News & Articles - Rhodiola Rosea

The classification of plants called "Adaptogens" have been used for centuries to help the body and brain cells "adapt" to and resist physical, chemical and environmental stress. They also help the body by normalizing the immune system and glucocorticoid hormone levels in a positive way, bringing them into balance. For thousands of years, people have used Adaptogens, such as Siberian Rhodiola rosea, to help their body deal with the effects of stress, but here in the United States, Siberian Rhodiola rosea is largely unknown, and yet quite possibly the most extraordinary adaptogen of all.

While ginseng has received much of the attention as an adaptogen, the last 35 years of clinical research with Siberian Rhodiola rosea by the Russians has shown this herb to go above and beyond the possibilities of ginseng. The scientific work on Siberian Rhodiola rosea's active components in addressing heart disease, cancer, and performance (mental and physical) is impressive and places Siberian Rhodiola rosea as one of the most important herbs and greatest gifts bestowed upon mankind. The Chinese described adaptogens as "superior" plants that are completely harmless to the body while exerting profound supportive effects. Adaptogens work by activating the basic and vital functions of the body to help it remain healthy under unfavorable conditions, making the body able to adapt.

Essentially, the ability for the body to adapt to unfavorable biological, chemical and psychological conditions provides an effective defense and means for survival. Research into adaptogens is on the increase, and many scientists are unraveling the benefits of these medicinal plants as profound contributors to our health and well-being.

Siberian Rhodiola rosea is far more than just another adaptogen from Siberia, such as Siberian Ginseng, Aralia or Schizandra. Extracts of Siberian Rhodiola Rosea posses a truly extraordinary combination of health benefits, without damaging side effects. In fact Siberian Rhodiola rosea was found to be safer than Ginseng even at doses exceeding 20 times the normal dose.

Job stress is increasing to worldwide epidemic proportions. Two-thirds of all visits to family physicians stem from stress. It's the root problem for anxiety, alcoholism, headaches, hypertension, irritability, and many other common ailments.

Derived from nature, we are provided with antidotes to modern stress. Nature's answer is a combination of herbal ingredients called adaptogens.

The world renowned Russian research pharmacologist and physiologist, Israel I. Brekhman, M.D., is the discoverer of adaptogens. Defined by Dr. Brekhman, an adaptogen is a plant type with certain characteristics:

1. It's nontoxic and safe for ingestion by animals, including humans;
2. It increases the body's nonspecific resistance by being stress-adapting;
3. It tends to bring back to homeostasis any dysfunctional body system. When combined, each adaptogenic plant builds on the therapeutic attribute of the others present in the nutritional formula to offer a kind of synergistic effect.

Early on, officials in the former USSR recognized the efficacy of Dr. Brekhman's phytochemical (plant product) physiological breakthroughs which occurred before 1966. It was in 1968 that they formalized the term he had coined, adaptogen, to designate the group of compounds Dr. Brekhman was investigating which accomplish the following in human and animal physiology:

• Increase protein biosynthesis
• Raise antibody titer at immunization
• Elevate the body's enzyme synthesis by means of general endocrine stimulation
• Enhance mental work capacity
• Uplift physical work capacity along with performance and endurance
• Quench free radicals so as to prevent oxidizing pathology
• Improve eyesight, color perception, hearing, and vestibular functions
• Offer beneficial effects in cardiovascular and respiratory systems
• Promote longevity
• Heighten the body's nonspecific resistance to various stressors such as toxins, excess cooling, overheating, altered barometric pressure, ultraviolet, ionizing, and cosmic radiation, and too much motor activity

Because of international politics, USSR officialdom kept the Brekhman breakthrough a secret from the rest of the world and only used the plant product supplements he created for certain important representatives of their political system. For example, stress-modulating adaptogen products were provided clandestinely to prominent Russian sports figures, Olympic coaches, ballet dancers, key political leaders, some international financiers, the cosmonauts (Russian astronauts), officers high in the Soviet military, and physiologists who sought the product for personal use. Except for a few particularly astute medical scientists on the world scene, hardly anyone knew of adaptogens.

Professor Israel I. Brekhman, M.D.

The father of adaptogens is the physiological pharmacologist, Dr. Israel I. Brekhman. He worked at the Far East Science Center of the USSR in Vladivostok as head of its Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of Adaptation. There, beginning in 1956, he devoted himself to unlocking the secrets of nature for the improvement of human health and well-being. The astounding results of his successful research have led to an ever-expanding probe of known and potentially useful adaptogens.

