I posted this in the main forum without success, so I thought I would try this question here:

Hello,

I read a post on here a while back in which the woman said that she chewed gum containing PM because the nerves in the tongue helped the PM to be absorbed better and would go straight into the bloodstream (and therefore bypassing the liver?). I tried using the google scholar search tool, and couldn't find anything on this, and I tried the web search and couldn't find anything as well. I may just be trying the wrong keywords, I dunno. I mostly found stuff about nicotine gum. =( I was able to find out that applying progesterone cream was better than taking progesterone orally because the 80 - 90% of the hormone is processed through the liver, so your body only absorbs about 10 - 20% of the hormone. (So, are creams better, too?)

Anyway, are there any aspiring herbalist out there who have heard of this? If so, would it be better to chew herbs, or even to just apply the creams? Sorry if this has been asked before, but I didn't see anything like this on here yet. ("Chew herbs" only brought up one post in the search function.)

Thanks in advance for your help!

~Antheia

Ooops, sorry for not answering, this is a good question. I'll answer fully in the main forum.

Lol, no apologies needed! I thought I might have some better luck here because I originally read Beth's post about PM gum, which sparked my interest, so I thought some PM users may know something if someone in the main forum didn't.

Thanks for your reply!

I often wonder about this and like you I never see anything.


When it comes to normal 'medicines' are not most hormone type ones destroyed in the stomach ? or liver ?


Even soybean isoflavones. Some say they are digested in the intestines but if one swallowed a normal 'hormone' it gets destroyed prior to getting there.


Glandular stuff. If it had any hormones left not destroyed by stomach/liver ?

I don't know.

But nothing will get by the liver.

This post is old, so there may be no point in responding, but the digestive tract will destroy some of what you swallow, though not all. The strength of medications are increased to take this into account. But the liver doesn't interfere in digestion. It filters the blood. Chewing a medication may help it enter the bloodstream quicker, there are many examples where this is true. And once it's in you bloodstream it will do what it's supposed to do. But, no matter how efficiently you get it into the bloodstream, once it's there, the liver will eventually break it down and filter it out of your blood. That's a good thing. If you liver wasn't doing that, you wouldn't be around for long.