Is Ashwagandha the Super Herb - How much would you pay for an anti-cancer, anti-stress? You know happiness-inducing natural product?. Ashwagandha is an increasingly popular herb these days in the roughly 9 billion dollars US herbal supplement market.
This is how it looks grown in the field. You can currently find it in a variety of products, including lattes pills and even moisturizing creams, and recently my wife even bought a bottle of conditioner with ashwagandha in it.
It made me wonder, is this herb legit? Can it cure cancer and make my hair a little more voluminous?. It doesn't help that the current Definition of ashwagandha involves another fairly trendy but hard to define the term. Ashwagandha is an adaptogen, meaning, a super herb that supposedly helps the body adapt and deal better with stressors.
These products have not been regulated by the food and drug administration and there is no clear science yet on their effects, but they are popular amongst wellness Influencers and have a tradition spanning centuries. According to an Ayurvedic Physician Dr. Vrinda Mandhavan, Ashwagandha is a drug that uses as ayurvedic medicine.
History of Ashwagandha
The history of Ayurveda spans almost three thousand to five or five thousand years back. although the use of these herbs in India dates back thousands of years, the term adaptogen was coined much later in 1947. The original research on adaptogens starts in the late 1940s in the Soviet Union.
Basically, a soviet researcher, who was basically funded by the military, was trying to find a way to create better soldiers, better factory workers, and eventually, better cosmonauts. According to herbalists. Adaptogens are herbs that support and improve our body's ability to respond to stress internally.
So this is ashwagandha, it's really the root, that's the medicine, herbalists say ashwagandha and other adaptogens are supposed to work by targeting the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, commonly referred to as the HPA, this is our body's control board for managing stress.
It is basically acting like you're going to be under stress and it's a bit like a stress vaccine, And that's what adaptogens are doing for us, hey're, basically saying stress, is coming get ready, be prepared.
Expert opinion
Said American Herbalist Richard Mandelbaum RH, "I Sometimes refer to ashwagandha as a mesmerizer as a hypnotist, so if you picture yourself as a snake, that's a bit out of control, flailing right and who doesn't feel like that sometimes?. Ashwagandha is the snake charmer right ashwagandha is that snake charmer just to bring you back into the center?".
In 2020, there were twice as many studies published on ashwagandha in the national institute of health than in 2010, but that might be less telling than it seems.
Randi Epstein, MD. a Medical Writer. She said; "Just because something is in PubMed doesn't mean it's, this wonderful journal and it went through a peer-review process".
About the name of adaptogen, she is worried because you know that would be like calling your morning, coffee, or your weed or your double martini lunch and adaptogen because it just helps you take The edge off. So you know I mean honestly, we could call that, like I just need an adaptogen, a glass or two every night at dinner.
It's helping me adapt, I think it's it's a much more clever way of selling it, but I wasn't sure how it really helps you rebalance.
And it also seems quite confined to the alternative, medicine field. and also what I'll call fringe studies which are either group of people or small journals that I had not heard of before.
What's really impressive, is the business volume related to ashwagandha, mainstream sales of which rose by over 45% between 2018 and 2019, amounting to 10. 8 million dollars?.
I am not discounting that herbs or these powerless things, Herbs are potent, what's going on now, I think, is just the 21st-century version of what's been going on since hormones, since the word hormone was coined in 1905. Ever since that first discovery. That said, this is how hormones work. There have been people selling things to say, but take this and it'll keep you in balance,
And who doesn't want to be in balance these days, as the science is not there yet to find a definitive answer on the efficacy of this super herb, I decided to Ask the only question on which everyone seems to have a clear answer:
Will it help my hair? I have not seen any studies showing that ashwagandha has any benefit in shampoo, and I have not seen in any of the text that it can beautify the skin, or that it can do better to the scalp.
Read Also:
0 Comments