Herbal Health

Infections of the urinary tract are common in children, especially amongst girls. Cause

Urinary tract infections are caused by germs which infect the urethra (the urinary opening) and sometimes the bladder. Infections are more common where there are abnormalities of the kidneys or urinary tract (such as vesico-ureteric reflux — see p. 278) where the urine collects, thereby encouraging the growth of germs.

Clinical features

Older children usually complain of classic symptoms such as pain or stinging on passing urine, or a frequent urge to run to the toilet. Sometimes they pass small amounts of urine often and have difficulty in getting started. These symptoms can be accompanied by fever, abdominal pain and blood may be present in the urine. The younger the child the less specific are the symptoms; he may have an unexplained fever, irritability and bouts of crying, go off his feeds and even vomit.

Investigations

It is impossible to diagnose a UTI on symptoms alone. It is always necessary to back up any suspicions with a urine test, performed before the child has started taking antibiotics prescribed by the doctor. Once a course of antibiotics has commenced, it is impossible to identify the germ in the urine, and this makes treatment more difficult.

If there is a chance that the cause of your child’s UTI is an underlying structural abnormality of the kidneys or urinary tract, such as vesico-ureteric reflux, then further investigations such as a micturating cystourethrogram, or a renal ultrasound may be recommended by your doctor and your child may be referred to a paediatric specialist. Most children who have a urinary tract infection need to have these tests to make sure there is no underlying abnormality.

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A one-week course of antibiotics, given by mouth, is usually effective in treating most UTI’s. The urine should be checked again after treatment to make sure the infection has cleared up completely. If tests reveal an underlying abnormality, it may need to be treated — your doctor will explain this to you.

• if your child complains of any of the symproms described above;

• if the urine is pink, red or brown in colour;

• if your child has a high, unexplained fever or is generally unwell.

Prevention

Teach your daughter to wipe from front to back, so that germs are not spread forward from the bowel. Make sure your child always drinks plenty of fluids. Only buy cotton underwear for your child, as it allows a better air flow which helps to keep the area cool, making it difficult for germs to multiply. Encourage frequent emptying of the bladder every 3-4 hours and before bedtime.

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Cause

The cause of pain on urination is most commonly a urinary tract infection. Irritation of the vulva and urethral opening by soaps or shampoos can also occasionally cause stinging and burning on urination.

Clinical features

Urination stings, burns or is painful. The child will have a frequent urge to urinate, but will find starting difficult, or will only pass small amounts even though he feels he has a full bladder.

Treatment

Encourage your child to drink a lot of fluids to help dilute the urine and ‘flush out’ the kidneys and bladder. Urinary tract infections should be treated appropriately by your doctor and followed up carefully.

When to see your doctor

Always consult your doctor if your child complains of pain on urination.

Prevention

As for urinary tract infections.

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Vesico-ureteric reflux is one of the commonest causes of urinary tract infections in children, and if not detected early can lead to scarring of the kidneys.

Cause

Vesico-ureteric reflux is due to a defect in the valve mechanism where the tube from the kidney (the ureter) joins the bladder. Normally urine flows in one direction away from the kidneys, down the ureters, into the bladder and then down the urethra to the outside. If your child suffers from reflux, whenever he passes urine, a small amount escapes backwards from the bladder and flows towards the kidneys. The stagnant urine can also lead to infection. The degree of reflux can vary from minor to severe.

Clinical features

There are no specific signs of vesico-ureteric reflux. It is usually discovered when a child is being investigated for urinary tract infections.

Investigations

A micturating cystourethrogram and a renal ultrasound are usually performed to determine the degree of reflux, and whether there has been any kidney damage.

Treatment

In mild cases, any urinary tract infections resulting from the reflux are promptly treated, and your doctor may advise a long-term course of antibiotics in small doses to prevent recurrence of infections. The kidneys and urinary tract are monitored regularly via urine tests, follow-up X-rays and ultrasound, to make sure that the situation is not worsening. Most mild cases of vesico-ureteric reflux will resolve spontaneously with age. In more severe cases surgery may be indicated. Your doctor will explain to you the preferred treatment and follow-up plan for your child.

Prevention

There is no way to prevent vesico-ureteric reflux.

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Growth occurs in predetermined phases, although there is a great deal of individual variation. For example, a baby on average will double his birthweight at about 5 months, and treble it at about 12 months of age.

The rate of growth in children (weight, length or height, and head circumference) is measured in percentiles. When you visit your doctor or nurse, your child may be measured and these measurements plotted on percentile charts. This is to check that growth is proceeding appropriately.

Percentile charts are comparative graphs of children’s growth rates. If your child’s weight is on the 50th percentile, he is the same weignt as 50% of children of his age. If he is on the 97th percentile he is heavier than 97% of children of his age; being on the 3rd percentile means he is in the bottom 3% for his age. There are different percentile charts for boys and girls.

