The DARK SIDE of Ashwagandha - Dr. Berg

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2024

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this podcast, we’re going to talk about the side effects and benefits of ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is a powerful herb that helps to reduce stress and anxiety. Along with stress management, ashwagandha has numerous potential health benefits, including the following:

•Reduces nervousness

•Helps reduce cortisol

•Increases VO2 max

•Increases testosterone

•Improves sleep

•Improves recovery

•Lowers blood sugar

•Helps improve insulin resistance

However, there are some things to consider before taking ashwagandha. Avoid ashwagandha if you have a hyperthyroid condition like Graves' disease because ashwagandha speeds up the thyroid.

Because it lowers blood pressure, it’s best to avoid ashwagandha if your blood pressure is already on the low side. If you have low cortisol, you won’t want to push it even lower with ashwagandha. Pregnant or breastfeeding women should also avoid ashwagandha.

Don't take ashwagandha if you’re sensitive to nightshades or have a genetic problem that causes you to have too much iron. If you take too much ashwagandha for too long, some people describe feeling no emotion or feeling numb.

Most people who experience adverse ashwagandha side effects have taken it for too long and in high doses. Consider keeping your ashwagandha intake at around 600 mg daily, broken into two 300 mg doses. It’s also best to limit your intake to two months at a time.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today we're going to talk about the dark side of Ashwaganda.
0:04.0	First let's talk about the light side of Ashwaganda.
0:07.5	It's a powerful herb.
0:09.5	I take it periodically, which I'm going to talk about.
0:12.0	I don't take it all the time. But Ashganda
0:15.0	has been around for a very long time and it has everything to do with stress. It helps to reduce
0:21.4	stress. It helps to reduce stress. It helps to reduce anxiety, especially if you have nervousness.
0:27.0	It can actually lower cortisol.
0:30.0	It can increase V.O.2 max.
0:32.0	This is why a lot of athletes take it. It can increase
0:35.2	testosterone and because it lowers cortisol it can help you sleep especially if
0:40.0	you're getting up right around 2 o'clock or 2.30 in the middle of the night.
0:44.3	And it's good for recovery.
0:46.2	It's good to help lower your blood sugar and help with insulin resistance.
0:52.0	So it's going to help you lose weight. You don't want to
0:54.1	take Ashorganda if you have a hyperthyroid condition like Graves
0:59.3	Disease for example. Why? Because Ashweganda speeds up the thyroid. And so if you already have a
1:05.3	hyper fast thyroid, we don't want to speed it up more. Also because it lowers blood
1:11.7	pressure, if you have a low blood pressure, you probably don't want to take it because it's going to push your blood pressure lower.
1:18.0	And also if you have low cortisol, you probably don't want to push cortisol even lower than it is right now.
1:24.4	And of course if you're pregnant or breastfeeding I wouldn't recommend taking it.
1:28.7	If you're sensitive to the nightshades I wouldn't recommend taking it. If you have a genetic problem where you'd
	...

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