Last winter, we used a lot of Apitherapy elderberry syrup to get through the daycare colds. It worked! We emerged in the spring having had only a few minor sniffles - nothing like the first winter in daycare.
I’ve become a little more frugal and a lot braver now. I discovered, for instance, that Mountain Rose Herbs (MRH) carries dried elderberries. Then I became more inspired and hunted down a recipe. I was able to buy almost everything through MRH, though I declined to include the Osha root as MRH’s stock is wild crafted, the species is endangered and in limited supply. I doubled the recipe and ended up with 3 wine bottles of super juice.
For the skeptical out there, this little study showed that influenza symptom were relieved about 4 days earlier for those using elderberry extract, compared to placebo. Another study showed that elderberry extract revs up the immune system by boosting cytokine production - both inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. An older study demonstrated the ability of elderberry extract to reduce hemagglutination and inhibit replication of 8 strains of human influenza viruses (both type A and type B); patients that took the extract recovered faster (2-3 days compared to 6+ days without extract).
I’ve always been skeptical of the flu vaccine, especially since I heard a talk from an evolutionary biologist who is involved in helping pick the strains for the vaccine. But I’ll save the debate about phylogenetic reconstruction methods for another day (and another blog?). I sleep better at night now just knowing that we can continue opting out of the thimerosol-loaded influenza vaccines and chug-a-lug our homebrew elderberry syrup (with Grand Marnier) instead.
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