out when it's ready and when it's the right time. So going into winter and fall, getting our garden I weeded yesterday, getting our garden set up for winter and everything around my property set up for winter in the Pacific Northwest. It rains a lot here, so just getting everything ready so it doesn't mold and stuff like that. Okay. So one thing I want to share with you that happened on my vacation has to do with one of our sponsors Adored Beast Apothecary. And this was a phenomenal example of just how wonderful some of these products are. Actually, all of these products from Adored Beast are. So my pug, Figgy Nubbins, she. Or Fig Nub. Figgy Nubby, you know, Fig Newton, whatever you want to call her, she went with us. And Figgy last year got attacked by a bulldog, and she lost her eye. And her nervous system has been kind of on edge now. She's been doing really, really well and has made a recovery. However, her nervous system still needs some work. And we saw this on our vacation. So I was staying with my friend Carrie, and Carrie has this lovely dog boarding place in Tustin or Newport Beach, California, called the Spa. And we went over to check it out and it was beautiful. And there's a cat section, which is across the parking lot. And then there's the dog section with the grooming and everything like that. Well, we went into the kind of reception area and just beautiful store. She sells a lot of great products there. And Figgy. Figgy's tail went down when she went in the reception area. She didn't like it. You know, she. Her peripheral vision isn't the best anymore. And so anything on her right side she has a hard time with. And so she had her tail down. But then she was getting some treats, so it came up. But we saw definitely a change in behavior. And we were going to take a little tour of it because Figgy was going to stay here with Carrie's other two dogs in a special, like, glass room, soundproof room, while we were at the thriving pet expo. So we went, Figgy was on a leash, and we went through the door and there was grooming going on. And I was talking to this little chubby dog that obviously needed a major weight loss program. And there were dogs getting bathed. And I looked down at Figgy and I noticed that she looked like she was rolling in someone's scent, right? And I'm like, oh, Figgy, don't do that. And then I noticed it was a little off, and it started getting more kind of violent. And. And then I realized she was having a seizure. And I was like, oh, my God. Well, my partner noticed it way before I did. She noticed it because her bulldog had had seizures before. Her bulldog that had passed away had seizures. And she noticed it right away what kind of seizure it was, and grabbed Figgy, ran out in the reception room and held her. Cause Figgy's only 12 pounds, so she's tiny. Held her while she's did it. And she was talking to her and I ran out behind her. This all happened within seconds. And I said to Carrie, I said, carrie, do you have any adored beast go to? And Carrie said, yes, I do. I said, grab it. We tore open the box. I tore open off the secure wrap and I squirted it three times in Figgy's mouth. And her seizure stopped within about five, five seconds. Five to 10 seconds maybe. And we brought her out into the parking lot and we were gonna bring her to the vet. By the time we got to the end of the parking lot, her tail was up and she was fine. Her tongue wasn't purple anymore. It started returning to color and I was like, oh my God. And the go to is a mixture of arnica and aconite. And aconite is definitely for fear. And she had a fear based seizure. She just overloaded. And when I got to the thriving pet expo, I talked to Dr. Katie Kangas, I talked to Barry Sands, I talked to Odette about the seizure. And Dr. Katie Woodley kind of had a powwow, individual powwow. But they all agreed that it had been a stress seizure. So she didn't have any more seizures. And now I kept the go to on me all the time. But as soon as we got her out of there, we brought her back to my friend Carrie's house with which has her dog there. And Vicki was fine at her house. So we left her at the house. We went back and checked on her. My partner was gracious enough to go back and check on her every four hours when we were at the expo. It wasn't that far, but she did have a seizure and she hasn't had one since. So we're going to keep an eye on her, but I don't think she's going to have another one. We just know that we have some work to do on the nervous system. It was definitely a fear based seizure. So I'm so thankful of your go to. That's the product's name of having that. And I'm not saying it's going to work for other seizures, but it's definitely going to work for seizures based. Well, has a great potential to work for seizures based on fear. I wanted to share that with you. Look at me not being emotionally stingy, right? I am rocking it. We are gonna talk about maitake mushroom today. Yay. Maitake mushroom is one of my faves. I love maitake mushroom. I have taken maitake mushroom. I definitely have felt the health benefits of maitake mushroom. Our sponsor realmushrooms.com is going to herd it through the grapevine, start carrying Maitake mushroom in bulk, which I'm super excited about. Maitake mushroom is a medicinal mushroom. It's also