Herbal medicine is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. There's quite a long history regarding herbal medicine with written records dating back more than 5,000 years!
Today I am joined by Dr. Janet Maendel, a functional medicine practitioner, manual osteopathic therapist and an internationally registered herbalist. Dr. Janet covers a lot of herbal medicine territory in this episode including:
Learn a little more about the healing power of herbs!
Connect with Dr. Janet Maendel:
The Herbal Method
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Herbal medicine is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. There's quite a long history regarding herbal medicine with written records dating back more than 5,000 years!
Today I am joined by Dr. Janet Maendel, a functional medicine practitioner, manual osteopathic therapist and an internationally registered herbalist. Dr. Janet covers a lot of herbal medicine territory in this episode including:
Learn a little more about the healing power of herbs!
Connect with Dr. Janet Maendel:
The Herbal Method
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page and it's an honor to spend this time with you. Today we are going to be speaking to Dr. Janet Maendel on the benefits of herbal medicine. Janet is a certified functional medicine practitioner. A manual osteopathic therapist and is a board certified internationally registered herbalist. She lives and works in southern Manitoba Canada. Janet applies the principles of functional root cause medicine for conditions such as hormonal imbalance, infertility, and P C O S, intestinal health, autoimmunity and cancer prevention and support. Janet believes cancer is not a process to be taken lightly and to be treated with a one size fits all approach, but a collection of disease processes that encompasses everything the person has lived through. Welcome, Janet, to the show.
Janet Maendel:Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here.
Ivelisse Page:So Janet, our listeners are always interested in discovering what our guest's favorite health tip is. What would you say is yours?
Janet Maendel:My favorite health tip is to do something every morning when you wake up to promote wellness and health over illness and disease. And so that can be something like meditation and prayer, a calming of the mind and, it can be something like exercise, walking, running or just movement. And for me, those practices help me manage my day, take on my day, and hopefully lower my stress and help me adapt to what's coming at me for that day.
Ivelisse Page:I would say that is my favorite one as well. I start each morning with meditating and prayer, and when I don't do that, my day does not go as well. So it really adds a sense of peace to your day. And so I agree that would be mine as well. So Dr. Janet, what is herbal medicine?
Janet Maendel:Herbal medicine is a pretty broad term, but essentially it's using plants. And everything that we can do with them and all the formulations we can make with them and blend. And we use them in a medicinal way. And that can be anything from a daily support to something therapeutic where we're actually working on something and working on somebody's disease process.
Ivelisse Page:Okay. I know that a lot of people have questions about their safety. Are herbs safe to use?
Janet Maendel:Yes, herbal medicines have a very, very good safety profile. It always seems to me that much of what we see and much of what we read that scares us about herbal medicine is because it's misunderstood. And when something is misunderstood, it brings fear. And so they're very safe, especially when taken as recommended by your herbalist.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah, I completely agree. I use them through my cancer journey and even still today. And like you said, when it's not individuals just randomly going and getting an herbal remedy, it's really working with an integrative practitioner like yourself that is knowledgeable, that knows your family history, that has done that proper intake to really see what is your body missing or needing to help support it best. And so I love that you said that. I was told that there is no licensure or regulations of who can call themselves herbalist or who can practice in the United States. So it's important to do your research. What would you say to someone looking to someone who knows herbal medicine and who's well educated?
Janet Maendel:Usually you can just ask the person, really. You can ask the herbalist of where their training is, where their training is from? There are plenty of good accredited schools that you can phone and that you can talk to. Here in Canada, Herbalist don't have to be registered to practice. But when you can find somebody who's registered in your country or internationally, there just is that extra layer that shows you that there was a board that looked at the training and that in some cases gave another test or another evaluation of some sort that can tell you where she is or where he is.
Ivelisse Page:Yes. Great advice. So how can herbs aid in healing?
Janet Maendel:They have many properties that, depending on what you're looking at and depending what the person is going through, and depending what what puzzle I have in front of me. So I always do a very comprehensive intake for every person I see. Functional medicine is just my go-to for basically everybody. And then once I have that, once I have the intake, and I have the labs and I have everything that I need, then I decide after lifestyle factors, after everything else that we can change and modulate in our lives, then I will reach to herbs. Because herb is a medicine and sometimes we don't need it. Sometimes we just need to modify what we're doing in our daily practices to promote our wellness and our wellbeing.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah. And how are they created?
