Herbs and Men's Health, Some Notes and Thoughts

Herbs and Men's Health

 Some Notes and Thoughts

 

MALE USE OF HERBS

Essentially all of my male patients are self-medicating, most with various herbal products, including some of the most powerful and addicting herbs. We are a self-medicating society. I believe that the general use of physiologically strong herbs and taste and odor masking herbs both confounds and impairs effective therapeutic herbal medicine. It is my strong belief that smelling, tasting, touching herbs used medicinally is an important part of herbal therapy. If addictive and masking herbs have dulled both a man's basic body metabolism and senses of taste and smell, I believe he will tend to not respond positively to gentle and tonic herbal medicines. This might explain why many men remain uninterested in herbal medicine or find it inadequate: their bodies are not sensitive enough due to deliberate chronic desensitization in an effort to tolerate a basically unpleasant life reality. Many of the herbs listed below are not even considered by the men who use them as either herbs or herbal medicines. Often, only direct questioning will reveal the use of coping and masking herbs by men.


The most ubiquitous strong addicting herb is COFFEE (Coffea Arabica). The people of the United States consume over 40% of world coffee production whilst comprising less than 5% of the world probable total human population, even though no coffee grows in the continental United States. Our addictive needs have obliterated scores of indigenous cultures in the tropics and subtropics to maintain our supply of this harmful plant. It is our favorite nervine as well as a powerful habituating laxative, diuretic, painkiller (raises the pain threshhold considerably in most humans often without any notice on the part of the user but often obvious to non-coffee users), and mood changer. A scary factoid is that coffee is the most heavily pesticided food(????) crop and the third most heavily pesticided crop after tobacco and cotton.


The second most important herb used by 25-30% of men (still, the fools) is TOBACCO(Nicotiana tabacum), usually taken as inhaled smoke with the attendant carbon monoxide poisoning and rapid depressant effect; one ingredient, nicotine, blocks clear nerve transmission by attaching to acetylcholine receptor sites in the neural gap, in both the body and the brain. Smokers have a greater susceptibility to all of the main male killers; particularly cardivascular and cancer ailments as well as the obvious perpetual bronchitis and progressive emphysema, coughing their respective paths to their respective graves. Primary lung tumor is usually a consequence of tobacco smoking. Chronic smoking is suicide and obvious self abuse. Except when doing charity work for drug rehab centers and acute or first aid cases, I do not see patients that regularly smoke tobacco or other substances voluntarily. I feel that the herbs I have to offer can not compete with willful tissue destruction and nervous system poisoning. I ask for at least 60 days of no smoking

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HOPS (Humulus lupulus) is another nervine and male libido and testicular suppressant, usually self-administered as a weak alcohol (ethyl alcohol), 3-9%, extract. In some rather interesting experiments, it was determined that the hops extracts in beer were far more addicting and habituating than the weak ethanol content. Consumption of weak hops extracts may be a way of suppressing xenohormonal disruption of male hormone balance from xenoestrogens and various growth hormones particularly from meat products and soy.

CAYENNE(Capsicum frutescens) is a superb vascular stimulant and vegetable, although the claim for oral abuse is partially valid. In many men it is used as a covert laxative and heart stimulant. In others it is used as a way to ignore taste buds deadened by smoking or bored with otherwise insipid repetitive food. Its use by the police of the oligarchy is herbal as well as citizen abuse. In Seattle recently at the WTO debacle, it was the police who were the terrorists. Who will protect us from the police? What herb will stop corporate brutality?




CINNAMON (Cinnamomum spp.) is an aromatherapy libido booster for many men (and women) and a super systemic hemostat (as is cayenne.) Cinnamon is probably the most benign of the popular self-medicating herbs. A drop of cinnamon oil in the hair or under the pillow can enhance a romantic encounter. Its use in food complements the usual extremely hyperglycemic foods which trigger a strong insulin response immediately after being eaten. These are the famous cinnamon buns and similar sugary baked foods.




MARIJUANA(Cannabis spp.) is another popular self-medicating herb used as a coping herb to deal with overwhelming pain, personal and sociological. It has a great future as a medical herb once the Federal government leaves the personal drug business (ethyl alcohol beverages) and no longer is compelled to eradicate competing substances.





I am not certain about Piper nigrum, BLACK PEPPER; it is slipped into the diet regularly as a simple spice but its ubiquitous presence smacks of habituation if not addiction. I agree with Buchanan's speculations that it acts as a subtle stimulant as some of its compounds are converted to amphetamines in the body. I find it a burning obnoxious herb that also acts as a urogenital iritant in men with particularly sensitive urinary mucosa. Something to remember when a man presents with a history of painful urination: ask about black pepper consumption.
  



  HORSERADISH (Amoracia rusticana) root preparations are used to add a hot spicey flavour to food; the fire is often the dominant oral sensation, with other tastes and odors nearly completely suppressed. I am not sure if this is just to excite a tired and insensitive palate or to mask the dullness of the same old boring food day after day. Herbally, regular consumption of horseradish can be a very effective therapy for alleviating and preventing protein-over consumption-induced gout; the fresh leaves eaten regularly in salads are less intense than the grated root. Regular horseradish consumption may also by cryptic self-medication for chronic urinary tract infections. For some men, too much horseradish presents as penile pain within the urinary tract, burning urine.
Coffee, Hops, Tobacco, Marijuana, Cinnamon, and Black Pepper are all herbs used to treat coping disorder. I believe most of my American and Canadian male patients self-medicate to treat chronic depression. This ongoing pandemic male cultural depression masks, confounds, and exacerbates other genuine organic physiological negative health problems. To me, there is no such entity as a "psychological problem"; no body, no psyche. Psychological problems are an avoidance construct of the oligarchy to maintain oppression. Watch a man "go crazy", and analyze the stressors. They are usually a combination of physiological and punitive cultural insults, especially economic oppression.
Cayenne and horseradish are dietary masking herbs with secondary positive physiological effects. They also desensitize the tongue and palate while their respective burning actions dominate the immediate eating experience with the near complete loss of more delicate and nuanced tastes and odors. Excess salt (sodium chloride) is used similarly.

Traditionally, occupation, climate, and geography have determined pathology in men. Involuntary young males were used as human brushes during the early days of large chimneys; lowered by ropes and chains, their bodies and clothing scuffed away the accumulated soot and creosote inner chimney plaque; their occupational hazard was a high rate of scrotal cancer.