Antibiotics have garnered quite a bit of attention over the past several years, due to the fact that many strains of virus are developing resistance to the most commonly prescribed antibiotics, and because the medical community is having to come up with stronger and stronger strains of antibiotics to over come adapted strains of viruses.

The fear is that eventually our viruses will out-evolve our antibiotic technology, and we will have a basically incurable disease on our hands that otherwise could have easily been cured through antibiotic use just years prior. While that disastrous picture hasn’t occurred, it’s still on medicine’s radar as a potential occurrence, and doctors are becoming more discriminating in prescribing antibiotics so that they are not overused, and new viruses don’t have as many opportunities to find ways to beat the latest antibiotics.

Not only that, but we have recently learned that the use of antibiotics, especially long term use, actually kills the healthy flora in our intestines, and it can not only lead to diarrhea while on powerful antibiotics, but it can also lead to various issues with the digestive system and waste elimination, and what is called a candida, or yeast imbalance in the body.

So, are there any herbal alternatives to traditional antibiotics? Well, there supposedly are, but of course these cannot be construed as any type of replacement for the real medical deal if you are dealing with a serious virus that needs to be addressed by antibiotic intercession. Apparently, there are some herbs that help to get rid of viruses and cleanse the immune system, or boost it against these pesky invaders. One of them is to be expected, since it is already known as an immunity booster, and you’ve undoubtedly heard of it unless you’ve lived under a rock or only recently became interested in alternative medicine or herbal supplements, that is echinacea.

Echinacea is of course a purple flowering herb that has been used to boost one’s immune system around the flu season. Many people swear by it, and it may be because it kills invaders before they even hit, and that is why it is known to fend off colds and other sicknesses like the flu. Another is Goldenseal, whics is interestingly also used by many a college student to help them take clean drug tests. Another one is garlic, which I love to consume in foods, so it’s a wonder that I ever get sick of all. They’re worth a look into if you want to help boost your immune system and get rid of bugs before they invade totally.

I wasn’t really shocked to read that a lot of the common herbal supplement labels you see, like Puritan’s Pride, Sundown and a few other very common names in herbal and natural supplements, are made under one roof by a parent company.  In the tradition of large pharmaceutical companies and other big parent companies like Procter and Gamble, that churn out multiple single labels, many herbal companies have become huge business. Heck, even some of the vitamins and supplements that are still popular today are made by actual pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth.

I think this is fine actually. As long as a supplement is a good, pure one and is made with strict standards, I don’t really care where it came from, although I do like to support the smaller mom and pop operations when I can because I believe that’s just good karma and also helps our overall economy and spirit of the small business person (being one myself, this is close to my heart).  However, I wouldn’t strictly not use something because of where it came from.

The continuing popularity of herbal supplements has been something that is debated by the medical community, and honestly it makes me a feel a little better than some of these big pharma companies have a stake in keeping them in the market and keeping them largely unregulated, so that it’s easier for people to get the herbal supplements that work so well for them, without being hindered or limited in what they can buy, and what companies can make.

Big pharma is no doubt a huge force in political lobbying, and no one can tell me they don’t have huge influence over politicians and our government in general, so knowing that they also have some natural remedies out there makes me feel a little more comfortable that they won’t attack them full force.

There are three Chinese herbs that are specifically being studied against strictly lifestyle changes, and lifestyle changes, paired with the use of mixtures of these three herbs, which have been known to help stabilize the blood sugar, or at least thought to, in Chinese medicine practice.  The herbs are called Jiangtang Bushen, Xiaoke huaya and Tang Kang yin.  Yeah, I’ve never heard of them before either, so you’re not the only one!  The studies, of course, are cautioned though, since they are thought to be flawed or biased.  I’m not sure if this is because of the placebo effect, or whether they think that the people in the studies were biased toward herbal remedies though.

The studies did show promise that when the herbs were paired with certain lifestyle changes, they showed better blood sugar stabilization results that if the people in the trial simply changed their lifestyle without adding the herbs to their daily regimen.

It should be noted that eating a low glycemic diet alone can help to dramatically improve the stability of your blood sugar and prevent diabetes and pre-diabetes though as well, it’s just that people are always looking for a easier way out to eat badly and still have blood sugar control.  It is true that some people just naturally can do that and not have problems, but most of us need to choose our foods wisely and not over do it on the processed sugar and carbs in order to maintain ideal blood sugar levels.

