Pine Pollen Powder as a Powerful Adaptogenic Superfood

Pine Pollen Powder Background Information
As a nutritive adaptogenic tonic, pine pollen powder is well known as a natural source “superfood” harvested from pine trees. Pine pollen powder is rich in testosterone, DHEA, antioxidants glutathione and superoxide dismutase which endows the pine pollen powder with great effects in both endocrine and immune system. There are a lot of different species of pine trees in the world that can release the pollen from their male catkins in spring time each year, this kind of light yellow grains can be raised to many miles away with the wind.

Pine pollen powder can be collected from Pinus sylvestris, pinus densiflora, pinus massoniana, pinus yunnanensis, pinus tabulaeformis and a lot of other different genus pinus which depend on which districts you live in. For example, Pinus sylvestris mainly is distributed in Western Europe and North American countries, pinus massoniana and pinus yunnanensis are main species pine trees in Asian countries. There are close to 175 species in the genus Pinus and in the family Pinaceae, all of which could produce pollen. Most commercial pine pollens are from the Pinus massoniana or Pinus sylvestris species.

The yellow granules of pine pollen to most people are a nuisance that may cause allergy. However the given off of pollen is one part of the life circle for pine trees, as an action to promote the growth pine trees. Not only for pine trees, it also could enrich the soil, feed the surrounding plants and animals that live on pine pollen as a source of food. Most importantly, the plant sterols in the pollen could provide the reproductive strength for many wild living beings.

Besides the high testosterone content, together with the rich androgens and phytosterols; pine pollen powder could effectively help to balance the ratio of the sex hormones in human body, namely androgen and estrogen. Pine pollen powder is quite potent for middle aged adults whose hormonal level drops significantly after 30 years. This is the reason why male andropause and female menopause happen. And this may cause a lot of health problems like fertility issues, benign fibroid growths and breast cancer. Thus supplementment of androgenic foods such as pine pollen powder could help to make a balance of estrogen and androgen in human body.

Pine Pollen History
Due to the nutritional value and its longevity tonic benefits for boosting energy and immunity, the pine pollen powder was widely used with a long history throughout Asia especially in China and Korea. Pine pollen powder is firstly recorded in the Chinese classic piecework Shennong’s Herbal Classic in Han dynasty over 2,000 years ago. Nowadays it is still used in a lot of food products like as a kitchen baking ingredient to be added in flour in cakes in China andKorea. Also because of the long application history, most of wild pine pollen products are from Asian countries.

Realization of pine pollen powder benefits in the Western countries is from recent years, most people know this miracle herb from the book of Stephen Harrod Buhner. In his book “The Natural Testosterone Plan” and “Pine Pollen: Ancient Medicine for a New Millennium.”, Stephen argue that pine pollen given its potency, its similarity to ginseng in some of its actions, and its status as, perhaps, the premier phytoantrogen on the planet, should have been recognized long before now as the powerful medicinal that it is.”

Cell-Wall Cracked Pine Pollen Powder
Pine pollen powder is a nutritive superfood with bioabsorbable constituents that are beneficial to health and immune system. However pine pollen grain is surrounded by hard sporoderm/cell/shell which likes an armour to protect the nutrition inside the cell wall. The cell wall of pine pollen can stay the same when soaked in caustic soda or in boiling water, as well as strong radioresistance character. A study conducted by a Japanese scholar on pine pollen by increasing the radiological dose on Pine Pollen and found that the cytoplasm dead volume is 77.4-129 C/KG while the human radiation lethal dose is only 0.15 C/KG; which can show that pine pollen cell wall has extraordinary strong stability and radioresistance character. Digestive juice of human or any monogastric animal can not break the Pine Pollen cell wall. Therefore, for better consumption of nutrition inside the cell wall, physical breaking of pine pollen cell wall is necessary.

Pollen grains are wrapped in the solid shell, which protects the nutrients and hereditary substance in it as an “armor”. The pollen wall has a great capacity of not only with standing being soaked in caustic soda and boiled in water but also resisting radioactivity. Experiments made by Japanese scholars by increasing the radioactive dose shows that the lethal dose of radiation on human beings is 0.15 coulomb/kilogram whereas a dose of 77.4-129 coulomb/kilogram on pollen cells demonstrates the marvelous solidity and anti-radioactivity properties of the pollen shell.

It is originated in Japan that the digestive juice of human beings and monogastric animal can not break down the sporoderm/cell/shell of the pollen, thus the sporoderm/cell/shell has to be removed before all the nutrients in pollen can be absorbed. However, European and American countries that have popularized pollen products hold that the pollen with a sporoderm/cell/shell or without a sporoderm/cell/shell can both be absorbed by the body. For many years, no agreement has been reached on this issue whether it is necessary or not to break the pollen sporoderm/cell/shell. This argument has captured the great attention of nutritionists. Many studies have been carried out on the cell-cracking of pollen by experts at home and abroad as a scientific research subject.

