Herbal Health

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.

*101/71/1*

Of course, not all doctors and ofher practitioners who treat cancer are as black as I have painted. I hope that your practitioners combine the best of modern scientific medicine with the art of healing. I hope they take as much care in finding out how you are feeling and what life is like for you as they do in arranging and assessing tests. I hope your practitioners place as much, or more, importance on the quality of your life as they do on its length. I hope they treat you as a whole person who happens to have cancer and not just as a cancer with a body wrapped around it!

If you don’t have this kind of practitioner, life is going to be difficult for you. Those practitioners who are least likely to make the best decisions for you are also the most difficult to get enough information from to make your own decisions. Switch to another practitioner, if possible. If not, you may have to seek information from other sources such as other practitioners, nurses, other hospital staff, books, other patients, and friends. If you make a decision that does not follow such a practitioner’s recommendation, be prepared to be told by them that you are foolish, ignorant and incapable of properly assessing the situation. Trust your own judgement and commonsense. Don’t be intimidated or cajoled into giving away control of what happens to your own body. Remember, you are the world’s greatest expert on yourself. Nobody else knows how you feel inside and what is important for you. This personal knowledge is of vital importance when it comes to deciding on treatment that could totally alter your life.

*131/40/1*

Table sugar or refined sugar (sucrose) has a G.I. factor of only 60-65. This is because it is a disaccharide (double sugar) composed of one glucose molecule coupled to one fructose molecule. Fructose is absorbed and taken directly to the liver where much of it is slowly converted to glucose. So, the blood sugar response to pure fructose is very small (G.I. factor of 20). Thus when we consume sucrose, in effect we have consumed only half as much glucose. This explains why the blood sugar response to 50 grams of sucrose is approximately half that of 50 grams of pure maltose (where the molecules are all glucose).

Many foods containing large amounts of refined sugar have G.I. factors close to 60. This is the average of glucose (G.I. = 100) and fructose ( G.I. = 20). This is lower than that of ordinary soft bread with a G.I. factor averaging around 70. Kellogg’s Cocopops™ which contains 39 per cent sugar has a G.I. factor of 77, lower than that of Rice Bubbles™ (83) which contains little sugar.

So, contrary to popular opinion, most foods containing simple sugars do not raise blood sugar values any more than that of most complex starchy foods like bread. The same is true of honey (G.I. factor of 58). Some types of honey have a much higher G.I. factor (87) than refined sugar (65), possibly because they are a mixture of honey and glucose syrup.

Sugars that naturally occur in food include lactose, sucrose, glucose and fructose in variable proportions, depending on the food. The overall blood sugar response to a food is very hard to predict on theoretical grounds because gastric emptying is slowed by increasing concentration of the sugars, whatever their structure.

Some fruits for example have a low G.L factor (cherries have a G.I. factor of only 22) while others are relatively high (watermelon has a factor of 72). It seems the higher the acidity and osmotic strength (number of molecules per ml) of the fruit, the lower the G.I. factor. Thus it is not possible to lump all fruits together and say that they will have a low G.I. factor because they are high in fibre. They are not all equal. See the tables in Part HI to compare fruits.

Many foods containing sugars are a mixture of refined and naturally occurring sugars. The overall effect on the blood sugar response is too hard to predict. This is why we need to test the G.I. value of sugary foods in real people before we make generalisations about their G.I. factor.

*82\33\4*

One of the problems in designing physical activity for the overfat is the negative connotations of the term ‘exercise’. This is probably to do with the association of exercise with high intensity activity. A greater emphasis on low-moderate level activity, and a shift from the notion of exercise as ‘extra-curricular’ to lifestyle changes in activity patterns suggests that a term such as physical activity might be more appropriate. There are two forms of this that are relevant:

• ‘Planned’ physical activity, such as walking, swimming or some other form of aerobic activity carried out regularly, often as a part of recreation.

• ‘Incidental’ physical activity, such as walking up stairs instead of using an elevator, walking instead of driving, or even not using effort-saving devices such as cordless telephones or remote controls for television sets.

Planned physical activity is necessary to compensate for the decrease in daily energy use resulting from changes in work and daily living conditions in most modem societies. Weight-bearing activities such as walking are likely to be the most effective because of the greater energy use. However, in the first instance non-weight-bearing activities such as swimming, which are thought to be generally less effective in fat loss, may be more able to be carried out and therefore less de-motivational.

