Thank you all for the information. Fenugreek is so interesting!
After reading your replies, then looking at the older posts from the NSF forum that Demo supplied in that link, I did a PubMed search.
There's A LOT about breast feeding, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with POIS that i'm aware of!! But there have also many studies on the blood sugar-lowering effects of fenugreek, making it a potential treatment for type 2 diabetes -- but not necessarily having anything obvious to do with POIS either.
(I do wonder what the reason is for the weaker orgasms that Observer mentioned.)
Maybe most importantly as related to POIS, there are indications that it inhibits the production of certain inflammatory cytokines. Here's a link to an abstract of a 2012 article by a group of pharmacologists from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kanazawa University, in Japan --
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20979021.
(As an aside, we do need inflammatory cytokines -- they do serve a purpose. It's when they go into overdrive that they become a problem.)
The US is so far behind other countries in the study and understanding of herbs -- probably because these aren't considered "drugs" and therefore, not financially worthwhile for study. There's no Big PHARMA funding for herbs in the US.
Vincent M -- it sounds like you got it right about the anti-inflammatory effect.
Some cautions about fenugreek (what would you expect from a nurse?!) If you're allergic to chick peas, don't take fenugreek! (They are similar in chemistry.) And -- it can increase clotting time in some (meaning, it can interfere with the blood clotting process, possibly leading to bleeding episodes -- but this is very rare).
This is seriously interesting -- it gives yet another perspective on POIS -- and will help in locating even more researchers for the grant
THAT YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE HAPPEN BEFORE THE END OF MARCH. :-)Stef