Dr. Brekhman and his associates studied the effectiveness of adaptogenic plants on the basis of daily and seasonal changes in individuals as well as under differing environmental circumstances. He originated the new science of ecological pharmacology when he investigated the complex formulas found in the ancient Chinese pharmacopoeia. Usually Chinese herbal formulas involve 5 to 20 different plants and are prescribed by physicians practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine according to seasons.

In order to sort out all of the 233 plants, their admixtures, and reputed effects that he was investigating, Dr. Brekhman devised four elaborate computer programs. The actions he sought to classify were tonic, diuretic, synthetic, antitoxic, and so forth. The reason for such programs was to reinvestigate obvious beneficial effects being achieved by Oriental practitioners of herbal medicine. The computer identified a nucleus of ten groups of recipes that were particularly therapeutic.

Another of this professor's discoveries was that Western medicine is too circumscribed in scope. It restricts itself to isolates which the pharmaceutical companies can patent and sell as individual products, but such isolates comprise a limited amount of atomic structural information. By the pharmaceutical industry selecting only those drug synthetics which may be protected by patent, the American medical consumer receives only a small fraction of the world's healing components.

In contrast, the more elaborate adaptogenic plant remedies with which Dr. Brekhman was working contain several million pieces of structural information. Thus, the possibilities of more complex tonic and healing effects have been increased markedly. The Brekhman adaptogens represent natural substances in nonprescription, over-the-counter form.

A concept alien to modern medicine and at which we in the West erroneously smile, is that of ancient Chinese emperors paying their physicians a regular sum for keeping them well; when someone in an emperor's immense household became ill, the physician was not paid. It was incumbent upon Eastern medical practitioners to keep the populace healthy. The chances of combating any disease were believed to be increased by utilizing a host of plant products plus some animal and mineral ones. The Chinese doctors suspected that, together, these products act in consort and are synergistic. Such a meritorious concept is worthy of adoption in the West.

Dr. Brekhman is the founder and permanent director of the committee for the study of Far East Medicinal Plants. He left the Vladivostok Center and now heads the Department of Regulation of Biological Processes at the Pacific Oceanographic Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He serves on the board of the Russian Academy of Technological Sciences and the International Organization of Adaptive Medicine, relocated to Frankfurt, Germany.

Practicing his profession for more than 45 years, the pharmacologist holds 40 patents, including 21 international patents relating to his work in developing natural plant substances. He has published 22 monographs, several hundred scientific articles, and many books. In honor of his scientific achievements, the former Soviet Union presented Dr. Brekhman with its highest award of recognition, The Order of Lenin. Also bestowed on him by the Russian National Parliament was the Lenin Medal for Valiant Work, and its coveted Certificate of Honor.

These awards came to Dr. Brekhman for breaking the genetic codes of plants and uncovering the molecular structures of their phytochemicals. He isolated the complex substrates, each of which held a special benefit for healing. He demonstrated their properties in the most massive, sustained, and successful programs of human testing in recorded scientific history. Thousands of people in all age groups participated in his studies-whole populations of towns, schools, hospitals, and factories. I shall be discussing some of these studies later.

As he published and grew in scientific stature, bureaucrats of the USSR called upon him to perfect products so as to make certain aspects of the Soviet system outstanding in the eyes of the world. Something absolutely acknowledged by the Soviets is that Dr. Brekhman built outstanding images for the Russian space program. His nutritional supplements restored the natural balance of the cosmonauts' physiology and protected them against the stresses of motion, vertigo, weightlessness, enforced inactivity, and other difficulties encountered in space flight.

Adaptogens role in Achieving Sports Success

Not the least of the Brekhman accomplishments was achieving sports success for world-class Russian athletes and for athletes of a few other countries.

It's standard for coaches, trainers, sports physicians, and others connected with athletic competition to always be searching for methods of increasing physical capacity and subsequent athletic performance. Much of this research has included the extensive scientific study of substances from nature conducted by Professor Brekhman. He furnished Russian teams and individual athletes with legal, non-drug components essential for the enhancement of athletic performance, beyond what could have been achieved merely through disciplined physical training programs.

