Herbal Health

Dr. Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society has a lot to say about lung cancer, and it doesn’t take long for him to say it. Here’s a transcript of a lecture he sometimes gives: “This is going to be easy. Don’t smoke. Thank you for listening.”

Smokers sometimes give themselves little talks, too: statements meant to make them and their loved ones think that they’ll somehow be able to smoke and not hurt themselves. Here are some of the most common – and error-ridden.

“I’ll stop when I’m older.” True, quitting smoking reduces your risk whenever you do it, but sooner is much better than later. In the words of the American Lung Association, “The more you smoke and the longer you smoke, the greater your risk of lung cancer.”

“I’ll get lots of antioxidants.” It was once thought that antioxidants like beta-carotene reduced lung cancer risk. But it’s a false friend, as several studies have shown. “Beta-carotene was actually found to be a culprit in the progression of lung cancer,” says Dr. Warren Heston of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. And, he adds, so may single supplements, such as lycopene. So much for that one.

“I’ll mat lots of vegetables.” They help, but there’s no salad bar big enough to offset the smoking risk. As a team of Harvard-affiliated researchers put it in a 1996 report on cancer prevention, “A smoker consuming the largest tolerable amounts of vegetables is still at much higher risk of lung cancer than a nonsmoker.”

“The smog is going to got me anyway.” Says who? “It’s really difficult to pin lung cancer on air pollution,” says Bill McDonnell, M.D., Ph.D., a medical officer for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “There’s just not very strong evidence for that.” And even if there were, Dr. McDonnell points out, “cigarette smoking is in a class by itself, both in regard to the variety and amount of inhaled substances and with regard to its ability to cause cancer.”

“I’ll avoid other carcinogens” Indeed, there are some to avoid, most notably radon, which the EPA estimates is found at higher-than-acceptable levels in 1 out of 15 homes in the United States. On-the-job exposure to things such as asbestos, uranium, arsenic, and certain petroleum products is also something to look out for. But all of them are more dangerous when combined with smoking. And remember, another environmental hazard that causes the death of some 3,000 nonsmokers a year from lung cancer, according to the EPA, is none other than tobacco smoke-from other people’s cigarettes.

“I’ll catch it early.” That’s a good strategy for most cancers but usually hopeless for lung cancer. “By the time it’s detectable, it’s generally too late to do anything,” Dr. Glynn says. “If you go in for a chest x-ray and they find a tumor, the outlook’s not good.”

“Lots of people beat it” But most don’t. Lung cancer’s five-year survival rate is 13 percent, one of the lowest of all cancers. “It’s a virtually certain killer,” Dr. Glynn says. “You’re looking at a one in eight chance that you’re going to be alive in five years. And most people from the time of diagnosis are dead in two years.”

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It is no coincidence that snoring only occurs during sleep. The very process of lying down introduces new forces on the contents of the chest wall and abdomen which, for the overweight patient, may interfere with the normal functioning of the diaphragm. Furthermore, and more significantly, there is a deterioration of the finely tuned muscular control of the upper airway during sleep. This loss of control, however, is not peculiar to snorers. Loss of tone, or hypotonia, is a feature of the human upper airway common to both snorers and non-snorers and in general, the effect is more pronounced in deeper sleep. For the purpose of studying sleep disorders, a system of sleep staging has been developed to avoid vague terms such as “light” and “deep” sleep. Each sleep stage is commonly defined by measuring the electrical activity of the brain (an electro-encephalogram or EEG), muscle tone, usually of the jaw (an electro-myogram or EMG) and eye movement (an electro-oculogram or EOG). There are two broadly defined sleep states: Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM) and Non Rapid Eye Movement sleep (NREM), the latter being subdivided into stages 1, 2, 3 and 4. The progression from “light” to “deep” sleep corresponds with the progression from NREM 1 to NREM 4 and then to REM.

The sleep of a normal adult consists of variable sleep cycles with a gradual drifting from one sleep stage to another, but occasionally punctuated by abrupt changes from one level to another, such as stage 1 to REM and vice versa. The cycle is repeated several times a night with REM sleep occurring at approximately 90 minute intervals. During sleep, particularly during REM sleep, breathing patterns are different to that of the awake state. REM sleep is characterized by irregular breathing; at times fast and at other times slow. The combined effects of irregular breathing and minimal upper airway tone make this a critical period of sleep for snorers and for many with underlying lung disease.

