[Isabelle]

Flax seed supplementation increases mammalian lignans more than other sources in bread:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.10...9709514628

But the main source of lignans is not bread. It's coffee, tea, and brassica vegetables (cabbages, kale, Brussels sprouts):
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/5/1202.full

[Isabelle]

OK, since each experiment tells me Eve M's program is the way to go, I wonder what the difference between my program and hers is:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=5599&pid=12384#pid12384

EveM Isabelle (doses in mg)
0800 0000 Barley grass
2000 0000 Barley grass tea
0400 0000 Beremeal (folates are in my multivitamin)
0400 0000 Fennel
2000 0000 Fennel seed tea
1800 2300 Fenugreek seed
0000 4000 Goat's rue tea
1800 2500 Hops
2000 0000 Hops tea
1000 30000 Linseed (flax seed)
0000 05000 Maca root flour
0800 30000 Oat tops (oat seed, avena sativa)
1000 00000 Soy
1000 00000 Soy milk
mass 00000 Starflower or borage oil

Eve M's lotion for massage twice a day consists of hops, oats, soya, and starflower or borage oil. I don't use a massage oil. Too messy.

The flax and oats, I'm going to decrease next week. Some of the other differences are conscious choices: I like low doses of progestins (fennel) and anti-androgens (barley grass, hops tea). I use goat's rue to get the swelling Eve got from fennel. Without maca, hops depresses me. I want to try soy as an alternative for maca.

So the remaining differences are there for a reason. Unless, of course, like in hops, the teas do something else than the dried herbs. That could be worth trying out for barley grass and fennel. Maybe soy meal and soy milk do different things too.

[sfita]

Hi Isabelle:
first of all I wanna thank you for your patience and bieng so much helpful. you are awesome.
Eve wrote:
Herbal mixture taken 3 times daily consisting of the following: Barley...........
and by barley did she mean the seeds of hordium or the sproutes(grass)?
and if she ment the grass what is the difference betwen the seed and the grass itself, I mean for NBE ?.

[Isabelle]

You're welcome, Sfita,

Eve M meant the barley grass. I don't know if the seeds do anything in NBE.

Be careful with the Latin name: two row barley is Hordeum Vulgare. Six row bere is Hordeum Vulgare L.

[Isabelle]

I have them here, but I don't use barley grass or borage oil. Borage oil helps with hair loss:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=8419&pid=39423#pid39423

I read yesterday in my new herbal that borage oil contains the omega-6 fatty acids gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) and linoleic acid (LA). The herb contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which can cause liver damage and induce cancer in laboratory animals when fed to them over long periods of time. The oil, however, contains little or no pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Anyway, much of this is also in this archived thread:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=5274&pid=9924#pid9924
and on the wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage

The plant is all around the neighborhood here, under the hedges. It started flowering more abundantly again because of the nice fall weather. I've been thinking about planting a few in my garden, but after reading on the pyrrolizidine alkaloids, I think I'll stick to safe supplements. Not all herbs are DIY.

The hair loss season is spring, when the animals shed their winter furs. Coming spring, I can use this jar of borage oil capsules instead of buying minoxidil again

[Isabelle]

I read in my new herbal that 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol is the cause of sedation by hops. It's a metabolite of the bitter acids humulone and lupulone, reaching a maximum concentration after two years of storage. This was known in German literature since 1982:
https://www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals...007-971377
https://www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals...007-969903
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6611749
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6847343
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10...8/abstract
2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol is formed in warm storage under air.

An antidepressant activity was found in 2005:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...410500365X

Xanthohumol binds to the GABA A receptors:
https://www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals...006-931609
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...410600345X

"Hop extracts prepared with polar solvents are free from 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol":
http://www.google.nl/patents?hl=nl&lr=&vid=USPATAPP10749626&id=yzmVAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=hops+OR+humulon+OR+lupulone+%222+methyl+3+buten+2+ol%22&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=hops%20OR%20humulon%20OR%20lupulone%20%222%20methyl%203%20buten%202%20ol%22&f=false
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2005/0031572.html
while hops oil also has the sedative effect:
https://www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals...29-1222464
These findings suggest that a hydroalcoholic extract may be less sedative.

Fresh hops is richer in phyto-estrogens, two year old hops is more sedative. The sedative effect starts after 2 minutes, and is over in two hours:
http://books.google.nl/books?hl=nl&lr=&id=fDVGDGaaErAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA279&dq=hops+OR+humulon+OR+lupulone+%222+methyl+3+buten+2+ol%22&ots=szJ56SjDXW&sig=ZNR-ffVffA5LBlisP_p9setDxMk#v=onepage&q=hops%20OR%20humulon%20OR%20lupulone%20%222%20methyl%203%20buten%202%20ol%22&f=false
If this link doesn't open directly, search p. 282 of the book "Herbal medicinals: a clinician's guide" by Lucinda G. Miller,Wallace J. Murray.

I buy dried hops flowers from Jacob Hooy in Amsterdam. They also wholesale 250 g bags of powdered dried hops:
http://www.accense.nl/hop-gemalen-jacob-...anguage=en
It's lower priced, and because it was sealed in the bag after drying, it may be less sedative and more estrogenic

[sfita]

These studies share acommon result
that consumption of soy products, which contain isoflavones (phytoestrogens), can reduce serum or urinary estrogen levels.

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/10/3/179.full
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/23/1830.short
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/132/3/570S.long

So how soy could be used for NBE???

[Isabelle]

Thank you sfita,

Those people were simply stalled. I have warned against that in this thread and here
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=10643&pid=40978&highlight=soy#pid40978
over the past two weeks. Most people simply take too much soy.

400 ml soy milk is too much. That is equivalent to 4,000 mg of soy meal. The isoflavones content of low fat soy milk is 2.54 mg/100 g. In non-fat soy milk, there is 0.70 mg/ 100 g:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=8419&pid=41242#pid41242
100 ml soy milk is about 100 g, so 400 ml contains about 10 g of pure isoflavones. Those 10 g are too much.

Eve M took half of this: about 100 ml soy milk and 1,000 mg soy meal. You have to add them up with other sources of soy (many processed foods) and other sources of isoflavones (red clover, alfalfa).

It is very easy to get too much soy. That is why I advised blackwings76 to start very low, and ramp up slowly. He's at 6 g isoflavones now. The label doesn't say if his supplement is pure isoflavones or not. The equivalent soy dose of my 2,500 mg hops is only 15 ml soy milk. I intend to do a soy experiment three weeks from now, but I'm very much afraid it will make me stall.

[lled34aa]

hi isabelle,

did you mention sometime somewhere on here that hops diminishes libido? i had pretty healthy libido up until recently. i don't know if it has anything to do with me taking hops at night.

[Isabelle]

Yes, lled,

estrogens and prolactin decrease libido, DHT and progesterone increase it. So especially the combination of hops and goat's rue can kill libido.

I bring it back with maca root flour, and if I really need a progestin, I make tea from powdered fennel seed. The traditional herb is damiana.