Seneca Snakeroot is a beautiful plant growing in the dry woodlands from northern Saskatchewan to Alberta down into the central and eastern United states. Tea made from this plant is somewhat impalateable and is usually made with an eighth of a teaspoon per mug of hot water, brew with a cover on! Due to the 3-5% methyl salicate these roots have an incredibly gorgeous smell of wintergreen to them. Which is a nice break when you are harvesting roots for a living, most smell like spicy dirt at best. This plant has a lot to teach us. Lets dive right in
3 Proofs of the medical claims of Seneca Snakeroot:
Traditional/Cultural Proof
When we walk past this plant, for the last thousands of years it was simply referred to as: "Lung
Medicine"
Science
I
am incredibly stubborn and I couldn't just believe my
elders who would tell me these roots are 'lung medicine.'
Such
a simple and vague explanation, especially when they insist on not
elaborating (with a smirk of
course!)
What I did, was take what they said and prove, with hard empirical
science, what they said the plant is allegedly good for.
I
have to back up what my people are saying with science. Lucky for me
there are universities and
institutes
across the globe that have their studies on plant based medicine
available to the public.
Our bodies have
something really cool called the vagus nerve. This is a nerve that
connects different body parts to one another. One of the strongest
connections that we know of is the connection from the lungs to your
stomach. This means that whenever something happens to your lungs,
something happens to your stomach and vice versa.
Seneca
Snakeroot has five kinds of senega-saponins
concentrated in the roots that irritate the lining of the stomach in
a very special way. They
stimulate
the vagus nerve which
sends
signals to the lungs to make every part of the lungs secrete mucus,
including the alveoli!
So
what happens is the mucus mixes with pollutants in your lungs and
because this plant has such a powerful expectorant action the mixture
of pollutants and mucus are
evacuated leaving you, ultimately, with clean lungs and inflated alveoli again.
The
plant is also an incredibly effective expectorant, it doesn't just
make you cough, it purges your lungs. Something only experience can
explain.
It
is important to note that the most common over the counter
expectorants
are Sudafed
and Robitussin
which are made of chilli peppers which irritate the lining of the
stomach, though, in a much more diluted action
than
senega snakeroot.
When
you smoke, or
live in a very polluted area where air quality is horrible
is, your lungs just cant keep up with flushing the pollutants out and
they accumulate. It
continues to build up until chronic lung complaints develop.
Other really amazing information about Seneca snakeroot:
These
effects of Seneca snakeroot do not end at simply cleaning lungs,
these roots are a necessary ingredient in all
cough
medicines, used for pneumonia and most extensively used cure for
tuberculosis.
This was used to cure TB to such an extent that our indigenous population almost wiped out the entire natural population. A ban was put on harvesting this plant to prevent its extinction. As a result of this ban many thousands of natives died. Also because of this ban why this plant is now extremely plentiful especially in the dry woodlands of northern Saskatchewan and Alberta.
In fact, when approaching elders about this plant, many still say it is forbidden to harvest these roots. If your brave enough to pry, they express they “don't know why, its just not allowed.” Much, much love sent to my ancestors for looking out for their future generations; who is more specifically, you.
One thing that I have been finding
lately, is that most plants that I study either encourage lipid
metabolization or have a hypoglycaemic effect. Meaning that most
plants help your body revert back to the state it needs to be healthy (hypoglycaemic) and back to using the source of energy our bodies are
designed to use. Seneca snakeroot has a beautiful hypoglycaemic effect with no increase in insulin which was studied extensively by Suzuka University of Medical Science
and Technology, in conclusion they referred to this root as an antidiabetic.
One thing that we
have been making a great shift towards is more holistic approach to
health and healing. One thing that we promote is something called
ketogenic therapy, or the ketogenic diet. It is a high-fat,
adequate-protein, low-no-carb, no sugar diet designed initially to
remedy epilepsy but its effects on obesity, heart disease, diabetes
and metabolic syndrome were unrivalled. The diet is designed revert
our bodies back to use the proper dietary sources for energy. Hint;
its not sugar/carbs, its fat. Our bodies are designed to use fat for
energy rather than sugar (lipid metabolization). Ever hear of anyone
with a glucose deficiency?
I do as much
research as I possibly can, sometimes for days, before writing
these articles. More often than not I have to scavenge for these
studies. This was not the case for Seneca Snakeroot. Universities are just swollen with studies done on the anticancer and
chemo-preventative effects of these senega-saponins, pertaining
exclusively to lung tissue.
A tincture made
from these roots inhibit the growth of, and cause apoptosis to lung
cancer cells. When rats were inoculated with lung cancer, they were
administered Chemotherapy and Seneca snakeroot extract, the results
of these studies show that Seneca snakeroot's exhibit a – for now - unspecified protecting action to normal lung tissue, but leaving
cancerous tissue totally vulnerable.
The
Doctrine of Signatures
When
you go outside and watch Seneca Snakeroot and try to find its
signature feature or its most significant feature, you will find that
the roots are quite unique. Most roots, first
of all are bright yellow, which is odd, most are a dirt brown..dark
orange and dark yellow, but Seneca roots, bright yellow. Also most
roots smell like dirt, some, spicy dirt, Seneca roots have a very
clean smell due to their 3% methyl salicate content.
Furthermore,
all roots are made quite
smooth
and some
are
even self-lubricated to be able to dig around quickly and
grab the nutrients the plants needs and to anchor itself but in Snakeroot's case they
are ribbed! These distinctive ribs would seemingly be
nothing but be a hindrance to the plant, there is only one way that I
can make sense of this. These
roots have been created in such a way that they would show me what
they are made to heal. The
roots look identical to the primary and secondary bronchial tubes of
your lungs.
There is more, check this out!
The
Doctrine of Signatures is a proof that many people overlook and pass
off as a coincidence, but it is my job to break these mystic elements
of plant-based-medicine. The thing about this method of interpretation is, people seem to only take it as far as food. As a result of being
'ancient' It has been hindered by the power of the naked eye.
In
the 30's
the electron microscope was developed, and in the 80's it
was pretty much perfected. It is still today the most powerful
microscope man has made. The human body has been under that
microscope since its birth. What I do is I analyse different body
parts on a molecular level, and compare those body parts to plants
that exist in nature. The findings are overwhelming!
For
a few days of this plants bloom the flowers are purple. Purple is
such a rare colour to find in nature that when I take people out to
harvest these roots I point to the field and say “go get me purple, not blue, not burgundy, not pink but purple”
and its not too long before they realize that, when
you look hard enough, not much out here is actually purple. When they do find
a true purple it is Seneca snakeroot. These flowers are also
significant because when you look at most other flowers, they have
petals, whereas Seneca snakeroot has empty sacks of air. This feature
is definitely 'out there' and seemingly an anomaly. Using this method
of interpretation I know that there is something about this signature
feature that is indicative of its doctrine. When you look at your
lungs under an electron microscope it will reveal to you that the
flowers of Seneca snakeroot look identical to the alveoli of your
lungs. This is a signature example that is now only visible due to the powerful technology of the electron microscope, such discoveries simply could not be made previous to that innovative invention.
Any questions?
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