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Thinning The Blood, And More, With Fenugreek

| Health & Science

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Take Two Aspirin And Call Me In The Morning: About Your Ulcers.

The following information has been gathered and compiled through personal experience, while traveling, teaching classes that include T’ai Chi, Qi Gong, herbal information, martial arts and other health related subjects.  The article also contains feedback from students and anecdotal information from readers of my columns.  The following are my opinions and deductions from those sources.

There Are Natural Remedies For Thinning The Blood. 

Aspirin has side effects and isn’t effective for thinning the blood unless you eliminate, or severely limit, your intake of vitamin K. Vitamin K is a blood clotting agent that’s found in many foods. 

The herb Fenugreek can dissolve mucous that sticks blood cells together, has other benefits and has few, if any, toxic side effects.   

Fenugreek tea is beneficial in removing mucous buildup in the intestinal tract, lowering blood pressure (breaks up platelet aggregation and thins the blood) and contains choline which is a lipotropic (helps dissolve fat deposits).  Many researchers believe that choline is helpful in preventing and treating Alzheimer’s.  Fenugreek tea helps thin and desludge the blood, which facilitates the red platelets in carrying nutrients into, and wastes out of, the cells including the brain cells. 

When combined with vitamin A, fenugreek helps clear the sinuses and lungs.  Fenugreek helps control blood sugar in diabetics, as do Jerusalem artichokes.  Fenugreek dissolves intestinal plaque, helping to remedy and prevent constipation, and restores peristaltic action, plus soothes the entire intestinal tract helping to eliminate diarrhea.   Fenugreek seeds contain mucilage, a soft fiber that helps lower cholesterol. Fenugreek tea contains diosgenin, a semi-synthetic form of the female sex hormone estrogen and, when prepared as a special tea, is used for natural breast enlargement.   Because of the phytoestrogens it contains, it’s said to help with inhibited sexual desire in women, and has been used for centuries to increase milk production in nursing mothers.  

There doesn’t appear to be any information about fenugreek being used after menopause for hormone replacement but, considering the diosgenin and phytoestrogens, it might be helpful.

High blood pressure can be caused by sludgy blood.  In the world of herbs, there are many different natural remedies for high blood pressure.  Make some soup and see.  For best results, forget the can, make it fresh at home.

The following all have proven to lower blood pressure. Celery (4 stalks daily, a friend uses celery for relief of arthritis in his hands), studies on celery in China have shown it to lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol and is an effective treatment for coronary sclerosis, garlic (also lowers cholesterol), hawthorn extract (widens the arteries), kudzu (has 100 times the antioxidant activity of vitamin E), onion (some of the same properties as garlic), tomato (GABA and other compounds), broccoli (contains 6 beneficial compounds), carrot (8 compounds), purslane (high in magnesium which is essential for proper cardiac function), saffron (crocetin), fennel, oregano, black pepper, basil and tarragon.  Valerian tea has been used for centuries to lower blood pressure.

The Chinese have used food as a remedy for diseases for many centuries.  Black soybean, brown sugar (the real kind, which is almost unavailable, and not the highly refined type that has molasses or coloring added to make it brown), chestnut, eel blood, peach, saffron, sweet basil and red wine are all recommended for promoting blood circulation. 

Shiitake mushroom soup or tea is used in China and Japan to prevent arteriosclerosis.  Clinical studies indicated that shiitake mushroom lowered blood fat level in laboratory animals and counteracted cholesterol in humans.  In the late 80’s the Japanese approved shiitake mushroom extract as an anti-cancer agent.   

To disperse blood coagulation (clots and platelet aggregation) Chinese medicine foods include chives, chive root, crab, hawthorn fruit, saffron and vinegar
 
The above information has worldwide research backing.  Some uses go back as far as ancient Greece.  The following is anecdotal.

The following is said to remedy tinnitus, ringing in the ears, which can often be a symptom of high blood pressure.  Put 2 full soupspoons of fenugreek seeds in 3 cups of cold water and let it sit overnight. The next morning pour off a cup of tea and refill your container to the 3-cup mark with more cold water.  Drink a cup morning and evening and again replace the water.  After a few days the seeds lose their strength and need to be replaced with fresh seeds and the process starts over.  Fenugreek tea has a slight mapley taste but personally I don’t care for the bitter taste when it’s boiled.  We refrigerate the seeds while they’re soaking and after 4-5 days they’ve sprouted.  The sprouts can be added to soups, salads or on whole grain cereals for a sweet mapely taste.

Ref: Notes from various seminars, books and from talks with doctors and healers.  Much of the same information can be found in the many centuries old Chinese Herbal Book The Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica.

An authors note: I found fenugreek tea to help reduce tinnitus but I also have a tendency toward low blood pressure.  Fenugreek tea lowered my blood pressure even further. 

Is fenugreek tea a miracle cure?  No, nothing is but you might try it if you have any of the above problems.  There appear to be no contraindications with prescription drugs but if you’re on drugs, especially blood thinner, consult with your physician to get their opinion.  If they’ve never heard of it or pooh-pooh it, since this information is information for you to use as you see fit, use your judgement as to what you want to do.