called like hen of the woods. That's one of its common names. Maitake again is a common name. Its Latin name is Grifola frondosa. Always know your Latin name so you know you're getting the right product. You want to make sure that you're looking for a fruiting body of Maitake. And yes, the mycelium do have some health benefits for sure. But you want clean mycelium, not just ground up grain that in, you know, disguising itself as mycelium. So want to be careful there. I would just focus on the fruiting body for now. I haven't really found a good mycelium based product that I agree with for Maitake at this point and of course you don't have to agree with me either but you can mix it but definitely give the fruiting body and you could also then give a mycelia product as well. So yeah, Hen of the woods, some people call it sheep's head cloud mushroom. Definitely called cloud mushroom a lot. It does look like a cloud. Okay. There are some other common names but those are like a few of them for sure. I'm going to be doing a Maitake mushroom monograph that's kind of like an herb or mushrooms resume in my monthly monographs on canine herbalism.com you can check that out. This month is chamomile. Next month is going to be Maitake. So I'll go into like lots of detail when it comes to Maitake. Just going to go over it today, give you a little introduction. I don't think I've talked about, talked about Maitake all that much. It's been around forever. You know, way, way back you can find medicinal text talking about it. I mean we're talking like 100 A.D, 200 A.D. that is old. But mushrooms have been here way before we have. Right, way before we have. So. But the medicinal use has been documented way back then. Okay. And I love using metake for myself. It helps regulate blood pressure. It's definitely helps bring down estrogen in the body if you have high estrogen. I had an estrogen based cancer and I definitely Maitake is one of the ways that I do preventative healing for myself. I do it intensely a few times a year and I also take it regularly but I take large amounts of it a few times a year with a few of other things that I use to prevent a cancer reoccurrence. Maitake is really great for the immune system and so are, well, all the other mushrooms that I've introduced you to. But they are, you know, mushrooms are beautiful and they're full of beta glucans and wonderful polysaccharides. And those things can help support your, your dog's immune system and definitely modulate and improve overall immune function. One of the things that maitake has, it, a constituent of maitake is this thing called defraction. And this increases these little constituents called lifokines and interleukins and those definitely affect the immune system in a very good, wonderful, loving way. And the defraction constituent has been researched a lot and there's lots of research on its anti tumor effects and how it's anti cancer. Women use it for breast cancer. You can use it for mammary cancer in dogs. I definitely, there's just a ton of research there for, for the defraction. But, but as you know, I'm not one to talk about just the individual constituents because we have synergy and we have lots more than just defraction in this mushroom. Okay. Another thing that maitake is known for is its heart benefits. It's definitely a heart healthy mushroom. It has a neutral to warming, I'm sorry, neutral to cooling. Energetic and kind of like turkey tail. And it helps reduce cholesterol, it helps improve veins and arteries, and it helps basically, you know, lower the risk of heart disease and heart related issues. So it's definitely a heart mushroom. And I used it to help with blood pressure when I was stressed and it definitely worked. And also blood pressure, when it's super humid and super hot out, my blood pressure goes up and I use maitake during the summer months. One other thing that I love about maitake and this is just human stuff, little gifts for you guys, but can be, you know, can help dogs that are overweight is balancing blood sugar. So maitake is good for helping lower blood glucose levels and it helps with metabolic syndrome and reducing insulin resistance. One of the talks at the feed reel summit, they were talking about metabolic syndrome and I immediately thought about maitake mushroom. It's definitely, it definitely can help manage those types of symptoms and obesity and fat around the middle and things like that. So it, I would definitely say it's a supportive mushroom and it's a healthy mushroom. It has a lot of good constituents. Some are like again, polysaccharides, beta glucans, antioxidants, potassium. If they're exposed to sunshine Vitamin D and it's good fiber and it's good prebiotic for the microbiome. So it's very nourishing. It's extremely nourishing. Maitake mushrooms in the wild need to be ethically wildcrafted because they can be. They are on the kind of in review for being endangered. So you can use them wild crafted, ethically wildcrafted and also cultivated. And even though cultivated mushrooms overall, like herbs don't, you know, have the total medicinal component, like ferocity that wildcraft mushrooms do. But we want to save our wild mushrooms from being over harvested. So if you do harvest, do not harvest all of them. Okay? They can, they