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| Korea Ginseng News |
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Are herbal “viagras” green? (By Adria Vasil)
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Write :
admin
 Date : 11-06-30 18:49
 View : 2,860
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Q: Are herbal “viagras” green?
A: Ah, if only Viagra could save the world from extinction. Well, not the whole world, but tigers, sea horses, rhinos and other endangered species that are killed every day to supply male virility potions.
Nearly a decade ago, some hoped erectile dysfunction drugs would help spare creatures of the wild, though World Wildlife Fund staff were doubters.
“If it were true that we could save endangered species simply by handing out Viagra, WWF would be first in line at the pharmacy,” an organization spokesperson remarked at the time.
But the quest for stamina-enhancing, arousal boosting aphrodisiacs continues to push species to the brink.
Don’t let your love life be part of the problem. If you’re using this stuff, look for certified organic sources or call the company and probe for details about whether their horny goat weed is cultivated or wild. (Hathor lube, for instance, gets its HGW from cultivated sources.)
Keep in mind when buying supplements that four of five of the horny goat weed products tested by ConsumerLab.org in 2006 failed to contain what they promised, and some were contaminated with lead.
Long before there was Viagra, men were trying to get it up with yohimbe, an African bark extract that’s actually been synthesized in a dozen prescription drugs (active ingredient: yohimbine hydrochloride). Too bad pretty much all yohimbe is exploited from the wild forests of Cameroon, often through illegal harvesting. The vulnerable trees are axed and their bark stripped for the virility-boosting ingredient. If its over-exploited status isn’t enough to dissuade you, the supplement’s also linked to anxiety, high blood pressure and tremors.
The jury’s still out on whether ginkgo biloba will rev circulation between your thighs, but what we know for sure is that ginkgo’s officially on the endangered Red List. You never, ever want to buy products that are labelled “wild” made from this ancient tree that dates back to the Jurassic period. Luckily, ginkgo’s easily cultivated, so you should be safe with most products on shelves.
Damiana, the Aztecs’ aphrodisiac, should be okay as long as you’re not getting yours from the wilds of Mexico, where it’s been over-exploited to make a local liquor.
Peruvian Viagra (aka maca) has made a big comeback since it was declared one of the lost crops of the Incas in the 1980s. Though the patenting of maca by U.S. companies faced resistance in Peru in the early 2000s, today the Quechua-Aymara Association for Sustainable Livelihoods’ Alejandro Argumedo notes that individual patents on maca-based formulations haven’t turned out to be much of a threat. Still, he says, when you add them all up, “you can see a deterioration in control over the plant by people from the Andes.”
One environmentally neutral potentially libido-enhancing supplement is the amino acid L-Arginine. In combination with Panax ginseng, ginkgo and damiana, it’s found to help post-menopausal women get their mojo back.
Speaking of ginseng, a study published in the Korean Journal of Urology found that widely cultivated red ginseng (basically heated panax ginseng) helped some men with mild to moderate ED. If you can find certified organic sources, you’ll have better odds of getting the planet off along with you.
http://www.nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/ecoholic.cfm?content=181522
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