As a doctor who cares for those with significant pain, I have come to appreciate Nature’s storehouse of nutritional components the body can draw upon when injured. There are two main sets of needs that come with an injury.
One has to do with giving the body the biochemistries that can help it heal itself and the other has to do with helping it out of any excessive pain coming out of that injury. While glucosamine has become the rage, there are other biochemistries of Nature that I also find very useful, sometimes better.
One of these is curcumin. As often is the case, this component of turmeric is a polyphenol. In 4 Element Nutrition, polyphenols act as an Earth element herb component. They are large flat molecules, which act as a rug might get used to smolder a small house fire. Different polyphenols have different places or disease processes in the body where they do their smoldering.
This polyphenol is what makes turmeric yellowish. Often a biochemistry that is colorful is particularly useful to us humans.
Another great and time-honored herb is frankincense. Yes, this is the herb you’ve smelled coming from churches and temples. It has its own assortment of herbal principles that help the body heal – from all sorts of things, especially inflammation. And here it can help pain caused by inflammation – whether by an injury or by the inflammatory reactions in an arthritic knee joint, or even one’s rheumatoid arthritis.
Quite a few studies show it’s useful for those things as well as for helping remove the phlegm that can accumulate in chest congestion. In general it’s the AKBA component of the frankincense that is thought to be the most useful. You’ll find this in our Joint Complex product.
What I look for (and you should look for) in nutritional supports is the way in which it is put together. How leading-edge is it? Does it have a group of synergistic components that all work well together? Is there enough of the active ingredients to create the desired benefit?
Again, this brings me to our Joint Complex product. Consider the 40 mg of its glucosamine component – an undenatured type-ll collagen (UC-ll standardized cartilage) – its 40mg has been shown to be twice as effective as 1500mg of glucosamine sulfate and 1200mg of chondroitin for pain reduction.
As I like to tell my patients, I’m here to do the research for you, and find products that put ingredients together in that synergistic way.