Checking percentile charts may give the first indication that a child is ‘failing to thrive’, is overweight, too tall, or too short. Growth is most rapid in the first couple of years of life, and then again in adolescence. The latter is known as the adolescent growth spurt.

A child’s head grows in a similarly predictable manner. At birth, the baby’s skull is very soft, with two open spaces or holes at the top of the head. These are called fontanelles, and allow the bones of the skull to grow as the child grows. The one at the front, called the anterior fontanelle is the larger of the two, measuring 3-5 centimetres at birth, although again this varies considerably. Both fontanelles are closed by about one year of age.

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Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, has occupied a lot of interest recently, not only for its effect in preventing the common cold but because of its actions generally in human nutrition.

Vitamin Ñ is widely distributed through many foodstuffs. The green vegetables, citrus fruits and potatoes contain considerable quantities.

This vitamin is necessary for the proper development of connective tissue in the body, especially the coverings of blood vessels.

Lack of ascorbic acid produces scurvy, with bleeding in the gums and other soft tissues, failure of wound-healing, and poor resistance to infection.

Infantile scurvy is seen in children artificially fed without a Vitamin Ñ supplement.

There are groups who believe that large doses of Vitamin Ñ are beneficial to health and indeed can treat or prevent a large number of illnesses.

Orthodox medical and nutritional experts do not accept this.

If you eat a proper diet, it is not likely that you’ll suffer from a Vitamin Ñ deficiency.

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For proper physical fitness, a balanced diet is essential. The body should be at the correct weight for height and age. All the essential food factors should be included in the diet.

Protein is necessary to build up body tissue and to replace wear and tear. Fat is necessary to provide essential factors. Carbohydrate provides a ready energy source but excess tends to accumulate as stored fat.

Minerals and vitamins are necessary in small doses. Bulk in the form of vegetable fibre is necessary for the proper functioning of the bowel.

Exercising three times a week is the bare minimum. Four or five times a week is better. People who are fit look better, feel better, work better, are sick less often and have less chance of developing a heart attack.

Don’t smoke, drink in moderation, eat a balanced diet and take proper exercise. Learn to relax and you may not only live longer but enjoy it more.

The message Life: Be In It applies to you. You should exercise as if your life depended on it.

It does.

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Chemotherapy, or the use of cytotoxic drugs to kill the cancer cells, is now part of the initial treatment.

As in other forms of cancer what is developing is a team approach to treatment, the surgeon, radiotherapist, and chemotherapist making joint decisions about the management of each patient.

The implantation of a silicone prosthesis to give the woman a new “breast” is now a regular procedure for many women unfortunate enough to lose their breast because of cancer. The construction of the new breast may be done at the same time as the initial operation of removal of the breast or may be delayed for some months.

If you find a lump go straight to the doctor. If it isn’t cancer you save months of worry. If it is, the earlier it is found and treated the better the result.

The breast is the commonest site of cancer in women, but the uterus or womb is the second.

Cancer may involve the cervix, or neck of the womb, or the body of the womb; and the age at which the cancers occur, the possible causes and their subsequent behaviors differ.

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There is another miracle food from the bees that has stirred the imagination of nutritionists and doctors alike—the royal jelly.

Royal jelly is the food produced by the worker bees to feed the queen bee. As you probably know, bees have a highly organized community life, with their own systems of mathematics, geography and communications. This community is so well organized and so effectively governed that it is able to collect incredible amounts of food—pollen and honey—during one short summer season. The queen bee is the mother and the sole ruler of the entire hive.

All bees are hatched from eggs, including the queen bee. For the first two or three days after hatching all eggs are fed royal jelly. Then one egg is selected to become queen and she continues to receive royal jelly throughout the rest of her life. The other bees feed themselves on honey.

Now, listen to this: although hatched from similar eggs, the bees fed on honey mature in 21 to 24 days, but the queen bee fed royal jelly is fullgrown in 16 days. The worker bees live an average of two to six months, while the queen bee may live as long as eight years! During this time she works hard at producing eggs. The queen bee lays as many as a quarter of a million eggs in a season, often more than 2,000 eggs in a single day—which is greater than her own weight! Since the queen bee and the worker bees are hatched from identical eggs, it is obvious that the only reason for the great difference in longevity and the marvelous fertility is the difference in the food they eat. Royal jelly must contain a powerful substance or substances able to give the queen bee this enormous energy, fertility and longevity!

Scientists have been trying to find and identify these substances for hundreds of years. So far their efforts have been unsuccessful. Royal jelly does contain all the usual vital factors, which can be isolated: proteins, vitamins, enzymes, etc. It has, however, less of some vitamins than pollen has; and some vitamins, like A for example, are totally missing. Also, little or no vitamin E was found in royal jelly; and the same was true of vitamin C.

However, royal jelly contains more pantothenic acid, one of the B vitamins, than any other known natural substance—up to six times more than brewer’s yeast and liver.” In experiments reported in the Journal of Gerontology, fruit flies were fed royal jelly and their life span was markedly increased. Researchers felt that it was because of the pantothenic acid in royal jelly.

