Expert Discussion
Black Seed and Cordyceps
Jerry Hickey is a pharmacist and radio personality and fills the esteemed role of Scientific Director and President of Invite Health. He has spent his professional life analyzing nutritional information and medical studies with the aim of creating the highest quality and most natural nutraceuticals for user’s maximum health benefits. Here, Jerry speaks about the benefits of Black Seed, Rosemary and Cordyceps…
I originally created a formula from black seed for people with allergies and asthma and lung conditions, like emphysema and bronchitis. There are a number of very good studies, showing that when people with asthma take it, it reduces wheezing and it improves breathing, and they need their inhalers less frequently. If you have asthma, it’s a very dangerous, scary condition for you. Imagine it being hard to breathe. You always have to make sure you have a fresh inhaler, just in case.
Apparently, with the black seed, you’ll need it less frequently or maybe not at all, but you can just keep it with you anyway. For people with allergies, including kids, this supplement reduces all the symptoms, runny nose, sneezing, itchy eyes, sore throat, phlegm, coughing, wheezing, itchy skin and nauseous stomach. It helps right down the line with allergy symptoms and asthma.
We’re getting great results with people with pulmonary conditions. There are a lot of studies on it, and quite a few studies for asthma and allergies, but that’s not where I’m going with this. We added rosemary, that’s an herb that they use for cooking in the Mediterranean, because it’s such a good anti-inflammatory, it’s such a great antioxidant and it’s so safe. It has rosmarinic acid in it, and that’s what protects you, but it’s the third herb that’s coming into prominence.
I added a medicinal mushroom called cordyceps. It is one of the four or five mushrooms with a lot of research behind them. There’s reishi mushroom, there’s maitake mushroom, there’s shitake mushroom and there’s cordyceps. And the reason I used it is because it has a good effect on the lungs, but it also gives people energy. There’s no doubt about it. Most people with chronic allergies or asthma can use some energy. I put cordyceps in there to help those people with energy.
Now, it turns out the cordyceps may be more important than the black seed, which is almost impossible to believe. They did a study recently in patients with liver cancer. Many of them had metastasis of the cancer, which means the cancer spread to other parts of their body. Many of them had hepatitis B or hepatitis C or cirrhosis of the liver. It was 101 very sick patients with liver cancer. When they added the cordyceps mushroom to their therapy, instead of lasting six months like the other patients, they lasted three and a half years, simply by adding that mushroom.
In this study of 60 patients with chronic hepatitis B, when they gave them cordyceps they were preventing scarring in the liver. It was strongly decreasing inflammation in their liver. It was strongly protecting their liver. And for 231 patients with kidney transplants, receiving cordyceps was preventing rejection of their kidneys. Adding the cordyceps to their drugs, these people were starting to reject their kidneys. When they added the cordyceps to their drug it was preventing them from rejecting their kidneys.
We know it has a very strong effect on the liver as an antioxidant protective, anti-inflammatory agent. We know that cordyceps has profoundly positive effect in the kidneys. I think that anybody with a kidney problem or a liver problem, they would be doing themselves a service by taking the black seed with cordyceps, and that’s thousands and thousands and thousands of people around here. Millions, even.
Now, cordyceps also has been shown to help people with heart disease. For instance, when they looked at patients with congestive heart failure, which is a dangerous disease often caused by uncontrolled high blood pressure or maybe these people had a heart attack and they have a problem with the valves in their heart, or something. The heart grows bigger and it stiffens and there’s damage to part of the heart. To make up for the damage, the rest of the heart stiffens, it thickens, and it loses its ability to pump blood and oxygen. It’s heart failure and it’s very dangerous. These people are on a lot of drugs and it’s hard for them to breath. They’re very fatigued and their muscles hurt; it’s a nasty thing. When they gave them cordyceps, it improved their general health. It improved their energy. It reduced their shortness of breath and actually even helped their sexual function, which is remarkable.
In patients with high cholesterol, when they gave them cordyceps, it lowered their total cholesterol by up to 21 percent. That means if your cholesterol was 200, your cholesterol would go down to 160 simply by taking the cordyceps mushroom. Their triglycerides dropped by up to 26 percent. That’s another kind of fat that invades the liver and causes liver damage and increases the risk of a stroke and heart disease and causes inflammation in the artery walls. Their good cholesterol improved by 27 percent to 30 percent in all four human clinical trials. The statin drugs will not raise your good cholesterol 27 to 30 percent; it’s almost impossible to do that. Exercise will not do that. The best diet in the world will not do that. By simply taking cordyceps, their good cholesterols, the one that protects you from heart disease and stroke and heart attack improved by 27 to 30 percent.
Here, it’s shielding people’s livers, it’s shielding their kidneys. It’s improving the health of people with a serious condition called congestive heart failure.
When they took 100 elderly men and women with poor libido or sexual dysfunction, giving them cordyceps improved their libido and improved their sexual function. When they took women who were not interested in sex, it improved their sexual function; it improved their sexual desire, the number of fantasies, how much fun they had when they had sex. When they studied men with impotence and erectile dysfunction, it improved erectile dysfunction in most of the men. Listen, this intimacy is very important to a couple. Intimacy is very healing, it’s very nurturing. It’s very good for a relationship between two people. It, apparently, helps intimacy.
Now, in older people, there have been studies from UC Davis, from Stanford University. In older people, it helps their tolerance to heat and cold. It helps improve their fatigue. It lowered their level of fatigue in 92 percent of all subjects. It reduced dizziness and vertigo. It reduced ringing in the ears and improved their hearing. The number of trips they took to the bathroom at night also dropped by 60 percent and memory improved by 26 percent.
When you take the cordyceps and the black seed, it’s great for allergies; it’s great for asthma and lung health. We have a lot of testimonials from our clients and from physicians that it helped lung health and breathing in people with allergies and people with asthma and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. It’s great for allergies in adults and kids. It doesn’t like the bacteria that causes stomach ulcers and stomach cancer. It’s good for the lungs, good for the kidneys and for the liver. It’s a very good supplement as you get older. It’s very, very protective. If you’re getting older, take two of those every morning with breakfast.
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