Bravo, Lisa Marasco! Very well put. I would be concerned about adding more to the mix and you've articulated this very nicely. Yes, there's a dearth of studies along the lines you suggested.

Virginia
in Brisbane, QLD, Aust

-----Original Message-----
From: Lactation Information and Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lisa Marasco IBCLC
Sent: Friday, 20 June 2014 3:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Combining herbs

Bravo, Shannon! I agree with you heartily. The biggest problem we face is the absolute dearth of research. Some herbs are going to be synergistic (such as fenugreek & blessed thistle), some neutral, and some... well, it is possible to have subtractive herbs. A study of fenugreek and garlic to control hyperthyroidism found that each one separately worked better than the two did together. How many galactogogue herbs might have the same subtractive effect when combined?  

Given the number of reputed herbal galactogoguges, it is almost impossible to test every herb against every other herb someone might want to try, let alone multi-herb combinations. Probably the only realistic way we might be able to get some kind of idea would be through animal studies, though again that is a lot of animals that would need to be involved!  Meanwhile, mothers do try a lot of things out of desperation. I personally am very selective and encourage less, not more, with an effort to validate which are helping and which are not. The hard part is in not judging the value of each added herb based on whether they produced an effect above the current herb(s) or not. I hear mothers talk about how "x didn't work for me" when what they really are saying is that "x" didn't produce an effect above what they already had going. The only way to test "x" is to try it alone.

This would be a great research project for some grad student...

~Lisa Marasco

 

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