Black cohosh, vitex, dong quai, and other herbs to help ease menopausal symptoms.   Black cohosh root (Actaea racemosa) a herb used in natural herbal medicine  to treat menopausal and pre-menstrual symptoms in women. Recently, a large hormone replacement therapy (HRT) study was abruptly halted because researchers found that women who took estrogen and progestin […]

Help soothe your child’s earaches with this herbal combination. A recent clinical study showed that an herbal oil formula was just as effective as conventional anesthetic ear drops in easing the paid of acute otitis media (ear infection) in children older than six. The herbal formula, a combination of garlic (Allium sativum), mullein (Verbascum spp.), […]

Healing oil between your toes instead of itching. Researchers have identified many plants with antifungal activity. This activity can be put to good use in treating fungal skin infections such as athlete’s foot, clinically called tinea pedis. Athlete’s foot is quite common and results in itching, redness, scaling, and vesicles on the skin, especially between […]

 Food, shade, flavoring, and a pillow for your head. This hard plant does more than flavor and preserve beer. Around the world and through the centuries, few plants have been used on the scale of hop (Humulus lupulus); it is arguably one of the most important agricultural herbs. Best known for its fruit, which preserves […]

 Headache and fever remedies DO grow on trees. While working with seedlings last March, I developed a definitive hangnail, one that sent jolts of agony up the top of my hand. Remembering a bruise remedy I’d used while camping, I hurried out to the woods near my house and picked a mess of wintergreen (Gaultheria […]

Many of the same herbs we use can also help our pets.  Randy Kidd, DVM  shares suggestions for pet eye health. From the perspective of a holistic practitioner, the eyes are much more than a functional mechanism that creates images on the brain. An animal’s eyes function as indicators of their inner health—collectively, they are […]

A little-known plant, found abundantly in Mongolia as well as North America, with a multitude of uses. In the space race of the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviets had an inside track to keeping their astronauts in the peak of health; oil of the sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides). Used as a vitamin supplement and as […]

Sumac. It is a weedy shrub that fills in neglected pastures and spreads into your yard. But if you haven’t done so, stop and taste the red fruits. There are twelve species of sumac native to the United States, 130 worldwide. All the actual sumacs, genus Rhus, have red fruits and are safe to eat. […]

Case study for topical and internal herbal treatments of skin conditions such as dermatitis. It is often said that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but what about the human “cover”, your skin? Doctors recognize many varieties of problems and diseases of the skin. Although we can visualize the skin (in contrast to, […]

Various species of rhubarb have been used as medicines. The garden rhubarb we eat is a hybrid of murky origin. Other species are grown as attractive perennials.