Maca: How the "Passion Plant" of the Andes Can Put the Fire Back Into Your Furnace
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An exclusive interview with George Foss, former general manager of Kayser Nutrition, southern California's health food store chain to the wealthy and famous for 52 years. George has been called a "walking repository of nutritional supplement research knowledge," and is a long-time consultant to the nutritional supplement industry. Featured on a variety of television and radio news broadcasts over the past 20 years, he is widely considered by west coast news media outlets to be the nutritional supplement industry's "go to" guy on natural health topics.
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Life & Health: George, thanks for joining us again. Today we're going to be talking about Maca Root. As you know, this popular herb has long been referred to as the "passion plant" of the Andes due to its dramatic libido-boosting properties. Could you tell us a little bit about it? For example, is it like Viagra or any of the prescription medications that work through the body's nitric oxide cycle?
George Foss: Actually, the Maca Root herb is quite different from prescription drugs like Viagra. First of all, those types of drugs are used almost exclusively by men, for the express purpose of achieving an erection. Maca Root, on the other hand works for both men and women. And instead of forcing a particular organ of the body to function, it increases overall sexual drive and libido. In other words, one of its chief characteristics is that it boosts the flagging desire for sex. As a friend of mine recently stated during a speech at a health conference, "It doesn't necessarily turn limp shrimp into stout trout. But it really puts the fire back into your furnace." If I had to say it succinctly, though somewhat crudely, taking Maca makes you good and horny. And when you are good and horny, everything functions better in that department.
Life & Health: How does it do this?
George Foss: There is some controversy over how it works. Some researchers believe that Maca works by helping balance your body's natural hormone production levels. While it is not a hormone itself, it apparently helps regulate hormones naturally, bringing abnormally low levels up, and abnormally high levels down. The result is a more youthful balance of hormones that leads to more youthful sexual desire. And that in turn, of course, leads to greater sexual arousal. And it works equally well for both men and women.
Other researchers however dispute this theory. They believe Maca Root works chiefly by stimulating a complex neural circuit in the brain that is directly involved in sexual arousal -- perhaps the melanocyte-receptors in the brain, which are known to play a significant part in human sexual arousal. Regardless of how it works, the main point to understand is that it really works. For many people, Maca's role in enhancing sexual arousal can be quite dramatic.
Life & Health: Can you be a little bit more specific about the difference between Maca Root and prescription drugs like Viagra?
George Foss: Sure. First of all, Viagra, the so-called "little blue pill," is a chemical drug, rather than a natural substance. It works by inhibiting a very specific enzyme called phosphodiesterase 5, or PDE5, which is found primarily in the penis. This enzyme has one particular job, which is to deactivate a chemical called cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP).
Now don't let all of these chemical terms throw you. It is really a very simple process. You see, cGMP is used by the body to help relax the smooth muscles in the penis, allowing for greater blood flow into the penis when a man becomes sexually aroused, thereby producing a firmer erection. But when the enzyme known as PDE5 inhibits cGMP, the smooth muscles fail to relax, and blood flow is restricted. And with restricted blood flow it is very difficult to produce a firm erection.
Viagra actually stops PDE from inhibiting cGMP. This allows the smooth muscles of the penis to relax, and once the subject becomes fully sexually aroused, the blood begins to flow strongly into the penis. Of course, the end result is a firm erection.
The problem is this: for Viagra to work the man must first become sexually aroused. That's because it is sexual arousal that triggers a very important chemical signal from the brain to the penis, which tells the nerve cells in the penis to start producing nitric oxide. This in turn triggers the creation of cGMP, which in turn allows the smooth muscles of the penis to relax and the blood flow to increase. So Viagra enhances the tail end of that process, by stopping the rogue enzyme PDE5 from deactivating cGMP when it is triggered by nitric oxide. This restriction of the rogue enzyme PDE5 keeps the blood flowing into the penis as long as is needed.
The bottom line is that prescription drugs like Viagra really work. But the problem is that the subject must first become fully sexually aroused so that the signal is sent from the brain to the penis, and nitric oxide production is triggered. But what if there is very low desire for sex -- no fire in the furnace so to speak? In such a case, Viagra won't work. You see, Viagra can enhance the more or less mechanical process that allows blood to flow freely into the penis. But it cannot trigger the more complex emotional, mental and biological process that leads to arousal in the first place.
In a nutshell, for Viagra to work, you have to first become fully sexually aroused. And that is chiefly a neuronal and hormonal function. If the body's hormones are out of whack, which is frequently the case as we get older, then sexual desire - which is something we refer to as libido -- can be dramatically curtailed. Or if the complex neural circuitry in the brain that helps trigger sexual arousal is for some reason being suppressed - i.e., the neurons just aren't active enough -- then all of the Viagra in the world won't help, because Viagra works strictly in the penis.
On the other hand, Maca Root stimulates sexual arousal by stimulating the neurons in the brain that are directly tied to arousal, so that nature can then take its course. And if the hormonal researchers are right, it also works to balance hormones in both men and women to more youthful levels.
Life & Health: So Maca acts either by helping balance the body's natural hormone production levels, which in turn leads to a heightened sense of sexual desire, or by stimulating the neurons in the brain that lead to sexual arousal. Is that right?
George Foss: Yes. And it's really not surprising. Maca Root is a light stimulant - a little stronger, for example, than caffeine. And stimulants that work chiefly on the brain very often trigger sexual arousal. For example, in a study printed in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behaviour, it was found that even caffeine could trigger sexual arousal in women to a certain degree, particularly if they were not regular coffee drinkers. So it stands to reason that somewhat stronger neural stimulants like Maca Root would trigger even greater sexual arousal.
