A recent study looking at acupuncture’s effects on insomnia found that stimulating Ht7 increased melatonin output and improved sleep in people with insomnia. Interesting, melatonin also has protective effects on cancers such as breast cancer and it may have important ramifications for fertility, pregnancy, heart disease, and many other factors.

Minerva Med. 2008 Dec;99(6):539-47.

Researchers recently looked at Melissa officinalis and found that it inhibits degenerative changes caused by the herpes virus. Keep in mind herpes type 2 can infect anywhere in the body, not just the genitals. It can cause problems with fertility, neurological problems and be extremely uncomfortable, so it is important to treat infections quickly and take preventative measures.
 
Nat Prod Res. 2008 Nov;22(16):1433-1440.

Marijuana for nicer kids
Saturday, 06 September 2008

Ok, so this is just one study, but quite a surprise to me … I was researching negative effects of marijuanna on ovaries and came across a pretty interesting study done on Jamaican women who were heavy marijuana users. The short of it is that marijuana seems to greatly improve your experience of pregnancy and it gives your kids a stronger nervous system and better disposition. In the words of the researchers:

“Although marijuana use during pregnancy is discouraged in prenatal clinics and through government-sponsored prevention programs, the consumption of marijuana during pregnancy by Jamaican women is not necessarily indicative of a mother’s lack of concern about the health and development of her infant. Supported by the folk belief that marijuana has health-rendering properties and by the experience of relatives and neighbors, women use it as a vehicle for dealing with the difficult circumstances surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. For instance, 19 of the marijuana smokers in the sample reported that it increased their appetites throughout the prenatal period and / or relieved the nausea of pregnancy. Fifteen reported using it to relieve fatigue and provide rest during pregnancy. All the mothers considered the effects of marijuana on nausea and fatigue to be good for both themselves and their infants.”

The conclusion of the study demonstrated objective results:

“offspring of heavy-marijuana using mothers had significantly higher scores on the Orientation cluster, on the Autonomic Stability cluster, and on Reflexes (see Table 4). Due to the intercorrelation among the variables comprising each cluster, no t scores or P values are reported for individual items. Nevertheless, a comparison of individual item scores showed that neonates of heavy users had higher scores on habituation to auditory and tactile stimuli, and to animate auditory stimuli, the degree of alertness, capacity for consolability, irritability (ie, less irritable), and had fewer startles and tremors.” The comparisons on the supplementary items revealed significant differences on all seven variables, with the neonates of mothers who were heavy-marijuana users performing more optimally on these items.

Pediatrics, February 1994, Volume 93, Number 2, pp. 254-260.
American Academy of Pediatrics

From the Schools of Nursing, Education, and Public Health, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Received for publication Sep 21, 1992; accepted Jun 30, 1993.
Reprint requests to (M.D.) School of Nursing, the University of Massachusetts,
111 Arnold House, Amherst, MA 01003.
Pediatrics (ISSN 0031 4005). Copyright © 1994 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Prenatal Marijuana Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica:
An Ethnographic Study

Melanie C. Dreher, PhD; Kevin Nugent, PhD; and Rebekah Hudgins, MA

As we have previously reported, researchers have shown that marijuanna can significantly inhibit many types of cancers (though it is not good for liver cancer), and breast cancer is another one. Researchers in this study showed that THC modulates a transcription factor called JunD that inhibits breast cancer cell proliferation. Again, I want to emphasize that you should save the use of marijuanna for when you are older since it clearly is not so good for reproductive function … though it seems good once you are pregnant as we’ve reported earlier.

Oncogene. 2008 Aug 28;27(37):5033-44.