Health News and Information

As a good diet for the liver we suggest the following:

Morning: one glass of carrot juice; a slice of toast or crispbread with a little butter or yeast extract; a soupspoon of wheat germ, either dry or in the carrot juice.

Midday: vegetable soup; brown rice or potatoes boiled in their skins; chicory and raw carrot salad, or any other raw salad vegetable, preferably the bitter kind. Steamed vegetables may also be added. All fried and sweet dishes and desserts must be avoided.

You can vary the lunch menu as follows:

First day: brown rice; fennel root; mixed salad.

Second day: potatoes boiled in their skins, with a little cottage

cheese and fresh butter; mixed salad.

Third day: vegetable soup; sandwiches made with rye or wholewheat bread or crispbread, spread with a little butter and yeast extract, topped with onion, garlic, sliced tomatoes; mixed salad.

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‘Death resides in the bowels’ is a warning the meaning of which we should carefully take to heart. It is an undisputed fact that constipation is the cause of many ailments. People who have been complaining about headaches for years never think that their discomfort could be caused by a transfer of accumulated metabolic toxins from the intestines to the bloodstream. Stomach, liver and kidney disorders may also stem from constipation or irregular bowel movement. Skin eruptions, spots and various eczematous conditions may be due to it. It is even possible for certain diseases or disorders to fail to respond to any kind of natural remedy until constipation, which poisons the system time and again, has been completely eradicated. Women are generally more affected by constipation than men.

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Not long ago I received good news from a patient in South Africa whose epileptic seizures had formerly occurred almost daily, but had diminished to only one a month – and the monthly attacks were milder than before. The improvement had been attributed to the patient’s taking Urticalcin, Vitaforce (a vitamin supplement) and kelp tablets. It is likely that the organic potassium iodide contained in these seaweed tablets was responsible for the strong influence on the endocrine glands. No doubt other minerals found in kelp had also helped to produce the desired result.

In any case, as various studies have shown, epilepsy can now be treated with less harmful medications than bromine. As suggested above, the diet should consist of mild, alkaline-based foods, supplemented by a biological calcium preparation such as Urticalcin. Vitaforce should be taken at the same time, since its vitamin D content will make it easier for the body to assimilate the calcium. The main remedy, however, is kelp in tablet form, one tablet to be taken in the morning and one in the evening. None of these are specific remedies, but nutritional supplements giving the body what it needs most. Another plant which has helped in the treatment of epilepsy is the oak mistletoe (yellow-berried mistletoe), Loranthus europaeus, which is native to the Balkan region.

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During the menopause practically every women experiences hot flushes and other distressing symptoms to a greater or lesser degree. At times a woman may be affected so severely that her nerves and emotions become totally upset, and any relief is always welcome. It is important to take even better care of the body than usual during the changes of life. Excellent benefits are obtained by exercising regularly out-of-doors; the importance of activities such as walking and hiking and the practice of taking deep breaths of fresh air cannot be emphasised enough and will bring about a striking improvement.

Physical therapy may also contribute to improving the condition. For example, daily brush massages and twice weekly sitz baths (hip baths) with a decoction of hay flowers or lady’s mantle added to the water are recommended. Extreme emotional depression may be relieved through Kuhne’s cold water treatment. As with menstrual problems, physical exertion as well as occupational stress should be avoided at all costs. In addition, learn to do without coffee, tea and alcoholic beverages, as it is indeed best to leave them alone altogether during the menopause.

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Some time ago it was considered fashionable to remove the appendix, even if it was healthy, whenever the surgeon had cause to open a patient’s right abdomen. Their justification for this was that it might become diseased one day and would have to be removed then anyway. Fortunately, the profession is more enlightened today and such short-sighted decisions have been abandoned so that an appendix is removed only when absolutely necessary. The same goes for the tonsils; they too can be treated and regenerated long before they are beyond repair. Really, then, there can be no excuse for neglect. We usually know our physical weaknesses. If we give immediate attention to even slight physical signals, and with persevering care and patience treat them in a natural way, the body will respond. We have the remedies; you only have to use your intelligence, understanding and willpower to apply them, and the results will be rewarding.

Anyone who suffers from varicose veins should treat them by natural means, and with perseverance. There is no immediate cure; it is impossible to blow them away from one day to the next, for it took a considerable time for the veins to become diseased in the first place. Healthy veins play such an important part in our bodies that the patient attention and care we give them to ensure their proper function will be well worth our while.

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Bypass surgery

When bypass surgery was first started, it was usual to take a vein from the leg (we have plenty to spare!) and insert it around the narrowed site in the coronary artery. The blood then flows through the vein, around the stenosis, to reach the myocardium beyond it. The immediate result is a much better flow of blood to the heart muscle, carrying much more oxygen and glucose to the starved area.

There has been a more recent trend to use a small segment of artery from inside the chest wall—the internal mammary artery—instead of the vein. Among the reasons for the change is that the artery is more readily available than a leg vein, and that an arterial graft is probably more appropriate than a vein graft for what, after all, is another artery. There have been reports that the internal mammary graft is more effective in the long term, but other comparisons between the two seem to suggest that there is little difference in the merits of the two types of graft.

Bypass grafts are, of course, done under general anaesthetic, and patients must stay in the hospital for several days afterwards. I was astonished to be called to a patient’s home on a Friday to see him, to be told that he had had his bypass just four days before, on the Monday! The pressure to remove patients from hospital care in today’s fast-paced health care climate is surely immense!

Bypass surgery appears to work best for those who have left-main or severe three-vessel blockages.