Again, it is the actual physical desire for sex that is dramatically increased when Maca Root is used. To put it crudely, Maca Root turns you on. It makes you horny. Sexually, it makes you feel like a kid again.
Life & Health: How long does it take to work?
George Foss: Believe it or not, for most people it starts working right away. Some people have to take Maca Root daily for a week or so, and allow it to build up in the body. They tend to notice a gradual increase in energy, stamina and even mental acuity on a day by day basis, which rather quickly translates into increased sexual energy and desire. Other people get quite a boost out of it right away, the very first time they take it. When I was at Kayser Nutrition in southern California, our feedback indicated more than 80 percent user satisfaction by the end of the first week, and 90 percent by the end of the second week.
Life & Health: That's tremendous! But why not just take prescription hormone drugs like testosterone for men, or estrogen and progesterone for women, instead of Maca?
George Foss: For some people, that may be the answer, particularly if their body is low in one specific hormone. But prescription hormone drugs - whether you are talking about testosterone for men or estrogen and progesterone for women - can have some very nasty side effects. What's more, because of the hormonal complexity of the human body, taking any particular prescription hormone drug can actually throw the rest of the body's hormones completely out of balance. So over the course of time, you can make the problem worse, instead of better. What's more, taking prescription hormone drugs like testosterone and estrogen can lead to an excessive buildup in the body, which in turn can trigger the growth of certain cancers.
The bottom line is that flooding the body with hormones is not necessarily the right approach. Always check with your doctor first, of course. But for many people, the right answer might be much simpler. A light neuronal stimulant like Maca, may be the real key to regaining youthful sexual desire.
Remember, unlike prescription hormone drugs, Maca Root is completely natural, and it seems to have a balancing effect on the body's entire hormonal system. What's more, it has a 200 year history of safe usage as an all-natural libido-booster for both men and women.
Life & Health: Tell us a little bit about the history of Maca.
George Foss: Well, the scientific name of Maca is Lepidium meyenii. It is a root-like vegetable shaped like a radish, and it grows high in the harsh climate of the Andes Mountains in South America at elevations up to 15,000 feet.
The ranchers of South Americans began using the Maca plant about two hundred years ago when they noticed a startling phenomena: the cattle on their farms began mating more frequently and with greater passion whenever there was Maca herb growing naturally in their pasture. Native Peruvians have used Maca Root as both food and medicine, to promote endurance and improve energy, vitality, sexual virility and fertility.
The herb is widely credited with being the reason South American men and women are able to maintain high libidos even into their eighties and nineties.
And because of its dramatic libido-enhancing benefits, it is now rapidly gaining popularity among North American men and women over age 40, who often suffer from age-related loss of libido caused by male and female menopause.
Life & Health: Have there been any studies on Maca Root?
George Foss: Yes. Researchers have found that feeding Maca Root extracts to normal male mice dramatically increases the frequency with which they couple with female mice. A 12-week double blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial conducted at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, in Lima, Peru, confirmed the same results in adult males.
I haven't seen any clinical research conducted on Maca Root and females, but I can personally attest that women were some of our biggest Maca Root buyers when I was general manager of Kayser Nutrition. Now, maybe a lot of them were buying it for their husbands. I don't know. But most of the female customers I spoke with who purchased Maca Root were using it to increase libido.
Life & Health: And it really works?
George Foss: Absolutely. That's why a lot of the well-known gurus are recommending it. For example, Burton Goldberg, editor of The Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer, is an avowed Maca Root enthusiast. He stated in the presitgious Townsend Letter for Doctors, "I'm a 72 year old man and this Maca has taken 25 years off my aging sex life. That's pretty important to me!"
Dr. Gary F. Gordon, former president of the American College for Advancement in Medicine has stated, "We all hear rumors about products like Maca. But using this Peruvian root myself, I personally experienced a significant improvement in erectile tissue response." Dr. Gordon explains that unlike some libido products that work by boosting hormone levels, Maca Root actually works by normalizing levels of steroid hormones like testosterone, progesterone and estrogen which work together in the human body to influence libido. He takes great pains to point out that it works equally well for boosting libido in both males and females alike.
Life & Health: Are there any serious side effects?
George Foss: When used as recommended, Maca Root has none of the adrenal-inhibiting side effects that are common with the use of synthetic hormone prescription drugs. Nor does Maca Root have any of the potentially dangerous side effects of Viagra (heart attack/vision disruption). It's a very safe herb. People with excessively high blood pressure might want to check with their doctor first, because it does have a light, stimulating effect on the body. But mostly it stimulates the neurons in the brain. In 20 years I've personally never heard of a single adverse reaction to using Maca Root. However, I've heard some very positive reports. When I was general manager of Kayser Nutrition, it was hard to keep Maca Root on the shelf. We had a very upscale clientele, including famous movie stars, millionaires, captains of business and industry. And they just loved Maca Root.
Life & Health: George, we always appreciate your keen insights into nutritional supplement uusage, as well as your ability to make complex issues easy to understand. Thanks for taking the time to speak with us today.
George Foss: It is my pleasure. Please allow me to remind readers that pure, high-potency Maca Root is available inexpensively through our good friends at The Silver Edge, by calling 1-888-528-0559, or by visiting them on the internet at www.TheSilverEdge.com.
[Special thanks to Life & Health research Group, Inc., for permission to reprint this excerpt from their upcoming newsletter, The Foss Report on Nutritional Supplements.]
Copyright 2008. No reproduction without the expressed written permission of the publisher, Life & Health Research Group, Inc., PO Box 1239, Peoria AZ 85380.
Important Notice: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and the materials and products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Self-treatment is not recommended. All health care decisions should be made under the guidance of an experienced and knowledgeable health care practitioner.
