Last Thursday evening, on a warm fall evening in Northern California’s Sonoma County, I was lucky enough to sit in the audience as Traditional Medicinals’ cofounder, Drake Sadler, announced that herbal-tea company had transitioned 75 percent of its energy usage to solar. To wit, there were the panels, black and shiny, soaking up the sun and fueling the factory, which turns out hundreds of herbal teas — most of them organic. more

According to a new animal study, certain antioxidants may decrease chemo-related brain fog or “chemo-brain” for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. But I have also heard that cancer patients are told NOT to take antioxidants while undergoing chemotherapy, for reasons pointed out in this Science Daily article. What can patients take to abate chemo side effects? WebMD reports on vitamin E and others.

Giving your children only 200 International Units (IUs) of vitamin D isn’t nearly enough, says a report in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that children take 200 IUs of Vitamin D a day, a new study suggests that increasing that number to 2000 IUs could improve bone development and contribute to other long-term health benefits. more

The news of the day: Airborne herbal cold remedy will pay more than $23 million dollars in refunds to consumers who believed the false advertising and took the product with the hope of staving off colds.

The real issue, of course, is that Airborne said they had clinical proof of the product’s efficacy, when in fact no viable scientific trials had been performed. more

We’ve been talking a lot about probiotics lately. Our feature story “Get Cultured” in the January issue was all about them and what they can do for you. This week, we got to sample GoodBelly, the latest probiotic more

If you were as shocked as I was to read about the recent deaths of 24 Danish pancreatitis patients in a probiotics trial, you might find a more balanced perspective at this article by Stephen Daniells, PhD, originally published on www.nutraingredients.com. In it, he explains the high mortality rate of those with pancreatitis. Here are some highlights:

“The fact remains that probiotics have displayed significant benefits for a range of health conditions, and the safety record is exemplary when used by the average health consumer at recommended intakes.”

“…it may serve as an interesting example of expecting too mcuh from nutritional supplements. Whether it’s a probiotic, a pomegranate extract, an omega-3, or whatever, the bigger issue from these data may be that the benefit of nutrients is in the prevention, not the cure of disease.”