This is the second part of her feature on insomnia.
First part here

Since it is advisable for the legions of insomniacs around the world — 70 million in the U.S. alone — to avoid sleeping pills, which can deplete nutrients and cause side effects, let’s look at other possibilities.

Melatonin

At the top of the list of supplements is melatonin, the hormone put out by the brain’s pineal gland, which helps synchronize the body’s internal clocks and induce sleep. Its levels decline steeply with age.

Ask your doctor how high doses of vitamin C given intravenously can cure viral pneumonia in less than 72 hours and chances are she won’t know anything about it. You’re likely to meet the same blank look if you ask her about research that has turned up non-pharmaceutical treatments for autism, diabetes, heart disease, cervical cancer, hepatitis, polio and a host of other serious ailments. And what your doctor doesn’t know — or more precisely, what is not indexed in the world’s largest library of medicine — can hurt you.

Homeopathy practitioners are used to getting sand kicked in their faces. The father of homeopathy, German physician Samuel Hahnemann, was driven out of Leipzig early in the 19th century, ostensibly for dispensing his own medicine. More recently, the American Medical Association was still in its infancy when it launched a bruising campaign against homeopaths, purging all local medical societies of physicians who practised what was labeled quackery. And in 2002, American illusionist James Randi offered $1 million to anyone able to prove, under observed conditions, that a homeopathic remedy could actually cure an ailment. He has not yet been forced to pay out.

In this major series, Red Flags Columnist, Todd Caldecott explores the history of herbal medicine in North America, with the view of fostering a better understanding of the issues that face modern herbalists and a greater appreciation of the evolution of the relationships between alternative, complimentary and conventional medicine.

Herbal medicine in North America has a long and venerable tradition, from the First Nations practices that were in existence thousands of years before the first colonists arrived, to the development of four-year clinical programs at the turn of the last century.

Hello, my name is Todd Caldecott. I am a practicing clinical herbalist in Calgary, Alberta, and a director of a 3-year clinical herbal program at Wild Rose College of Natural Healing. I do a lot of teaching and writing, and as I was frequently sending off tidbits and snippets of information to Redflagsdaily.com, I was eventually asked if I would like to write a column on herbal medicine. Although I am constantly strapped for time, which apart from my professional responsibilities includes a young family of two boys and now, their little sister, I will do my best to regularly contribute. I would like to hear from all of you about what you would want to know about herbalism. I will attempt to include a Q&A section with each column, so I can receive your feedback and answer a few of your questions.