Impaired testosterone, estrogenic foods, velvet beans

by | Sep 13, 2007 | Columns, Healing Lyme, hormonal issues, Symptoms | 0 comments

Dear Stephen,
Thanks for the great resources you’ve provided in the form of your books. I have a couple questions regarding The Natural Testosterone Plan. I have had chronic lyme disease for at least 6 years and I’m doing fairly well in most areas at this time, but have had impaired testosterone for about 2 years. I believe this to be lyme related. In your book you mention the importance of avoiding estrogenic/ antiandrogenic foods, but don’t mention many specifically except for grapefruit and hops. I assume this means avoiding sweet potatoes and soy. I was wondering about stevia, which I have used as a sweetener for several years as part of a low-glycemic diet. I had heard once that there had been some concern over reproductive health and stevia. Do you know anything about it? Also, I’m trying many of the approaches outlined in your book. Including the sprouted fava beans. I was wondering if you could tell me a good dosage for velvet beans and possibly a source (they’re hard to find!). Thanks!


Stephen’s response:
There have been a number of studies on stevia. One with rats showed impacts on male reproductive organs, specifically lower fertility and lower weight of the seminal vesicles. However, other studies with hampsters and, again rats, have found no impacts on fertility. Overview studies on stevia’s impacts on humans have found it safe for use with no adverse impacts. The only thing I can see that might be a problem is that the isolated extract stevioside might have more negative impacts over time than the powdered whole herb, though this is just a tendency. Studies of the isolated constituent have found it safe in many other studies.
The growing controversy about soy is not something I have followed in detail. I do eat soy but not a lot of it, usually in Japanese food, miso soup and the like. So, I can’t really speak to that at this point and I never skip sweet potatoes.
As to velvet beans: you can buy the beans from Bouncing Bear Botanicals, they are expensive but you can plant them and grow your own from them. I would suggest a google search to find more sources. They are exceptionally common in the south where they grow wild; some southern herbal wildcrafters might collect them for you if you contact them: try contacting the herbalist Kathleen Maier in Virginia as a beginning. See ecotech.org for for velvet bean recipes.
I am not all that up on velvet bean dosing; fava beans can be eaten 16 ounces per day, the body adjusts pretty fast. Some cultures do eat velvet beans regularly without side effects but again I am not up on it enough to comment. I would suggest you try it and see how you respond and work up a dose that way.
Stephen

Author

  • Stephen Harrod Buhner

    Stephen Harrod Buhner was an Earth poet and an award-winning author of twenty-four books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine including the acclaimed book Healing Lyme: Natural Healing & Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis & Its Co-infections.

    Stephen came from a long line of healers including Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. The greatest influence on his work, however, was his great-grandfather C.G. Harrod who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911.

    Stephen’s work has appeared or been profiled in publications throughout North America and Europe including Common Boundary, Apotheosis, Shaman’s Drum, The New York Times, CNN, and Good Morning America. Stephen lectured yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind necessary for successful habitation of Earth.

    He was a tireless advocate for the reincorporation of the exploratory artist, independent scholar, amateur naturalist, and citizen scientist in American society – especially as a counterweight to the influence of corporate science and technology.

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This protocol was incredible. After only a few weeks most of my symptoms were gone. After six months all my symptoms were gone… it has given me my life back.

– Amazon review by Joseph

Please note:

Stephen Buhner is no longer living and this Q + A column on Planet Thrive is closed to new questions. It will be kept on our website so readers can access vital information in the archives, communicate with each other in the comments section, and find herbs, books + lyme adjuncts in our directory. If you want to read more of Stephen’s writings, please see his website at: stephenharrodbuhner.com.



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