Janet Maendel:Oh wow. So that depends on who you are and where you're getting them from. So many herbalists will do their own formulations and they'll do their own tinctures. And so we'll either grow or buy herbs from a reputable source, and tinture them and blend them ourselves. And then other people will sort of make blends of their own and then give them to their patients as a tea. I have done a number of formulations myself. They're almost all tinctures cuz I like tinctures, I like how they work. I like how quickly they work. I've become busier as the years have gone by, so I am buying more than I used to. But tinctures is my go-to, liquid capsulations and then also dried herbs capsulations can be found. And so it depends on what you want, what the method is also what the patient can take I guess. They're not all the same.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah, we have an herbalist here in town. There's two different ones and one makes their tincture and some of them don't taste that great And then there are others that is more of the tea form that you were talking about, which I love the one for immune support and I drink that in the wintertime and it's just fabulous, all the different herbs inside. So you use the tincture version more so than the teas?
Janet Maendel:Yes. And they rarely taste good. I should tell you that.
Ivelisse Page:I know. That was a surprise to me. I was like, oh my goodness. Sometimes just a teaspoon of sugar makes the medicine go down. unfortunately we can't add sugar to it for sure, especially in a cancering process. I always say I can do anything if I know that it's gonna help me. If it's gonna help me, it's gonna make me feel better and it's good for my body. Then I can pretty much handle anything. And so I think if we go into it with an attitude of I am going to see how this works, and most people would be surprised how wonderfully they do work. And your body just really accepts and really heals so nicely, when you're giving it what it needs. So what is the difference between Western herbal medicine and Chinese herbal medicine? I heard those two different terms.
Janet Maendel:So my training is in Western herbalism and we tend to be a little bit more. I like to say less traditional, but I'm going to have to explain that though. So we tend to be a little bit more scientific based, which isn't necessarily a good thing in herbalism. So we do look at a pathology, and we do look at the disease process, and we do look at labs and things, and then we try and find the herbs or the blends, or other nutraceuticals according to what we see there. Chinese medicine is more of the person that they see. How they are presenting. They will need to know more than just the diagnosis. They will need to know how he or she is doing, how he or she is presenting to them. Do they seem warm? Do they seem cold to them? Are they stagnant or not? How is their chi? And and that's very different. What's interesting about it though is that in TCM and Western herbalism we will tend to arrive at the same conclusion many times with what we're recommending at the end, which is actually quite lovely.
Ivelisse Page:you explained that perfectly so that's really interesting. I didn't know that there was two different types of herbal medicine. I thought it was all in one. For patients that are undergoing conventional cancer treatments, should they avoid herbal medicine or are there certain ones that should be avoided?
Janet Maendel:Okay. That depends on where they are in their treatment. That depends on the patient. It depends on the factors that we're looking at the time. When they're getting their chemotherapy right now, then we usually just stop the herbals and most of the nutraceuticals, quite frankly. And we use the things that will help with the chemotherapy itself, and we will support the patient throughout that. We'll use fasting for that, and we will make sure their inflammation is down for that so that they're responding to the chemo better. Some places will use hyperthermia especially with radiation, things like that. So we will not, I usually don't use a whole bunch of supplements when the patient is actively in standard of care.
Ivelisse Page:And how do you use it, typically, the herbal medicine with cancer patients?
Janet Maendel:So with cancer patients it depends on what we're looking at. I use the metabolic approach. Which I know you've done some of this on your website, so you know, Or on your podcast I should say. So it depends on what I'm looking at. So if we're looking at the terrain of the person, there are various different elements that can pop up that we would be concentrating on. So we can be looking at metabolics, we can be looking at angiogenesis markers, we could be looking at inflammation, we could be looking at pain, stress, mental health. And so depending on what the biggest terrain issues are. After we look at that and after we promote some of the lifestyle things that can be done for metabolics. For example, if this is a person that has high insulin resistance may be a diabetic or pre-diabetes, once they have their foods dialed in and the exercise, if they can, I may support them with burberine on top of that. I may suggest DHA for the inflammation. I may add boswellia for someone with a high inflammatory profile or something with some swelling somewhere, or curcumin. I don't use just a whole bunch of herbals for every single person that has cancer because it depends on what the picture is that's in front of me, and it depends on what we're looking at and what we're trying to support.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah, that's really good. And what's right for one person may not be right for the next person. And it's really, again, important to have an integrative oncology practitioner that specializes in this, that can really support you best, knowing what aspects and when in the treatment process would be the best time to introduce and to use. Just like with supplements though, I hear that the quality and the brand makes a difference in the effectiveness of the herbs used. Can you talk about that?
Janet Maendel:Yes it does. The thing is we don't always know for sure when we're buying supplements, and that's just across the board. We're all hoping, and doing all our research and finding these people at conferences and trying to sign up with companies that tell us that their products are pure, that have third party lab testing. Some have two or three third party lab testing papers to show us. So we do try as much as we can to have the best for our patients because truth is in herbalism as well as in other, medications, of course. But in herbalism, if it's not pure, it's very concentrated in whatever the impurity or the toxin is that's within that capsule. So it is very important that it's pure and it's very important that it's tested because even the plant, depending on when they harvested it, and depending what parts of the plants were used, all of that actually needs to be shown in a lab that it is actually what they're selling, so that when we're dosing it, that we're safe and effective.
