Rhodiola is another herb with a pretty strong resume of published research documenting its ability to fight fatigue, improve reaction time, improve attention, and reduce stress. It’s a plant (also known as golden root and roseroot) that grows in cold and mountainous places, including the Arctic, the Central Asian and Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Pyrenees, Scandinavia, Iceland, and other regions. In fact, in Russia it has been used for hundreds of years specifically to help cope with the harsh Siberian climate, and it is said to have been used by the Vikings as well.
Rhodiola is a valuable adaptagen. In one study, published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, rhodiola improved endurance exercise capacity. In another study, pubished in the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, Aermenian researchers found that patients from eighteen to seventy years of age with mild to moderate depression improved significantly on measures of overall depression, insomnia, and emotional instability following doses of either 340 mg a day or 680 mg a day.
Other studies have shown pronounced anti-fatigue effects for the supplement. One particularly well-known study (from the Departmnet of Neurology at Yerevan State Medical University in Armenia) investigated the effect of low-dose treatment with rhodiola on fatigue in young, healthy physicians, working night duty. One group received a placebo and one group was given a standardized extract of rhodiola. The researchers wanted to see whether rhodiola supplementation would have any effect on total mental performance, so they used a measure calculated as the Fatigue Index, consisting of five different standardized tests for perception and cognitive function 9such as short-term memory and ability to concentrate).
Sure enough, they found a statistically significant improvement in the Fatigue Index for the rhodiola group, with no improvement shown in the group given the placebo. The Fatigue Index was also significantly improved in a group of 161 healthy cadets ages nineteen to twenty-one after a single dose of rhodiola was administered.
Want more? A 2000 double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized study-considered the gold standard in research designs – investigated the effect or rhodiola supplementation on forty foreign students during a stressful exam period. Russian researchers divided the students into two groups, and gave one group rhodiola and the other a placebo. The rhodiola group demonstrated significantly improved scores in physical fitness and mental fatigue. The rhodiola group also had significantly higher scores in a self-assessment of general well-being.
Rhodiola has low toxicity and extremely low occurrences of side effects. According to the Physicians Desk Reference for Herbal Medicines, most users find that it improves their mood, energy, and mental clarity. For that reason, you shouldn’t take it at night, because it can easily disrupt sleep.
If you want to try this herb, a good place to start is with 50 to 200 mg a day. And remember not to take it at night.
WORTH KNOWING
Because rhodiola does have an antidepressant effect, people with bipolar disorder shouldn’t use it. Like many other antidepressants, natural or pharmaceutical, rhodiola has the potential for inducing mania in people with bipolar disorder.
No comments:
Post a Comment