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Women visiting their GPs complaining of pain in the breast or having detected a breast lump may be referred to a specialist for further investigations, although some women, particularly young ones, may need to push their GPs for a referral. Sometimes, specialists have a particular interest in and experience of breast diseases, but often referral will be to a general surgeon at a hospital. A specialist in breast cancer will be more experienced in treating women with this disease than will a surgeon who also deals with a variety of other conditions, and it is wise for all women to ask to see such a specialist.

If, having seen a consultant, you would like a second opinion, or feel you would prefer to be treated by a surgeon who specializes in breast diseases rather than by a general surgeon, do discuss this with your GP, the practice nurse, or the breast care nurse if your hospital has one. They will be able to find out which hospitals have designated breast surgeons. You should be able to choose to be treated elsewhere if you have any concerns about the treatment you are being offered, but in practice you may have to be prepared to push hard to get what you want.

Your GP will have written a referral letter to a specialist asking for an appointment to be made for you. If what is said in this letter leads the specialist to suspect you have cancer of the breast, you may be seen within a few days. If cancer is diagnosed, or suspected, the course of events will vary depending on the normal procedure at a particular hospital.

Clinic visits

Any necessary investigations may be carried out at your first clinic visit, and you may be asked to return to discuss the results within a week. At some clinics, all investigations ñàë be done and their results received during the first visit. If treatment is necessary, it may begin within a few days. However, at some hospitals, women have to wait 6 to 8 weeks after a diagnosis is made before their treatment can start. Although this delay is not likely to have any harmful effect on the outcome of treatment for most cancers, it can mean a very difficult and anxious few weeks for the women concerned and their families.

About 90 per cent of cancers are obvious to the specialist on clinical examination. If cancer is suspected, any of the investigations explained above can be carried out to confirm or refute the diagnosis. Some hospital specialists, having received a referral letter from a GP, will arrange for a mammogram to be done before the woman attends her first clinic so that the X-ray results are available when she sees the specialist for the first time. Diagnosis is often made following a clinical examination, mammography and cytology, i.e. a fine needle aspiration biopsy.

Some specialists prefer to discuss at the first clinic visit the possible courses of action should their suspicion of cancer be confirmed. They feel that this allows the woman time to consider her options and to talk things over with her family, and they find that many women return for their investigation results with a firm resolve to fight the disease. Many other specialists prefer to leave any detailed discussions until a second clinic visit when the results of the tests are known. You may wish to consider for yourself which you would prefer, and be ready to ask the specialist to discuss things with you at the outset if you feel this would be helpful. Always remember, you are free to do nothing: having no treatment is an option open to you if you choose it.

For the majority of women, the clinical examination will indicate a benign condition such as a non-malignant tumour, a cyst, or a normal change in the breast. Further investigations may be required, and arrangements will be made for these to be carried out if necessary.

It is a good idea to take someone with you when you go for your clinic visits – perhaps your husband, partner or a friend. People often find it difficult to absorb what they are told when they are anxious – particularly if the news is not good. It may also be helpful to have made notes of any questions you wish to ask the specialist or breast care nurse.

The breast care nurse

Once you have discussed the diagnosis and possible treatment with the surgeon, you may be able to talk to a breast care nurse, perhaps to clarify any points you have not understood. At some hospitals a breast care nurse always attends the clinics; at others you may be given a card with her name and a contact number. You and your relatives may find it easier to discuss things with a specialist nurse, and she will probably be very aware of the worries you are likely to have. If your hospital does not have a breast care nurse, there may be someone else you can talk to if you would like to do so.

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As we have seen, the vast majority of preventive medicine in the nineteenth century was done by way of public health measures, but preventive medicine is really a link between environmental health on the one hand and personal medical care on the other.

True preventive measures probably started with diseases of children. In 1892 Pierre Budin, a Parisian obstetrician, asked women to come back when their babies were 6 months old for a post-natal check-up. He was amazed at the number of children who had already died by this age and started to think about what could be done to prevent this awful toll. Preventive and health-maintenance services for children started in Britain in 1908 and the Boston Lying-in Hospital started an ante-natal programme in 1912.

