What is an Adaptogen Herb?
In the 1940’s Soviet Scientist were trying to identify herbs that could provide health benefits without side effects. In 1947 a Soviet Scientist named Dr. Lazarev coined the term Adaptogen to describe the type of herbs they were looking for. Adaptogen herbs must conform to these 3 standards: • Must be nontoxic and cause very few, if any, side effects • Produce nonspecific resistance in the body to all types of stressors (physical, chemical and biological) • Produce a normalizing influence on the body. What do those three standards really mean? An adaptogen herb will be nontoxic and cause few if any side effects. An adaptogen herb must help build resistance to all areas of stress that may effect our body. For example, if an herb helped with physical exhaustion, but did nothing to protect against viruses (biological stressor) it would NOT BE AN ADAPTOGEN. Finally, an adaptogen herb will be able to normalize the body and place the body in proper balance. The key with an adaptogen is being