Ivelisse Page:That's really important. Here in the United States I know Believe Big has a FullScript account that those who work with Believe Big and patients are able to order professional grade supplements, which have been third party tested and that what you're actually getting in that bottle is in that bottle. I think we've all kind of gotten accustomed to sometimes using Amazon and other things, but we don't know how it was stored, how it was shipped, and so that might lose its effectiveness. So I love, making sure that the supplements and the herbal that I use are actually physician grade, so that's true. So yeah, most complimentary therapies, herbal medicine is not covered by insurance. Is it expensive or how much does it typically cost if someone is coming in to see you?
Janet Maendel:You're right, they're not covered here either. And the cost for the supplements depends how many they need and how long they'll be on a certain protocol. So for the coming in to see me the original appointment, the initial appointment is one price and then the follow up appointments is another price. And then the labs that I send them to, they pay the lab for the blood work and whatever else is going on. And then they also, my patients actually all order through FullScript. I wasn't sure if we were able to say words or names.
Ivelisse Page:Oh sure. Absolutely. And yeah, anything that's helpful.
Janet Maendel:So yeah, so it depends on what they're ordering from FullScript.
Ivelisse Page:And it's not expensive, at least for what I have seen. I'm able to go to the herbalist and get the teas and the tinctures that I need and it's not expensive. It's the cost of a good supplement. So if someone was wondering how much that is, it's not, at least here in the United States, it's pretty affordable.
Janet Maendel:It's, it's not an easy question to answer. So if I'm, if I'm sending somebody that's like a monthly dosing strategy, I would think it would be in Canadian dollars, it would be anywhere from$250 to$400.
Ivelisse Page:What aspects of cancer care are herbal remedies most helpful?
Janet Maendel:Wow, that's a good one. I think all of them. Cuz my head is going, okay, I'm gonna say stress, and then I'm like well, it's definitely not just stress because it's inflammation too. And then there's immunity. We can support genetics with it. And so I, Everything I have to say all the things. I'm sorry, I'm biased here.
Ivelisse Page:No, I It's a holistic approach. Correct? What are your favorite ones to use?
Janet Maendel:I love Burberine. and I like it because in cancer, we know that the insulin driver, the sugar driver, is a huge thing. And in many cases, by the time we see these people, it's not easy to get the insulin back down to a nice normal range. It's really not easy often to get the sugars down, to get the A1C down. And so I like using Burberine for that. It's been shown to be as effective as metformin, in trials. But it's not a silver bullet. We can't take it and eat cake, it just doesn't work. So that's one of my favorites. I like adaptogens because of course in oncology we're looking at very high stress. And we're looking at what the body needs to modulate. so I like rhodiola for that, it's a really nice herb. It will help for mental performance as well in mental health, which of course we really need in cancer. It will help the body adapt the stresses that are coming at it. So that plus an even more so lifestyle factors that we can do for that. So I really like that one. I like boswellia and curcumin. I like those for inflammation. I like mushrooms, for immunity,
Ivelisse Page:Those are all fantastic. Yeah. When my integrated practitioner, we do my blood work every year and Burberine is one that I'm still on and that I use. And, in the wintertime I love using the mushrooms. In, I think my community has a spray and I love using it because it just kinda keeps my immune system strong in the middle of the winter. It's worked really well for me. those are really great recommendations, and of course they're not recommendations, they're actually your favorites. Again, they'll be individualized for whatever a patient needs is what will be prescribed by an integrative practitioner. Is there anything else in regards to herbal medicine that I haven't asked you that you feel would be important to share or talk about?
Janet Maendel:One of the things that I really love about herbals is beyond everything we just talked about, is their ability to modulate. The body is always looking for balance and looking for homeostasis. No matter what we're looking at, we're looking at the immune system. It still need balance. We can't inhibit one part and stimulate another and be healthy. Same goes with stress. Too little stress isn't working for us, too much is just not working for us either. So what I like about herbs is that many of them have the ability, if not all of them, but many of them have the ability to completely modulate us with whatever we need. And, it's a living medicine. It's alive.
Ivelisse Page:Yep. that's amazing and, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. I really appreciate all that you have shared with us today, and I know that the information is gonna be very helpful for those who are interested in learning more about it. We can put some links in regards to your website that people can look into and as well as other avenues for them to dig a little deeper into herbal medicine. But thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Janet. I really appreciate your time.
Janet Maendel:You're welcome. It was lovely meeting you, and thank you so much for inviting me.