If any of us have told you to consume more foods that are high on the ORAC index (high in antioxidants), know that culinary herbs and spices are among the highest. Even more than regular vegetables and fruits. So I decided to geek out and put all of the indexed culinary herbs on a spreadsheet to graph out for you. Keep in mind that all fresh herbs are good but note which ones are the highest. I personally like to get my fresh organic herbs from the farmers markets. One of my favorite farms that I don’t get to often because they are only at the Santa Monica market here in LA is Coleman Family Farms. Brandon and I visited their farm years ago and their herbs truly have a lot of… “Qi.” But there are a few stands at the Hollywood market that has excellent herbs as well. Even better would be if you grow them yourself! I always put a ton of fresh herbs in my salads either mixed in with the lettuce or incorporated into a dressing (perhaps a non-dairy green goddess?). I also like to make pesto and pistou with an assortment of fresh herbs. I don’t recommend cooking fresh herbs too much as that will inactivate some of the antioxidant activity. 
 

In a new study in a journal that is considered to be THE authoritative word in Western medicine, Chinese medicine was shown to be superior to conventional treatments for endometriosis. This study reviewed all of the available literature on the subject matter. The study found that Chinese herbal medicine had both better treatment efficacy and fewer side effects than the conventional treatments.
 
Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2009 Jul 8;(3)

If you just can’t do any more sit-ups but you still want to trim that waistline, acupuncture might be able to help. In this study, acupuncture was shown to be more effective than sit-ups in reducing weight and waist circumference.
 
Int J Obes (Lond). 2005 Nov;29(11):1379-84

If you’ve been to one of our seminars on improving ovarian function, we frequenty recommend various vegetables and juices and we often incorporate carrots. There are many reasons for this, but in this study they showed that a vitamin A deficiency can prevent your eggs from maturing properly. Now if you plan on eating tons of carrots, keep in mind that carrots don’t directly supply much vitamin A, you have to be able to convert the b-carotene to vitamin A. If you directly take a vitamin A supplement, it’s easy to get poisoned in which case you end up damaging your reproduction among other things. So this is where we not only stress diet, but also improving absorption and metabolism and this is one of the places where acupuncture can be extremely useful.
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Biol Reprod. 2009 Jul 8.

A new study published in Fertility and Sterility found an increased risk of ovarian cancer associated with some medications commonly used in IVF and IUI (especially hCG and Clomid). The study followed women over 30 years, having undergone these procedures in the 1960’s and 70’s. One should note that the techniques and drugs used today are not all the same, so the current risk is relatively unknown.
 
A number of years ago, a patient in her early 30’s came to us after having undergone multiple failed IVF cycles with “unexplained infertility”. Fortunately, when she came to see us, she also went to her Family Medicine doctor who was concerned about her repeated hormonal exposure. The physician strongly encouraged her to get breast imaging studies done. They found breast cancer in a very early stage and immediately had it surgically removed. After that, she got pregnant (with another IVF cycle) and now has a lovely child and is in good health.
 
Everything in life is weighing benefits and risks. While many things have associated risks, it is prudent to mitigate the risk factors when possible. To help minimize the risks for our patients, our cancer specialist Steve Gomberg, developed prevention and detoxification regimens. These are evidence based methods (shown in clinical trials to help inhibit reproductive cancers), and are customized to the individual according to their history and physical findings.
 
Also, cancers don’t necessarily show up so quickly after exposure to initiating events. In this study they followed patients for 30 years. Therefore, if you have undergone conventional reproductive therapies in the past, it would be worthwhile to consider taking steps to minimize your risks.
 
Fertil Steril. 2009 Apr;91(4):1152-8. Epub 2008 Apr 18

We all knew that caffeine lowers your chances of carrying a successful pregnancy, but did you know that smoking can counteract that? Yes, it turns out that smoking may upregulate the enzymes that detoxify caffeine … so it doesn’t stay in your system as long to cause problems for your fertility. But don’t get too excited because smoking can cause a laundry list of damaging affects to your reproductive system and to a fetus… not to mention a newborn.
 
Reprod Toxicol. 1998 May-Jun;12(3):289-95. Caffeine intake and fecundability: a follow-up study among 430 Danish couples planning their first pregnancy. Jensen TK, Henriksen TB, Hjollund NH, Scheike T, Kolstad H, Giwercman A, Ernst E, Bonde JP, Skakkebaek NE, Olsen J. Department of Growth and Reproduction, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark.

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.

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.

Public release date: 7-Jul-2008
 
Initial stages of laboratory research has shown that resveratrol, even at fairly low concentrations, suppresses the abnormal cell formation that leads to most types of breast cancer, suggesting a potential role for the agent in breast cancer prevention. Resveratrol is a natural substance found in red grapes. It is also commonly sold in extract form as a dietary supplement and yes, red wine also has a decent amount, though the alcohol may counteract some of the beneficial effects depending on how good your detoxification capacity is. Resveratrol and other polyphenols like Quercetin also reduce iron and copper levels which can also be beneficial in cancer prevention.
 
“Resveratrol has the ability to prevent the first step that occurs when estrogen starts the process that leads to cancer by blocking the formation of the estrogen DNA adducts. We believe that this could stop the whole progression that leads to breast cancer down the road,” said Eleanor G. Rogan, Ph.D., a professor in the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Rogan was the lead author of the report that was published in the July 2008 issue of Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.