Fibromyalgia is a common affliction in the United States, affecting over 5 million Americans. It is characterized by chronic muscle pain, fatigue, difficulty to concentrate and many more symptoms. Yet, the mechanics of the disease remain elusive and we do not know how or why it occurs.

However, one new study by Spanish researchers under the direction of M. Cordero have discovered a relationship between fibromyalgia and coenzyme Q10 in the cells. In fact, patients with fibromyalgia showed a dysfunctional distribution of coenzyme Q10 in the body: more was found in the blood than in the cells. This would indicate increased oxidative stress in the muscle cells and a possible role in the development of fibromyalgia.

The researchers found that supplementation with dietary coenzyme Q10 can in fact help relieve some of the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

Cordero MD, et al. 2009. Coenzyme Q10 distribution in blood is altered in patients with fibromyalgia. Clin Biochem. 2009 May;42(7-8):732-5.

We at HerbaSway try to be as open, direct and honest as possible. For this reason, we have included the “with imported herbs” component to our labels. Not to would be misleading at the very least.

We use many herbal ingredients, which are not grown in the United States. These include green tea from China, chamomile from Europe, grape from France, açai from Brazil and pomegranate from Morocco. This list is much longer, of course.

As you can see, we purchase our extracts where they grow. This has several advantages for us:

• The ingredients are dried during the processing, eliminating the need for chemical preservatives;
• Dried extracts use less energy to transport than bulky raw materials, which contain large amounts of water;
• We can better control the purity and potency of the extracts.

Regardless of the country of origin, all raw materials undergo our rigorous quality control procedures. This begins with an identity test, includes pesticides, heavy metals, and microbiological contamination, potency and more. All these tests are performed by third party laboratories throughout the USA.

Although it has been widely accepted that green tea polyphenols, EGCG in particular, is effective in helping to prevent the transmission of the HIV virus, a new study from Hamburg, Germany (my old alma mater!) helps to substantiate this effect.

The human prostate produces a peptide that helps the virus find and attach to new victem cells.  The German studies showed that EGCG degrades the the peptide and reduces its ability to help the virus attach and fuse to human cells. This very preliminary study indicates that EGCG from green tea can possibly be used to supplement anti HIV programs. That is very exciting.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19451623?ordinalpos=1&itool=Email.EmailReport.Pubmed_ReportSelector.Pubmed_RVDocSum