Join the conversation with Tillicum Wawa and special guest, Cynthia King (Lumbee), owner of The Herb Shed Native Forest Remedies. Cynthia is an herbalist, teacher, ceremonial leader, and Native businesswoman.

Tune in to learn about Native food and medicine for healing. If you're listening - you're part of the conversation!

Post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) is widely pervasive catastrophe that impacts perhaps 25% of families in America. It's "a whole body tragedy . . . with massive repercussions. We cannot patch it up in 12 weeks of counseling or with a pill or with surgery.  Left untreated it grows and morphs into a destructive beast that erodes the very fabric of wellness in the human being.  It has the unique power to unravel body, mind and spirit.

Americans have a lower life expectancy rate, higher rates of heart disease and cancer, and an infant mortality rate that is twice as high as other rich industrialized nations. (Even Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the US according to the CIA World Factbook.) With the intention of restoring" the nation to natural optimum health," a nonprofit health organization Fresh Start, was recently founded here in Portland to provide free education to the public on natural health topics. "We believe that America's health crisis can be turned around, and we can do that through making the best information available to the people."

Lowering the Pressure: Natural Approaches to Hypertension

About 74.5 million people in the United States age 20 and older have high blood pressure, which amounts to one in three adults, and it’s often said that in 90-95% percent of the cases, the cause is not known. Since the death rate is so high with this condition, we’ve got a bit of a murder mystery on our hands.

We hear about the story of Henrietta Lacks who unwittingly donated her tissue to science in 1951 and whose cells still grow in laboratories around the world today.  Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.