Once the idea of prevention caught on it spread rapidly, and industrial and occupational medicine quickly became a valued part of the system too. But popular though they were, there was (and still is in the US) a reluctance on the part of preventive services to do anything creative, for fear of treading on the toes of the curative doctors. In the US, for example, community health centres sprang up before World War I but confined themselves to education and prevention and many were in slum areas. They were almost always separate from hospitals. In fact many such clinics had a motto:

No prescriptions given; no sickness treated.

Preventive medicine then became associated with the business of keeping people healthy while ‘real’ doctors got on with treating the sick. As the years went by it became apparent that public health and preventive medicine had chalked up some remarkable successes and reluctantly the medical profession accepted that prevention had a place. Much of this is still lip-service though, as can be seen from the curriculum of any teaching hospital on either side of the Atlantic. Preventive medicine and its concepts rank so low as to be almost invisible. Over the last twenty years or so doctors have realized that whilst they can do little for many of their patients, detecting disease early can produce truly dramatic results in conditions such as: glaucoma (a person’s sight can be saved if the condition is caught early); obesity; depression (suicide deaths can be greatly reduced by treating the depression); hypertension (treatment reduces the incidence of strokes); and so on. The examples are numerous.

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Fresh or dried herbs, petals, leaves, barks or seeds can be used to make aromatic bathing. Be creative to achieve different aroma’s and to maintain health and beauty through aromatic bathing.

Basic Recipe: Pure water 600 ml, dried herbs 3 tbsp. (fresh herbs 6 tbsp.) or dried petals 6 tbsp. (fresh petals 12 tbsp). Place all ingredients into a pot. heat below boiling point. Simmer for 10 minutes. Strain and add to bath water. Herbal Bath Bags: fill a muslin bag with dried herbs, place into saucepan of water bring to the boil then add to bath water. Herb sachet: can be used instead of soap for sensitive or problem skin. Fine oatmeal 1/8 cup, Epsom salt 1/8 cup, sea salts 1 tsp., powder milk 1 tsp. and a combination of essential oils 0.2ml Add ingredients together and place into a cheese cloth bag and secure with a string. Place the

sachet into the bath and use as soap or tie the sachet to the tap while filling the bath.

Guava Bath: Guava leaves are used for aromatic baths, boil up the leaves then strain decotion into a bath. Guava leaves ground to a paste mixed with water, then apply all over the body and take a bath, this will eliminate a foul smell from the body.

Guava Aromatic Bath: Guava vinegar Vi cup, guava oil 5 ml, essential oils- lavender 5 drops, bergamot 3 drops, cypress 2 drops. Optional add 1/2 cup of fine oatmeal for itchy skin conditions.

Papaya Bath: Papaya leaves and the skins are used for a bath treat. For a refreshing bath use – papaya vinegar Vi cup, Epsom salts 50g, lavender essential oil 3 drops, orange essential oil 2 drops.

Kombucha Bath: (full) Add to the bath water 2 cups of kombucha vinegar or 1 litre of kombucha tea.

Bath Salts

Mineral Salts are deep-cleansing, refreshing and stimulating. Salt water helps to release toxins that accumulate in the tissue. The combination of water, mineral salts, sea salts and essential oils can assist in detoxifying the skin, and revitalising and calming the nervous system. Basic Recipe: Make up bath salts by adding 20 drops of any or a combination of essential oils to 200 g of mineral salts, rock salts, sea salts. Use: Half fill a bath then add 50 g of bath salts. For Compresses dissolve 15 g of mineral salts into a bowl of hot or cold water

Bath Vinegar

Herbal bath vinegar’s are refreshing and soften the skin. A basic recipe can be made up with 500 ml of apple cider vinegar or kombucha and with 275 g of a selection of dried herbs for the required effect you want to achieve. Place ingredients into a pot slowly bring to the boil. Allow herbs to steep for one week in direct sunlight. Strain and bottle. Add one cup to the bath water while tap is running.

Bath Oil

Basic Recipe: sunflower 40 ml, almond oil 30 ml, soya bean oil 20 ml, sesame seed oil 10 ml and a combination of essential oils 1 ml. Blend ingredients together and add 5 ml into the bath water.

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