Your blood sugar levels have so many implications in your overall health.  They’ve been linked to everything from different types of cancers to heart disease and kidney failure, so it’s no wonder that so many studies have been dedicated to this tricky and often hotly debated health topic.

Here are some of the supplements that I have found help me to stabilize my blood sugar levels :

Omega 3 fatty acid supplements – one or two a day, in the morning and at night.

Chromium picolinate – one a day

Hoodia – dosage depends on the manufacturer and the dosage per pill.

Alpha Lipoic Acid (but unfortunately you have to take a lot of it for it to help with your blood sugar levels, something like 5 caplets a day, depending on the dosage of each pill.  However, I do notice it’s effect when I’m taking them all day.  I wonder how good this can be for you though, even though it is an antioxidant, to pop this many of them in one day.

I LOVE cooking with ginger.  I always have at least organic ginger powder on hand in my spice cupboard at all times for dishes that are usually some sort of asian or indian derived dish, which I tend to make fairly often since I love the spices that are involved with these types of cuisine.  Ginger is a slightly sweet, slightly hot and very pungent root that looks like the least appetizing piece of nature you’ve ever seen until you chop it and add it to your foods.  You can do a lot with it, from sauteeing your potatoes in it for a slightly more exotic version of homefries, to making great stir fries with an asian flavor, whether vegetarian or with meat.

Ground ginger is a dull brownish yellowish color, and it is very potent when added to meals, unless the spice is too old, in which case it does tend to lose it’s aroma and it’s flavor, so I recommend replenishing this spice as often as you can if possible.  It goes well with soy sauce (if you’ve ever had ginger soy sauce, you know this combination is out of this world), and is actually a great addition to your water if you have an upset stomach. Which brings us to the first and most well known health benefit of the ginger root – as a digestion aid and a stomach soother for an upset stomach.

However, don’t get fooled into thinking that ginger ale will actually help you . Most ginger ale hardly has any real ginger in it at all, and instead relies on chemically formulate simulations of ginger to flavor them.  Instead, take some fresh ground ginger root and add it to your hot tea or water and it should help soothe your mad stomach.

Other benefits of ginger include the following : aids in helping to quell nausea since it helps upset stomachs get more calm also, helps to relieve the swelling and inflammation of arthritis due to it’s slightly anti inflammatory properties, and it also helps to promote your circulation.  Ginger is also a known cold remedy which can help ease symptoms of a cold such as coughing and congestion which is also related to it’s anti inflammatory properties, but which also may be attributed to it’s pungency which may help to clear the nasal passages more quickly.  See, ginger can be used for a lot more than cooking, you just get an extra added health benefit if you cook with it.

Well, I watched a documentary with my boyfriend the other day, and am sad to say that one part  of it made me doubt some supplements that say their vitamins or supplements with herbs and other natural ingredients are partially a “proprietary formula”. What proprietary means is that they don’t have to disclose exactly what that formula is, so that part of the total supplement is something they do not have to display on the label, making it free game to put whatever cheap junk they want in it as fillers.

The documentary was actually all about steroids and human growth hormone (see about the GenF20 HGH alternative), which is a hotly debated topic today, not only in the world of competitive sports, but also in the average joe world where men and women alike are taking these injections to get bigger, more muscle, stamina and endurance, and more ripped physiques.  One small part of the documentary was of the film maker demonstrating how easy and cheap it was to make a supplement that was partly a “proprietary formula” with a few other types of herbs and other dried supplements added in for good measure.

He said that for little more than a buck fifty, you could make and bottle some very cheap supplements with a lot of filler (he used rice flour), and make up to fifty bucks off each bottle – quite a profit margin.  I’d like to think that there are reputable supplement makers out there who really give the customer what they deserve and what they paid for, but even for me, who takes several supplements a day, I can see how this would make a doubter out of anyone.

The supplement business is huge today, it is a multi billion dollar business, so it has a lot of entrepreneurs putting their names on pills, vitamins and supplement in hopes of making a lot of money off of something that may or may not be a subpar or watered down product.  The biggest fear is that it isn’t what it said it was, such as with the recent scandal about a male enhancement supplement that advertised as all natural actually having a prescription erectile dysfunction drug in it.

That’ the kind of thing that gives supplements a bad name and makes some people distrust what they are buying.  As for me, I simply try to make sure a supplement works, and if it doesn’t do what it says it will, I won’t ever try it again, but the ones that do work, you better bet that I’m going to be loyal to those brands!