Why Don’t More Doctors Recommend Lemon Balm
If you were a doctor and you wanted to help people maintain vibrant health… and you discovered an herb capable of helping with blood sugar, cardiovascular issues, thyroid health and more, do you think you’d recommend it?
I know I would. In fact, I do recommend this herb with some frequency.
It’s called lemon balm, and no, lemon balm isn’t related to lemon even though lemon is a shared commonality in their name.
Lemon balm is an herb which comes from the mint family.
Originally lemon balm grew in the Middle East as well as the southern portions of Europe. It now grows throughout the Americas.
Lemon balm enjoys a long history of therapeutic use and only recently with modern research are we able to confirm how it helps people maintain great health.
5 Reasons You Might Want to Take Lemon Balm
Lemon balm (sometimes known as Melissa essential oil as its scientific name is Melissa officinalis) has been shown to help keep your ticker ticking on time.
In fact, that’s one of the main reasons medical professionals have been prescribing it for the past few hundred years.
1 – It Could Keep Your Heart Healthy:
Researchers believe the way lemon balm extract works has to do with how it interacts with your heart’s electrical signaling. Every single beat of your heart is initiated by electricity.
This is why it’s important to get enough magnesium and potassium in your diet as these minerals are conductive and help regulate your heart’s electric impulses.
A few years ago researchers conducted a trial where they gave lemon balm extract orally to people who had occasional disruptions in heart rhythm to see if lemon balm extract would help restore the normal function of the heart.
That trial showed that yes indeed, lemon balm had the power to decrease how often the heart experienced irregular function.
A similar study showed lemon balm could help keep the heart from beating earlier than it should, along with reducing how often the heart beat too fast or fibrillated. They noted that when they gave subjects who sometimes experienced these cardiovascular anomalies they had their heart rhythms restored and without any negative side effects.
2 – It Promotes a Healthy Response to Inflammation:
Inflammation isn’t a bad thing as it’s needed to help mobilize immune responses to pathogenic invasions or injury.
Lemon balm has been shown to help promote a healthy immune response which is essential for great health.
It’s been shown to do this by increasing antioxidant activity in the body (antioxidants help reduce free-radical damage associated with inflammation).
Here’s how Dr. Josh Axe describes its power to affect inflammation.
“In one study looking at how the antioxidants in lemon balm affect oxidative stress caused by low levels of radiation, lemon balm had remarkable results, including a significant improvement in blood levels of other antioxidant cells. A study that looked at supplementing the diet of medical professionals consistently exposed to low levels of radiation with lemon balm showed that it may be an effective way to protect them against unhealthy levels of oxidative stress. The study also showed lemon balm to naturally regulate a very important substance called superoxide dismutase.
This enzyme, known in short as SOD, is vital to understand in terms of oxidative stress because the naturally occurring SOD can cause a number of different types of cell damage.
However, it is possible to regulate it naturally, using substances such as lemon balm that keep it in check.”
3 – Has Powerful Effects On Mental Health:
One of the chief reasons to take lemon balm and probably one of the most well-documented uses for lemon balm is how it can help keep mental health stable.
Interestingly, the same way lemon balm influences heart health (affecting electrical signaling) is what is behind lemon balm’s ability to influence mental health.
For instance a small study showed taking lemon balm extract could help people experiencing occasional anxiousness.
When study participants drank a sweetened water-based drink with 300 mg of lemon balm added to it, it helped keep their stress levels and mood stabilized so they didn’t descent into an anxious state.
This was tested directly against placebo.
They repeated the test and added the lemon balm to yogurt as opposed to water and found the same results. Generally it only took 3 hours for the relief to be fully realized.
The mechanism behind this is thought to be how one of the compounds in lemon balm, called rosmarinic acid, “increases the availability of neurotransmitters in the brain known as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).”
We know if you don’t have the right levels of GABA in your brain it may result in various issues related to mental well-being.
Furthermore studies show that if there are times where sleep escapes you that lemon balm’s mild sedative effects could help you regain the ability to sleep. Just a few nights of restlessness can have a negative effect on neurotransmitter levels and may alter mood and mental health which is why taking lemon balm may help.
4 – Could Keep Thyroid Function Normal
Your thyroid serves as the thermostat for your body’s metabolism.
For your body to function at full strength your metabolism needs to operate normally and thus maintaining thyroid health is important.
Lemon balm may help to keep your thyroid healthy.
There’s research showing lemon balm will help to keep your thyroid operating at a steady rate by preventing certain components that over-activate the thyroid from binding with the thyroid receptor.
This is The Lemon Balm I’ve Recommended for Years
Lemon balm is available from a number of reputable manufacturers.
I believe the lemon balm from Gaia Organics to be one of, if not the best.
One of the top reasons I recommend it is because it’s organic, which means it’s free from pesticides that could harm you when ingested.
It’s also very potent. One serving gives you an incredibly powerful dose and it’s providing you with a 1:3 herb strength ratio, which is what you want when you’re trying to get the most benefit from lemon balm.
If you’d like to try it for the reasons listed above (or for others I didn’t list here) click this link or any of the links above to get yours today.