Everyone agrees that royal jelly has marvelous healing and rejuvenating powers, but no one knows why. Feeding control animals all the known factors of royal jelly did not bring at all the effects of royal jelly. So, royal jelly obviously contains some other factors which science has not yet been able to detect. Researchers report that all attempts to analyze royal jelly have failed. About 97 to 98 percent of the total has been analyzed and isolated, but the real source of power may be in the remaining elusive two or three percent.

Prophylactic and therapeutic value of royal jelly

An extensive research on royal jelly was made in Czechoslovakia by Dr. Josef Vittek, biologist, and Dr. Jaroslav Kresanek, pharmacologist, at the Medical School in Bratislava. They conducted a five-year investigation and their results are quite remarkable.

They fed royal jelly in various amounts to test animals and found that it speeded up their growth and increased their resistance to disease.1

Royal jelly had an anti-bacterial and anti-virus action, particularly against streptococcus, B. Coli and staphylococcus.

Hens, fed royal jelly, increased their egg-laying capacity 20 to 100 percent!

Royal jelly accelerated the formation of bone tissue.

Topical application of royal jelly helped to heal wounds in half the time.8

Other researchers have reported on royal jelly’s preventive effect on cancer. A group of mice were inoculated with four different types of cancerous cells. Half of them were given royal jelly; the other half was used as the control group. While all the mice in the control group died of cancer, the animals fed royal jelly did not show any disorder at all!0

In the experiments on human beings, Drs. Vittek and Kresanek showed that royal jelly has a favorable influence on body functioning and healing processes in many conditions. Serum cholesterol levels were lowered by the administration of royal jelly for ten days. Royal jelly has shown good results in the treatment of diseases of aging, such as hardening of the arteries, vascular disorders and Buerger’s Disease. German doctors reported that royal jelly preparations showed “satisfactory results” in post-operative conditions. Researchers agreed that royal jelly has a stimulative action upon the functioning of various organs and improves “their associative and coordinative faculties.”

However, in spite of some enthusiastic researchers, mostly in Europe, medical science at large has remained skeptical of royal jelly, and virtually no research is being done now to determine its prophylactic and therapeutic possibilities. In the meantime, there are thousands of people, both here and in Europe, who use royal jelly regularly and are satisfied that they benefit from it.

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Fasting is considered by most biological medical doctors as the fastest and the most effective therapeutic method of remedying high blood pressure. At the Buchinger Clinic in Bad Pyrmont, Dr. Otto Buchinger stated that high blood pressure is the one ailment for which fasting practically never fails to bring about a complete cure.

He stressed, however, that tobacco is highly injurious to the patient with high blood pressure and advised a total abstinence from smoking.

In Swedish biological clinics practitioners have had the same experience. Ebba Waerland has supervised hundreds of fast cures and reports that high blood pressure is “cured automatically” through fasting and Waerland dietetic therapy.

A case history of lowered blood pressure

Here is one case from Sweden. Mrs. E. P., 44, suffered from high blood pressure for 15 years. In spite of various medical treatments, her pressure continued to climb, and in 1966 it was up to 240. She started her biological treatments in July, 1966, with a ten-day fast on the alkaline juices of fruits and vegetables and vegetable broth.* While fasting she was given an enema morning and evening, plus colonic irrigation twice a week. After ten days of fasting, she was given a salt-free diet of fresh fruits for breakfast, and raw vegetable salad with homemade soured milk and boiled potatoes for lunch and dinner. Bread, butter and cheese were not allowed, except small amounts of fresh homemade cottage cheese. After two weeks on this diet she was again put on juice fasting for ten more days. I met Mrs. E. P. on the ninth day of the second fast. Her blood pressure had been checked the day before and was down to 137. It had been at that level a whole week. She told me that she felt great, and planned to leave the clinic and go home the following week. She enjoyed her new lacto-vegetarian diet and planned to continue with it at home.

Also in the United States many clinics and nature-cure practitioners have employed fasting very successfully in the treatment of high blood pressure. At Pawling Health Manor, in New York, Dr. R. Cross reported 54 high blood pressure cases treated by fasts between 1957 and 1963. Of these, 38 cases recovered completely and 16 improved. Dr. James McEachen, of Escondido, California, has supervised 141 fasts on patients with high blood pressure at his sanatorium, and reported that all 141 cases were remedied or improved— also a 100 percent result. Similar results are reported from Herbert M. Shelton’s Clinic in Texas and Dr. W. L. Esser’s Clinic in Florida. Dr. Shelton reported one case in which three weeks of fasting dropped the systolic pressure from 295 to 115.

The general opinion of all practitioners who employ fasting in the treatment of high blood pressure, is that patients who do not respond to the customary treatments, do respond to fasting. Moreover, the cures accomplished by fasting tend to be lasting—provided that good nutritional habits are maintained after the fast.

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