Chaga is the black, crusty "birch conk" of the northern forests, brewed for centuries into a dark, earthy tea in Siberia, Scandinavia and Indigenous North America. Here's where it comes from, what the research actually shows so far, and the kidney caution everyone should know before trying it.
The bright red fruit left on wild roses after the petals fall has been brewed into a warming winter tea for generations, from Indigenous communities in British Columbia to European kitchens. This profile covers its traditional uses, the joint research that put rosehip powder on the map, and who should go easy on it.
Sarsaparilla root was one of the most famous "blood purifiers" of European and American medicine for about three centuries, and it still turns up in blood-cleanse, skin and men's tonic blends. Members get the full entry: its history, why doctors doubted it as early as the 1850s, what the research does and doesn't show, and its digoxin, lithium and kidney cautions.
A dark mountain resin that Ayurveda has treated as a prized rejuvenating tonic for centuries, now sold worldwide for energy and men's vitality, and one of the supplements most likely to be contaminated.
The kitchen herb behind many old-fashioned cough syrups and mouthwashes. Thyme has been used for chesty coughs, sore throats and digestion since ancient Greece, and it's still an approved traditional cough remedy in Europe.
The fragrant resin of the frankincense tree, burned in temples for thousands of years and used in Ayurveda for stiff, aching joints. Today it's one of the most-studied herbs for joint comfort.
A hardy root from the high Peruvian Andes, grown at around 4,000 metres for up to 2,000 years. Andean families have long eaten it as a staple food and an energizing tonic, and today it's one of the most popular "superfood" roots for energy and vitality.
Quercetin is the most common flavonoid in the human diet, the yellow pigment behind onion skins and apple peels. Here's how naturopaths use it, the traditional herbs that are rich in it, and what the research shows.
Fish oil carries EPA and DHA, the long-chain omega-3 fats found in oily fish. Here's how folk medicine and naturopaths have used it, from cod liver oil for "aches and pains" to heart and brain support, and what the big trials found.
A hundred years ago, doctors found that cod liver oil and sunshine could straighten the bowed legs of children with rickets. Twenty years later a dentist found a mysterious "Activator X" in spring butter. Here's why people now take vitamin D3 and K2 together, what the studies actually show, and the one medicine that makes K2 a serious matter.
