Nutrition and Complementary Health Terms

A trade name for turmeric, a spice that is not saffron, is not related to saffron, and costs a small fraction of what saffron costs.

A plant whose roots are used as a sedative and to treat certain medical conditions.

An herb native to islands in the South Pacific.

A Pacific island drink turned capsule, calming enough to show up in trials and tied to rare but severe liver injury.

Large brown seaweed sold as a supplement, notable in medicine mainly for how much iodine it carries.

A plant whose seeds and root have been used in some cultures to treat certain medical problems.

The use of a low-level laser beam instead of an acupuncture needle to stimulate an acupuncture point.

Lavender is an aromatic flowering plant whose oil is widely used in aromatherapy and traditional preparations for its calming scent.

The seed of the flax plant.

A plant whose roots are used as a sedative and to treat certain medical conditions.

A type of acupuncture in which a microwave device is attached to an acupuncture needle to give microwave radiation at an acupuncture point.

Unlike vitamins, these are chemical elements: they cannot be built or destroyed by cooking, only taken in and lost again.

A plant that lives partly off the tree it grows on, and the source of a widely debated injected therapy.

Burning a dried herb at or above the skin to heat a chosen point, a practice defined by warmth where acupuncture is defined by needles.

A small green legume better known as a sprout, and one of many foods given cancer claims that its nutrition does not support.

Myoinositol is a sugar alcohol the body makes and obtains from food, often marketed as vitamin B8 despite not meeting the definition of a vitamin.

A whole system rather than a single treatment, built on the premise that the body heals itself once the obstacles are removed.

The part of acupuncture that can actually be observed, which is why research keeps circling back to it rather than to the theory.

Nicotinamide is a form of vitamin B3 that the body needs for energy production, distinct from niacin in that it does not cause flushing.

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