Nutrition and Complementary Health Terms

An alternative practice with a long history in fringe cancer regimens and no demonstrated effect against any disease.

A nutrient that the body needs in small amounts to function and stay healthy.

The cabbage family, named for its cross-shaped flowers and marked out chemically by the sulfur compounds behind its bitterness.

Suction cups applied to the skin, a traditional practice recognizable afterward by rings of discoloration.

The vitamin the body absorbs with the most difficulty is also the one it stores longest, so deficiency builds quietly over years.

A plant compound that contains sugar and produces cyanide.

The root of this plant has been used in some cultures to treat certain medical problems.

Diet refers both to everything a person routinely eats and drinks and to a specific eating pattern prescribed for a medical condition.

Not one number per nutrient but several, each answering a different question, from an average requirement to the level where risk begins.

Dock refers to several related plants long used in traditional herbal preparations and, in some cases, eaten as a leafy food.

A staple of Chinese herbal formulas taken up in the West as a single remedy, which is not how it was traditionally given.

A North American juniper, not a true cedar, whose fragrant wood yields the oil sold as cedarwood.

Echinacea is an herbal supplement derived from purple coneflower, popularly used in an effort to prevent or shorten the common cold.

A group of hands-on and hands-near practices built on a life force that measurement has never found.

One species among many sold as lavender, and the one whose oil is meant when a recipe or a study says lavender.

A form of nutrition that is delivered into the digestive system as a liquid.

Vitamin D2, produced by shining ultraviolet light on yeast or mushrooms, and the one form of vitamin D the body cannot make.

Two kinds behave quite differently in the gut: one dissolves into a gel, the other keeps its structure and adds bulk.

An ancient form of acupuncture based on the principle that there are five universal elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water) that affect a person's emotions, personality, health, and response…

Folate is a B vitamin essential for making red blood cells and DNA, distinct from folic acid, its synthetic supplement form.