The study on the microforms and nutrients has been made by the Trace Element Research Laboratory of the General Hospital of the PLA with an analytic comparison on the nutrients of natural pollen and cell cracked pollen and a discussion has been provided on the effect of the cell cracking on the pollen structure and nutrients after an observation on the changes of the microforms before and after the sporoderm/cell/shell is cracked with the scanning electron microscope.

Pine pollen is a kind of faint yellow powder with a light texture easy to flow and a soft feel of lubricity. The fluid property of pine pollen can be perceived when a bottle with it is being shaken but the fluid properties are lost when its sporoderm/cell/shell is cracked with the high speed airflow pulverization method causing the change on its physical properties, unable to flow due to the tremendous adhesiveness of the cell cracked pine pollen.

The vesicae shed and separate themselves from the pollen grains under the mechanical force while they are crashing with one another under the force of the high speed airflow during the cell cracked process. The main bodies of the cell cracked pollen grains are relatively enriched due to the fact that the vesicae are easy to be carried by the high speed airflow for its special physical structure and get lost with the force of the airflow.

Forms of Pine Pollen Products and their Difference
There are pine pollen powder, pine pollen extract, pine pollen tablet, pine pollen capsule and pine pollen tincture available in the market. Pine pollen powder in the market refers to cell wall cracked one, because this could help absorption. Pine pollen tablet is generally made of cell cracked pine pollen powder; and the most regular specification is 500mg per tablet. Pine pollen capsule is mostly 300mg per count due to the density of pine pollen powder is small. Pine pollen tincture is an alcohol extracted herbal preparation. Some people may be confused whether there is any difference between the powder form (including pine pollen tablet and capsule) and pine pollen tincture. The pine pollen powder generally carries complete nutrition like vitamins, minerals and antioxidants however less androgenic substances. Pine pollen tincture is with higher androgens such as testosterone and is easier to be absorbed. The reason is that pine pollen powder is taken from digestive tract while pine pollen tincture is more absorbed through blood stream with the help of alcohol.

Pine Pollen Benefits
Balance between Androgenand Estrogen in Human Body
Pine pollen powder offer one of nature’s most potent sources of androgenic substances as testosterone, as well as with certain amounts of other plant steriods including androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and androsterone. In the book “Pine Pollen, Ancient Medicine for a New Millennium”, Stephen Buhner writes that it is a “potent overall tonic to the body and its functioning, powerful nutritive and exceptionally effective androgen which raises testosterone levels in the blood and balances the androgen/estrogen ratio.”

Estrogen and androgen are the main type of sex hormones and can be biosynthesized in the human body for maintaining a balanced endrocrine system thus work on human body. Androgens not only include testosterone and androstenedione, but also include the group of estrogens like estrone, estriol and estradiol as well as the third class of sex hormones called progestogens, like progesterone. Men produce larger amount androgens while women produce a larger amount estrogen. When we have a unbalanced hormone, we may suffer from a lot of symptoms like weight gain, insomnia, fatigue, low sex drive, depression and even more serious health problems. And pine pollen powder could supplement the deficiency and boost the recovery of certain hormone especially for those in middle aged adults whose testosterone, DHEA and androstenedione production undergoing a decrease with the aging, thus ease the male andropause and female menopause. Pine pollen powder could be taken with other testosterone boosting superfoods, including horny goat weed extract,tongkat ali extract, sting nettle root extract, maca root extract, tribulus terrestris extract, ashwagandha extract, ginseng root extract, cistanche extract and fenugreek seed extract as a testosterone supplements for a better result.

Neutralize the Side Effects of Xenoestrogens
In modern society, all kinds of pollutant from petroleum or chemical substances like herbicides, pesticides, plastics, BPA, dioxin and PCB’s bring the change to our living environment with a lot of estrogens. And all these exogenous estrogens have a negative effect on our health especially could blind our estrogen receptors, simulate estrogen and prevent normal hormone from functionning. This could trigger an redundant estrogens in both men and women and then a decrease in androgen which bring the possibilities of breast and prostate cancers, affect the growth and infertility. Pine pollen powder could help to neutralize the extra estrogen thus balance the ratio of estrogen and androgen in the human body.

