Class Update

Well at least we started the discussion on the female reproductive system in school yesterday! With a class that consists of seven insightful, creative and intelligent women, it’s a wonder we ever get anything accomplished. Each of us has our own unique background and set of experiences and with such a small classroom setting, participation (whether my teacher wants it or not) is pretty much guaranteed. What I enjoy most about class in general is the openness and honesty that accompanies each lecture. The frankness with which we talked about the reproductive systems was refreshing. It’s a type of truth that many of us are unaccustomed to – especially when dealing with delicate subject matter.

In a society that uses sex to sell pretty much everything, most of us would like to think that we’re very open to discussions about our bodies. In truth, the type of sex you see in the media is simply surface talk. When you get down to it, most of us know squat about our own bodies. How exactly do our hormonal systems work? Why do they work the way they do? What happens when they stop working as intended and how does this affect the rest of our body?

Hopefully things are better now than when I was a teenager. The birds and bees discussion with my mother (who I love to death) consisted of one question. “They talk about this stuff at school right?” I laughed, said yes and we moved on. Now this discussion may seem vague and unhelpful, but it’s a vast improvement from the way my grandmother dealt with the issue. Her and my mother didn’t talk about it at all! Perhaps when my generation’s children grow up, it will be a whole other ballgame.

However my mother was right, we did have sex education in school. Looking back I have to question whether it provided all of information we needed. Now I don’t want to talk down on the school system. Considering the wide variety of backgrounds, cultures and personal belief systems in our country, I don’t envy their position at all. It’s also not their job alone to teach children about the reproductive systems of the body.

There are many of us who think our reproductive systems have only do with sex. Sadly this is not true at all. They are hormonal systems and therefore have an intimate connection with all of the other hormonal systems in the body. For example, yesterday we discussed how the over consumption of simple white sugars can lead to disturbances of the reproductive system (especially for females). The pancreas secretes two hormones to help balance blood sugar – insulin and glucagon. In very (very) simple terms, if you over eat simple carbohydrates, this can mess up the balance of these hormones. And because they are hormones, they could influence the other hormones in the body. Crazy eh?

So the next time you (or someone who know) are assaulted with cramps, backache and mood swings, think back to that bag of gummy worms you ate last week! Okay, okay it’s not that simple, but diet, exercise, stress levels and toxicity all contribute to the health of our entire bodies, including the reproductive system.

I wish our class discussions were all sunshine and lollipops, but sometimes we talk about things that are downright frightening. Yesterday I learned about a little substance called Atrazine. What is that you ask? It is a pesticide (which is still widely used in North America and about 80 other countries) that researchers have discovered to be a major hormone disruptor in the body. In 2004 the EU banned it, but not us! It would result in the loss of a whole lot of money, due to loss in crops, if we banned it. Who cares if it caused male tadpoles to turn into hermaphrodites, we need corn! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrazine)

Well as you can see, the classroom of a traditional herbalist student isn’t all about herbs. We discuss real health issues facing each and every one of us. My teacher has always said that learning herbs in isolation to other health information is close minded. Keeping updated on the newest discoveries in science will only make us better practitioners in the end.

I will endeavour to update the blog after each class. Thanks for reading and get outside and enjoy that sunshine!

In good health,
Correne