When reading the ingredients of herbal supplements or medicines, you might wonder “why can’t I just add these herbs while cooking my meals – won’t I get the benefits as well?”
The answer is both ‘you might’ and ‘not at all’. Read on to understand how and why.
Whether supplementation is beneficial to you, depends on the spice in question and your specific health goal.
Adding spices to your food can definitely have health-enhancing effects when the amount of spice that is usually cooked with is enough to have the desired health effect. Cinnamon is a good example for that. A promising study showed that 1/2 spoon of ground cinnamon per day during four months can improve insulin function. This amount can easily be added in smoothies, morning porridge, hot drinks etc. When you do aim for health benefits when simultaneously flavouring your food, make sure you use spices from a high quality because they will be richer in the beneficial substances and supportive molecules.
Many spices however will only show their health-improving effects in amounts much larger than what you would consume via your food. And that’s when phytotherapeutic supplements or medicines are your go-to.
When opting for a supplement, make sure you choose a good one.
A good supplement does not only have ingredients from higher quality and uses natural production methods, it also combines several plants with synergistic action backed by scientific studies. On top, it is very important that the extracts are total extracts so that all bioactive molecules can be present.
The supplements of Primrose laboratories use total extracts – why does that make them so appealing?
As with all of our herbal supplements, we carefully choose the plant parts which have a proven effect for the condition being researched, and we combine several plants who work synergistically.
But did you know that of each plant part, we make a total extract? The difference is that, instead of extracting the one or few molecules with a proven effect, a total extract of the plant part is made. This ensures that also other molecules are still present and they all contribute to the health effects synergistically. Keep an eye out for future PrimNews because we will dive deeper into what a total extract is, how it is made (we only use natural extraction methods of course) and how it is so much more effective in helping you with your health condition.
REFERENCES
Sahib AS. Anti-diabetic and antioxidant effect of cinnamon in poorly controlled type-2 diabetic Iraqi patients: A randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial. J Intercult Ethnopharmacol. 2016 Feb 21;5(2):108-13.