can weigh up to like £80. So just take some, but don't take all. Okay? You want to pick sustainably if you know of a good source of Maitake. Let's see what else do we want to say about Maitake in my monograph? I'm going to have this, you know, all arranged in a lot more than this, but kind of like, what do I want to tell you? Maitake makes a great addition to food, you know, like risottos and different types of eating. And you can make lovely food for your dog as well. There is this woman on Facebook that I recently met at the thriving pet expo. Her name's Victoria and she makes the most beautiful food for her dog. I mean, it blows me away almost every time I see what she posts on Facebook that she's giving her a dog. I'm like, hi, can you come and make food for me, please? I want her to make a cookbook. I'm pressuring her. Every time I see her, I'm secretly going, cookbook, cookbook. Not secret, really. I mean, I saw her at the feed reel summit as well and I'm like, listen, Victoria, you need to make the cookbook. Oh my God. Just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful food. I would love it to be her dog. And so would Figgy Nubbins. Figgy Nubbins would be like, yeah, I'm gonna be her dog. She cooks for me in the most loving way. So kudos to you, Victoria and Maitake, you know, definitely could be part of those recipes. So some more. Maitake is definitely what the mushroom is called in Japan. Just a little facts on file there. Nothing too, you know, life altering. But it's good to know, right? And like I said, it can really help dogs that are obese or dogs that have heart issues. It's definitely a heart mushroom. You know, dogs that have a hard time losing weight, this. People that have a Hard time using weight and overall supports. Okay. It's a lot. To me, it's a lot like, kind of like reishi mushroom. In fact, it's combined with like, reishi and turkey tail and maitake are really good, like, combination for mammary cancer or breast cancer in people. That's a really good one. And I've seen that combination quite a bit. And it also. Maitake definitely is antiviral. Okay. It's antiviral. And it modulates and strengthens the immune system, which I've said before, it's good for diarrhea. For dogs that can have diarrhea, it can be a part of that. I like to mix it with BlackBerry leaf. It's good for mobility issues. You can mix it with different. Other different mushrooms. Kind of like shiitake is a good one to mix for mobility. The maitake and shiitake mixture for that. One of the reasons why I think it works well for mobility is that it helps with strengthening the kidney and the liver. And whenever you strengthen the kidneys, you really strengthen the musculoskeletal system. It can be used for incontinence for certain dogs. It can be used as a lymphatic to get rid of water in the body. Accumulation of moisture is definitely good for accumulation of moisture. So dampness. And for humans, I've seen it work well for hemorrhoids, which is another dampness issue. And in the liver system, it really helps bring down free radicals and oxidative stress, which in turn helps with longevity of both people and dogs. So in traditional Chinese medicine, the taste of maitake is sweet. And it helps with the lungs, the kidneys, the large intestine, which is connected to the lungs and ear infections, kind of. It does. Definitely has a systemic reach. And it's little more on the drying side. It definitely brings down dampness and it helps clear heat. So that's something to keep in mind with maitake. The constituents we discuss, polysaccharides, beta glucans, the D factor. It also has enzymes in it, basically digestive enzymes like amylase. And it has lectins in it. Not high in the lectin department, but it has a small amount of lectins. It has these things called essential amino acids, which you should. You know, most of us are familiar with, but some people are not. It has alanine, threonanine, which I'm sure I'm destroying the name of the pronunciation of that, and glutamine. It's high in B vitamins, especially B1 and B2 again. Potassium, phosphorus and magnesium. I love mushrooms. Did I tell you that? I mean, I don't know. Plants just amaze me every single day with all the things that they contain. And when you put them in your dog's diet, you need to look at their constituents and what they have so you know what minerals and that you are upping in their diet. This will help you balance their diet. You know, you, you don't want to give too much of this and too much of that. I'm not crazy on the whole, like balance to a T because usually that's on paper anyways. But you want to be aware of the constituents of, of any supplement or any herb that you are giving to your dog consistently. Okay. Consistently is. Consistency is the jam, right? Definitely the jam of what you need to look at because consistency is where it is, not something you're giving as a one off. You don't need to worry about that. I'm just trying to think of anything else. My Taki, where do you get maitake? Okay, well, I am going to be looking@realmushrooms.com soon for Maitake, but right now I order my maitake from some herbalist as a double extraction. And I also use Nootropics Depot. N O O Tropic T R O p I c S-E-P-O-T.com they make a great fruiting body hot water extracted