Ref:  Folk Remedies, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) And Health Options From Around The World

Filed under: Health & Science
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About Larry Miller

I was born in Los Angeles in 1940. My father was a fighter pilot instructor during WWll and we moved from coast to coast, maybe that’s where I got the nomad in my blood. After graduating from high school in 1958 I joined the Marines. That lifestyle wasn’t for me and upon my discharge I went on with my life, and have never looked back. I worked briefly for a Caterpillar dealer in Riverside, CA before moving back to N. California where I was a welder and truck driver for a chemical company. Truck driving wasn’t my calling anymore than being in the Marines, and I went back to work for another Caterpillar dealer steam cleaning dirty tractor parts and welding. They sent me to schools, lots and lots of schools. I spent as much time going to trade schools as I did at work. I went from cleaning parts to apprentice field mechanic, to mechanic to the parts department to satellite store manager in less than two years. They wanted me to move to Sacramento and be a salesman: I moved to Oregon to learn to commune with nature. I went to work for another heavy equipment dealer and was later contacted by the World’s largest Lorraine Crane dealer and offered the position of purchasing agent and general parts manager. In 1967 I was offered a line of automotive parts and supplies and went into business for myself. My business revolved around eleven race cars that we maintained for others, driving race cars professionally and maintaining high end sports cars. I was a championship and regional champion driver. My business was the largest import parts and service, non dealer, in the state until I sold it in 1979. We went sailing in 79, first to Mexico and then Hawaii. I was an award winning Trans-Pacific sailor and sailor of the year, Hawaii, Island of Kauai. An opportunity presented itself in Hawaii during 1981 and I was back in business, importing Japanese auto body and hard parts. I also felt the pull to write and began freelancing for magazines and newspapers in 1982. My main focus in my articles is, and always has been, health, wellness and fitness. Most of us have heard the saying, “Time is all we have.” I disagree. Our health is all we have, because without our health, we have no time. I was a US Olympic team hopeful in racewalking and held all the records for the state of Hawaii. As a sponsored athlete in my forties, I finished first in nine marathons in a row in my division, qualified for the Ironman® and was the state USCF cycling champion five times in Hawaii and Oregon. Celinda and I were married in 1988 after a three year engagement. We sold our businesses and organic farm and sailed back to Oregon. After our sailboat boat was sold, we moved to Joseph, Oregon, two miles from the trailhead into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We were caregivers for my mother the last ten years she was alive. We moved to New Mexico in 1995 because it was too cold for my mom in Oregon during the winters. Celinda designed, and I engineered and built our strawbale house. I began writing the weekly health column for a local newspaper in 1996, and still do. In 2000, I took the summer off to do a four month, 4000 mile, hike, bike and kayak odyssey. I’d been writing health, fitness and sports articles since 1982 and the journey produced a full-length, nonfiction, first person adventure book, Yol Bolsun, May There Be A Road, which can be bought from Amazon.com and others over the Internet. The summer of 2001 was spent hiking. kayaking, fishing and exploring the southwest. In 2002 Celinda and I spent the summer in Canada learning the hospitality business at a resort in preparation for doing promotion for the resort in the US. Most of 2003 was spent reestablishing the trees and landscape that had died during the stay in Canada. We had a house sitter and the house sitter had an ex-husband, and that’s a long story. In July of 2004 I did a solo kayak trip on the Snake River, taking pictures, writing articles and pencil sketching the journey. I hope to do another kayak adventure on the Snake River during the summer of 2008, on the section I missed in 2000 and 2004. In 2005, I returned to Canada to the resort where we’d spent 2002. I was supposed to be there for the month of June. I’d contacted people I’d met in 2002 and they came back to Canada to fish, hike and spend time at the resort, Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, while I was there. My one month became five and then it was off to Spain to do the El Camino de Santiago as a travel companion with one of the guests who’d returned to Canada in June. During the summer of 2006 a friend from Ireland, who I’d met in Spain the year before, came to visit in NM and we fished, hiked and explored the White Mountains of AZ. He’d never slept out in the wild in a tent before, and it was quite an experience, for both of us. My newspaper articles were put on the Internet beginning in 2002. I was asked to give public speaking engagements, photo and video presentations, on various subjects for the library in Deming, NM and continue to do so. In 2006 I videoed and produced a DVD for the Smithsonian Institute’s travel exhibit “Between Fences.” NMFILMS had a conference by invitation only, which I attended. While attending the conference, I realized that film making wasn’t what I wanted to do but I still wanted to use my sixteen years of experience and enjoyment of videoing and photography. During the winter of 2005, I discovered that no one on record had ever run from the Arizona border to the Texas border, a distance of 165 miles. During the spring and summer of 2006 I trained for the run and the run was completed in October, 2006. In late 2005, I began building and maintaining websites incorporating all the things I enjoyed about video, photography, travel and the out of doors. 2007 has been a summer of upgrading the home and property which resulted in a downgrading of my enthusiasm for being located in one place. If we don’t like what’s happening in our life, we need to change what we’re doing. Celinda and I are ready to pull up roots and move on. I guess I’ve come full circle. I’m ready to revert back to my childhood, and a nomadic lifestyle.

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