Help Bodybuilding, Libido, Willpowder and Mood
Compared with synthetic anabolic-androgenic steroids, pine pollen powder as a natural source testosterone is rich in anabolic phytosteroids, which is helpful for athletes and body builders to increase the muscle mass and improve the endurance and overal performance without side effects. And testosterone also could help to promote the libido for both male and female. Men requires more androgen hormones for a healthy sex performance, pine pollen powder happens to be a natural source supplement to increase the sperm count and treat erectile dysfunction. In another aspect, balanced testosterone level could lead to positive feelings of well being, uplifted mood, stimulated sense of willpowder, and promoted enthusiasm for life. This is because pine pollen powder contains a type of substance named as phenylalanine which is the pecursor of levodopa, and as a result it could help to stimulate dopamine level in human brain.

Boost the immunity
Pine pollen powder contains a broad spectrum of nutrition such as protein, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, trace elements and other effective compositions. All these nutrition endows pine pollen powder with an adaptogenic benefits, which means it could help to increase the resistance of human body to daily stress and serve as a restorative agent to promote immunity. As an adaptogen, pine pollen powder could provide a protective function for human beings from radiation and other chemical contamination in our surrounding environment. Pine pollen powder also contains such antioxidants like glutathione and SOD. Glutathione is capable of preventing damage to important cellular components caused by reactive oxygen species such as free radicals, peroxides, lipid peroxides, and heavy metals. It is a tripeptide with a gamma peptide linkage between the carboxyl group of the glutamate side chain and the amine group of cysteine, and the carboxyl group of cysteine is attached by normal peptide linkage to a glycine. Glutathione is a necessary agent for the metabolism of certain vitamins and minerals such as iron, Vitamin C, Vitamin E and is involved in amino acid transport. It also inhibits cancerous growths, neutralizes free radicals and is vital for DNA synthesis and production. In addition, glutathione also works as a liver-detoxifying agent because the enzyme and glutathione S-transferase it contains.

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is an enzyme that alternately catalyzes the dismutation (or partitioning) of the superoxide (O2−) radical into either ordinary molecular oxygen (O2) or hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Superoxide is produced as a by-product of oxygen metabolism and, if not regulated, causes many types of cell damage. Hydrogen peroxide is also damaging, but less so, and is degraded by other enzymes such as catalase. Thus, SOD is an important antioxidant defense in nearly all living cells exposed to oxygen. One exception is Lactobacillus plantarum and related lactobacilli, which use a different mechanism to prevent damage from reactive (O2−).

Skin Care
Arginine and sulfur-based MSM in pine pollen powder is very helpful to treat different skin conditions. Pine pollen contains the amino acid arginine as well as sulfur-based MSM, both of which are beneficial in the treatment of various skin conditions. Sulfur is an essential element for all life, but almost always in the form of organosulfur compounds or metal sulfides. Three amino acids (cysteine, cystine, and methionine) and two vitamins (biotin and thiamine) are organosulfur compounds. Many cofactors also contain sulfur including glutathione and thioredoxin and iron–sulfur proteins. Disulfides, S–S bonds, confer mechanical strength and insolubility of the protein keratin, found in outer skin, hair, and feathers. Sulfur is one of the core chemical elements needed for biochemical functioning and is an elemental macronutrient for all organisms. It can help to build keratin and collagen, two compounds essential for healthy nails, hair and skin tissue. The pine pollen powder can be used externally to help the treatment of eczema, rashes or even acne. Androgen steriods in pine pollen powder also help to promote tissue regeneration and prevent the degradation of collagen and elastin. Collagen and elastin are important ingredient maintain healthy skin.  Pine pollen powder has been used as a cosmetic raw materials to smooth the skin and keep a youthful looking of skin in China andSouth Korea with a long history.

Will Pine Pollen Cause Any Allergy?
Every spring, people may directly or indirectly be in touch with pine pollen dust, and this may cause hay fever or other allergy symptoms. However with reference to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pine pollen power is produced in large amounts by a common tree, but it is not a major cause of pollen allergies for most people. There are not too many types of pollens could cause allergy, and those which cause allergy will exert on human via respiratory tract or eyes; which means consumption of pine pollen through digestive tract will get small chance for allergic reactions. Up to now, there is no sensitization source being found in pine pollen. However for cautiousness, it’s suggested to start with a small dose for allergy sufferers and then increase the dosage if no negative reaction happened.

Recommended Dosage
Pine pollen powder/tablet/capsule
General health preservation: 5g each time, twice a day;
Sub-healthy people: 10g each time, twice a day;
High blood sugar, blood fat and blood pressure and chronic hepatitis: 15g each time, twice a day;
liver cirrhosis, cancer and chemoradiotherapy treatment: 20g each time, twice a day.
Pine pollen tincture
Most recommended dosage for a 2:1 pine pollen tincture is 1/2 to 1 dropper twice daily and you could start with a small amount (like a half or full dropper) and increase over time to find what works for you.