Best of both worlds For most women battling menopause and the nightmarish symptoms that come along with it, it's not so much about why or how a remedy works to relieve their hot flashes, so long as it DOES. Black cohosh is the perfect example. For decades, it's been one of the herbal go-to remedies for providing safe hot-flash relief, despite the fact that there wasn't much evidence to support its mechanism of action: Evidence or not, the fact that it worked kept women coming back for more. But now we've got the best of both worlds -- a safe, natural hot-flash remedy AND research on how it provides that relief. Researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago recently published a study indicating that black cohosh may go straight to the source of body temperature regulation -- the body's opiate receptors. Opiate receptors are exactly what they sound like: chemical sensors that are activated by opiates like morphine and heroin. But opiate drugs aren't the only substances that affect them. Other chemicals can also bind to them and activate responses in the body like controlling pain, initiating an immune response, or regulating core temperature. The researchers found that, specifically, black cohosh can bind to the opiate receptor known as the human mu-opiate receptor, or hMOR, which is associated with mood, body temperature, and sex hormone levels. I know this news doesn't change my opinion of black cohosh: Like many women out there, I was sold long before there was "proof." But sometimes seeing is believing. So here's to hoping that some of the naysayers out there will see this research and become believers. Nutrition & Healing Source:
"Black cohosh (Actaea racemosa, Cimicifuga racemosa) behaves as a mixed competitive ligand and partial agonist at the human mu-opiate receptor" Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Published on-line ahead of print, doi: 10.1021/jf062808u | 