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That guidance may be based not just on the work of Professor Williams and Dr. Beevers, but also on the most recent results of the many studies of the possible links between alcohol and heart disease. Unfortunately, the results are far from clear, and many different conclusions have been drawn from them.

Probably the most reliable conclusions were drawn by Professor A. G. Shaper, of the British Regional Heart Study mentioned in the introduction/in 1994. This showed that moderate drinkers (sixteen to forty-two units a week) suffered 34 percent fewer deaths from heart attack, and 13 percent fewer deaths from other circulation disorders (mainly stroke) than nondrinkers.

This would seem to be encouraging for drinkers, but Professor Shaper stressed that it was not. First, the actual overall numbers of such deaths were so small that the differences could not be considered as reliable or statistically significant. Worse, there was no reduction in overall death rate among the moderate drinkers, so that they were more likely to die from other diseases at the same time.

Professor Shaper showed that the extra heart deaths among the teetotalers included several in people who had been diagnosed as having heart disease when they entered the study. They may well have been drinkers who had turned teetotal because they were already feeling ill, and this could account for the difference in death rates. He concluded that if moderate drinking does protect against heart attacks, the effect is relatively small, and is not accompanied by a reduction in deaths from all types of circulation disorders, or by a reduction in deaths over all.

He compared his results with those of studies in other countries. In Trinidad, the lowest mortality for all causes was in men labeled as abstemious, who did not usually drink, and had no history of drinking problems. In the large Kaiser Permanente Study, which used lifelong abstainers as a comparison, none of the drinking groups— ranging from occasional, through mild, moderate, and heavy—showed any benefit from their alcohol consumption, and those drinking more than six units a day were decidedly worse off.

In a study carried out by the American Cancer Society, in the data on deaths from all causes, only occasional drinkers and those taking one or two drinks a day had a significantly lower risk than nondrinkers. Here, too, the figures may be distorted by some people who gave up drinking because they were already unwell before they entered the study. Above the lowest alcohol intake level, death rates rose progressively with each step up in alcohol consumption.

In this same study, at the level of alcohol intake associated with the lowest risk of coronary heart disease death (four drinks per day), there was an increased risk for all-cause deaths, particularly from accidents and violence, cancer and stroke, which more than outweighed the apparent savings in heart deaths. This bleak statistic does not take into account the increased rates of illness that may stem from consuming much lower amounts of alcohol than four drinks a day.

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Start off by making the right decision. Don’t listen to that voice inside you that says “I’ll start next week,” or “I’ve tried to before and couldn’t keep it up,” or “I can’t make the change just now.” You can make the change, even if it is just with a first small step. There are a few rules for beginning exercise:

• If you have a health problem, such as angina, discuss with your doctor the best type and amount of exercise for you.

• Choose a type of exercise you will enjoy, one that feels right for you.

• Do exercise that involves the large muscles in your legs, such as in brisk walking, cycling, and swimming.

• Start easily and gently, and build up your activity slowly and gradually.

• Be sensible about starting and stopping. Listen to your body, and don’t overdo things.

• Do not exercise if you are unwell—for example, if you have a throat infection or flu.

• Do not exercise if you have a muscle strain or injury. Wait until it is pain-free before you start again, and do so slowly.

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Among the early studies was the Los Angeles Veterans Administration Study, which took place between 1959 and 1967. This followed 846 men aged between fifty-four and eighty-eight years, of whom a quarter initially had evidence of coronary heart disease (mainly angina). Half were allocated to a diet in which the ratio of polyunsaturated fats to saturated fats was two to one. Vegetable and fish oils were used instead of animal fats. Half were left as the control group. After eight years, fewer deaths from heart disease and nonfatal heart attacks had occurred in the treatment group (85 in 424) than in the control group (119 in 422). The benefit of cholesterol lowering was greatest in the men under sixty-five years old.

Diet also seemed to work in seven hundred men and six hundred women in the Finnish Mental Hospitals Study, which was undertaken from 1959 to 1971. For six years, those in one hospital were on the same polyunsaturated/saturated two-to-one diet as in the Los Angeles study, whereas those in the other hospital were left alone. After six years, the positions were reversed. Although the patient populations changed greatly during the twelve years, and there were many problems with the data analysis, the diet was linked with a moderate benefit in reduction of heart attack and stroke for both men and women (though less so for women).

The North Karelia Study described in chapter 4, which targeted a whole community, produced a similar benefit, in that heart attacks became fewer after the low cholesterol educational project started.

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The answer is that it can be, (and it will take the rest of this book to explain how) with a combination of sensible eating, exercise, a different lifestyle, drugs, and perhaps surgery. Yet it is important, in understanding how this can be done, to look at all the other contributors to angina, for cholesterol is not the only danger to angina sufferers.

Atheroma is the necessary background to most kinds of angina, but it is hardly ever the sole cause of the symptoms. In most angina sufferers, it is the combination of underlying atheroma with many other changes in the blood that causes the illness. For example, the blood may be more viscous (sticky) than normal, slowing the flow through the narrowed areas. It can be more likely than normal to clot. It can carry too little oxygen due to lung disease or anemia, or perhaps because the oxygen-carrying red cells are full of carbon monoxide instead. All of these possibilities can reduce the supply side of the equation.

Or there may be high blood pressure, which, by increasing the force of the heartbeat even at rest, increases the heart’s demand for oxygen and glucose, causing further imbalance to the supply-demand equation.

How all these changes can combine together to create angina, and how they can all be reversed, is explained later, but in order to understand them, it is first necessary to outline the components of healthy blood.

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