maitake mushroom and I've had good luck with it. It has no fillers so I use that one too. So that's some place that you can get maitake. Right now there's other, you know, just make sure you're getting a hot water extract or the whole maitake mushrooms which you're going to simmer on the stove for at least, least 45 minutes if you use that. And I did a short this week on making reishi mushroom dual extraction. And you can do maitake the same way. So check that out in next month's monograph@canineherbalism.com I'll go into maitake a lot more in depth, but we have limited time here. I do want to say that you can use maitake as a capsule. You can use it as a food, an infusion, a powder powder, a tincture, a decoction that's of the maitakes themselves. And you know, maitake is overall very detoxifying. Again looking at the liver and the kidneys. But it's an adaptogen. Mushrooms are an adaptogen. They help the stress of the body. And maitake is also a known Antifungal, it's anti tumor, antibacterial antiviral. Definitely helps protect the liver. It helps with insulin resistance, hypoglycemia. It modulates and strengthens the immune system, like I said before, and it's very nutritious, so. And it does have a sweet taste, and I really love that. How much of it should you take for humans? You know, you can take a cup of it twice a day as a decoction for like a powder. You want to take quite a bit of it if you're using it for something serious. So like a golden retriever. I'd probably have that golden retriever on probably 3 to 6 grams a day, divided in two. A tincture, probably 2 to 4 mils twice a day. Looking at a golden retriever for something serious, for support, you can cut that by a quarter or a half. And there is no, like, you don't need to worry about a toxic dose of this mushroom, but, you know, you want the stomach to be able to stand it. And I definitely don't give mushrooms with food. I give them away from food or just the tiniest bit of food, but I try to give them away from food. One of the things that you need to look at for mushrooms in general is do you know, is there any safety precautions when taking maitake? And there's not a lot of potential side effects. Definitely. With mushrooms in general, nausea can be an issue. All right. You want to make sure that you have a good, clean mushroom source. All right, that's important. And, you know, always be careful if dogs are pregnant or if people are pregnant or breastfeeding. That's always a precaution for anything because there's so many unknowns out there. And you know, maitake mushrooms benefit blood sugar levels. So you want to. Anytime you're going to be doing surgery, you want to discontinue mushrooms or herbs. For the most part, milk thistle's okay, but again, there's lots of unknowns, so you don't want to mess with that. But you can take it, you know, a few days after surgery. I would stop it about at least a week to two weeks before surgery. I'm thinking about any other kind of precautions. I know that, you know, because of the issue with the blood sugar, you'd want to not give it along with other, like diabetic medications. You know, you want to check with your doctor on that. Also giving it with kind of any anti hypertensive drugs might be an issue. So make sure you talk to your veterinarian or doctor. About that, don't give it with Coumadin Morphorin. It definitely could increase the chance of bleeding. So you want to be careful with that. I mean not a lot of dogs are on on blood thinners. But you know, if your dog is on blood thinners, make sure that you are very mindful of your supplementation in general, not just with Maitake mushroom. Okay. And just, you know, watch the blood pressure. If your dog has fluctuating blood pressure, you want to make sure that their blood pressure is okay while they take Maitake mushrooms. So again, not a lot of side effects, not a lot of things to be concerned about for sure. But I love Maitake mushroom and it is such a systemic, overall gentle and far reaching mushroom. And you know, I definitely use it for those dogs that are intolerant of Reishi mushroom. It has a very good effect on the lungs. So it's an alternative to dog dogs that cannot deal with the heat of cordyceps. And so, you know, I don't want to call it an alternative mushroom, but it is for definitely use this instead of that under this circumstance. If you have any questions, you can write into the podcast@canineherbalist.com you can leave a voicemail, record it with a voice memo with your phone, send it into the podcast, you can send it into canine herbalistmail.com if you want to. Just send a voicemail and pretty soon we are going to have a P.O. box for the podcast. A lot of people like to send me products that I can review and you can send those to the P.O. box. I will have that in the next couple weeks, so I will let you know in the podcast notes. I definitely hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com, click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals Podcast and I'm going to talk to you in our next episode. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian, or healthcare provider first before starting anything new, and that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. 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