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| are adaptogenssee later discussion) are a step toward helping the body adjust to hard training and performance. |
| But as with any food, supplement or drug, always proceed with caution. Of course, the use of herbs and medicinal plants can sometimes be a cause of concern. As with most things in life, moderation and the proper information and dosages are critical. Just because something is natural does not necessarily imply it is safe. |
| Although many health food stores and sports shops now carry herbal products, they are best used with advice from a trained health or nutritional professional. It would also be misleading to state that herbs, or for that matter any nutritional supplement, can extend your performance beyond your optimum capacity. However, by improving stamina and resistance, they may help you reach that optimum. |
| Standardizing Herbs for Consistency |
| It is often the concern of athletes that when shopping for herbs that not all herbs or herbal products are created equal. This is because herbs are plants and the chemical composition of plants varies greatly depending on where they are grown, the soil they grow in, how they are harvested and the weather conditions during the growing season. |
| Our everyday experience confirms this variation in plant quality. For instance, did you ever bite into a big orange, only to disappointingly discover that the orange possessed hardly any taste or flavor? Well, the poor growing conditions (winter freeze, too little rain) that affect the orange are similar to the factors that alter the properties of herbs. |
| And just as an orange can look delicious, but be tasteless, an herb can appear healthy but lack the ingredients that normally convey health benefits. Appearance is no guarantee of potency. That's why standardization was invented. Standardization guarantees that herbal ingredients are consistent from bottle to bottle. |
| Ever since the first human ingested herbs, variations in content have influenced the processing of herbs. Originally, the only way to ingest the active ingredients in medicinal plants was to harvest the fresh herbs and consume them raw. One |
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