The annals of Soviet science include many investigative efforts, some of which uncovered significant elements from the adaptogenic organic substances, which effectively facilitate the physical ability of sports competitors. Soviet Olympic and elite athletes have routinely included adaptogens in their training programs to give them a certain optimal edge in competition. The Soviets admit that they were not about to reveal this secret discovery in which they had invested such a great amount of scientific effort. But now, the adaptogen class of plants, long known to Soviet science, is finally perceived by Western athletes and their coaches. The chief nutritional advisor to the Russian Olympic teams, Dr. Sergei Portugalov, who is Head of the Laboratory of Biological Active Substances, National Research Institute of Sport in Moscow, and a member of the World Anti-Doping Conference, said: "Sports have always been a major priority in Russia -- and now the world will know what has helped us achieve domination. Hundreds of researchers secretly worked to improve training and nutrition, which we consider fundamental for elite athletes. For the past ten years, we have primarily focused on achieving results without using drugs."

"Our greatest competitive advantage came from performance supplements derived from natural plant materials. The nutritional support provided by these supplements helped our athletes achieve better performance, stamina, endurance, strength, recovery, immune resistance, muscle development, and adaptation to changes in climate, time zones, and altitude," admitted Dr. Portugalov. "The world has seen the results at the last four Olympic Games. But until recently our revolutionary discoveries were a closely guarded secret.

Loren Seagrave, coach to U.S. champion sprinter Andre Cason, uncovered the Russians' secret and made use of it for his particular athlete. "Three months after going on the program, Andre defeated the fastest sprinters in the world, including Carl Lewis -- and became the U.S. champion in the 100-meters.

Russian controlled Blind Studies

In wide-scale tests on healthy men, all of whom were employed as various types of flight personnel such as pilots, navigators, and radio operators, Eleutherococcus, Aralia, and Schizandra accelerated recovery processes following long and tiring flight schedules. The adaptogens allowed the physiological state of the subjects to be significantly restored within three hours of a flight. This was a higher state of restoration even than the personnel had felt when fresh prior to taking the flight.

During a broadly-based investigation of 60,000 truck and test-car drivers at the Volzhsky Automobile Factory in Togilatil over a period of 10 years, after taking Eleutherococcus they experienced a 25% reduction in lost work time due to absence or disability. Also, the drivers reported a 40% decrease in cases of influenza and a general health improvement overall.

In testing the response of exhaustive muscle work loads to Rhodiola rosea extract, it was found that the herb increases the activity of proteolytic enzymes and also significantly elevates the level of protein and RNA in the skeletal muscles.

In a placebo-controlled, double-blind study involving a college baseball team, it was revealed that work capacity in every parameter showed large increases after the team members were dispensed Eleutherococcus for daily consumption.

In a double-blind trial on 140 track and field athletes using Schizandra as the active ingredient, 74% of the test subjects obtained their best results in the 3000-meter run, which is well known as the most stringent test for a runner.

In another experiment, Eleutherococcus was given to 35 weight lifters and wrestlers and 36 gymnasts. Data from the collected observations indicated that the adaptogen improved the general mental and physical state of the test subjects, increased their work capacity, and decreased their fatigue.

An experiment conducted on 52 workers carrying out immensely difficult labor uncovered startling results. They had been administered Eleutherococcus, Rhaponticum, and Rhodiola prior to and during their work loads. These workers showed marked improvement in their general physical and mental state, plus functional indicators including pulse, arterial pressure, vital capacity, back muscle strength, hand endurance under static tension, and coordination of movement. Plus they experienced a reduction in the duration of the rehabilitative period required.

Russian or Chinese?

Only Rhodiola rosea of Russian origin (West and North Siberia) has the high pharmacological activity and contains key active components ROSAVIN, ROSIN, ROSARIN and SALIDROSIDE. While so-called Tibetan Rhodiola and Rhodiola rosea of Chinese origin very often do not have enough potency. Very precise analytical work done in Chungnam National University, Taejon, Korea (8) did confirm, that the content of the key active substance Salidroside in the samples of Rhodiola rosea gathered from various area in China ranged over 0.1%-1.1%. It means that the average Salidroside content in Chinese Rhodiola is only 0.6%. Meanwhile Russian Rhodiola usually contains 1-1.5%. It means that RHODIOLA ROSEA OF RUSSIAN ORIGIN IS TWO TIMES MORE POTENT THAN THE CHINESE FORM IN THIS PHYTONUTRIENT ALONE. More over, Chinese Rhodiola often has no activity at all, but there are other species of Rhodiola that are predominating in China, such as Tibetan Rhodiola, Rhodiola quadrifida, Rhodiola kirilowii, Rhodiola heterodonta and others.

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This information is intended for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, cure or prevent any disease. The Food & Drug Administration has not evaluated the statements within.