Incidental activity is designed to counter reductions in spontaneous physical activity that occur in technically advanced societies. It is this which may be of most importance, and may initially even be the only exercise prescription for obese, in contrast to overfat individuals, because of the discomforting and de-motivational aspects of more vigorous forms of activity. As body mass decreases and planned physical activity becomes more comfortable, different forms of planned activities can be introduced.

*145\186\4*

Exact reasons for the increases in fatness in the community are not as clear as they might seem to the layperson. Research has Hailed to provide conclusive evidence on any single factor and the evidence on a range of different factors , is often equivocal. For example, there is little to suggest that total energy consumption is the main culprit. Although obese people generally do consume more calories than lean people, there is still a wide variation between people. Also, active people are known to be big eaters but aren’t necessarily fat. Athletes are the extreme example of this, but of course they are also highly active. As far as we can tell, people in most industrialised countries now consume around the same or less total energy intake as their grandparents, yet their grandparents didn’t seem to have the same battle with the bulge. While there are significant problems assessing total energy intake, all indications are that this has not increased sufficiently to account for the increases in obesity now being seen.

Change in the type of food that’s being eaten would seem to be the next obvious factor—fatty foods and fast foods in particular. Indeed, a correlation between fat consumption and obesity in some countries, like France, where the records have been available for years, would tend to support this. Since the turn of the century the percentage of fat in the diet has undoubtedly increased, but most of the increase has been in the last few decades. In countries like Australia, the UK and the US, the overall consumption of fat may have stabilised or even decreased. Sugar consumption doesn’t seem to be related, as countries with high sugar consumption (e.g. Cuba) have low average body fat levels. Those with a high sugar consumption within countries are also amongst the leanest in a community, possibly because sugar and fat are generally inversely correlated. Large increases in soft drink and fruit juice consumption have occurred in recent years, however the connection between this and the increase in obesity is speculative only. Increases in alcohol are a further possibility, but consumption of this has generally been going down in those countries where obesity is increasing and consumption levels in populations often correlates inversely with obesity levels. In fact there’s now little evidence to support the notion that alcohol per se is fattening.

Smoking rates are declining in most advanced countries, and it is known that the average smoker gains around 3kg over a 12-month period after quitting. Might this be a reason for increases in fatness at a community level? Several studies have shown that it may be a small contributor, but the increases in weight have been amongst smokers, ex-smokers and non-smokers, suggesting that it’s not just quitters who have been the gainers.

*6\186\4*

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.

*120\58\2*

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.

*94\58\2*

5. The Mouth-Hand line. If a line is now drawn midway between the nose and throat lines in the upper medial quadrant, continuing to the outer iris margin between the neck and diaphragm lines in the lower lateral quadrant, we produce a connection between the mouth area in the upper medial quadrant, and the hand area in the lower lateral quadrant. This line is called the

Mouth-Hand line, also Nutrition line. Registrations in this location signify that the patient suffers nutritional defects. These patients will not change their eating habits. If this line shows in the right iris, it suggests that the ancestors suffered from diseases of the stomach. If in the left iris, then the patient has always eaten that which he is unable to digest.

6. The Forehead-Ovary line. If commencing with the forehead boundary in the upper medial quadrant, which lies midway between the Vertex and Nose lines, a line is projected to the margin of the lower lateral quadrant between the Foot and Diaphragm lines, we have the

Forehead-Ovary line. Registration of the line indicates disturbance of sex life with effects upon the brain, in this case the emotional nature. Women with ovary signs and short stubby finger nails have much head pain, and also usually have many children.

7. The Cerebellum-Uterus line Cerebellum-Rectum line. A line drawn in the right iris from the margin between the Vertex and Ear lines, through the upper lateral quadrant, commences with the Cerebellum. In the lower medial quadrant the line runs midway between the Foot and Bladder lines to the area for uterus. If there are registrations of this line in the right iris, then the patients are noisy and incline to hysteria. Vertex headaches are then predominant.

In the left iris we have the Cerebellum-Rectum line, which as the name implies, does not run to the uterus area but to that for the rectum and anus. Registration of this line suggests conditions terminating in hypochondria. Such patients are quiet, and have little to say.

8. The Axilla-Loin line. This line is drawn midway between the Ear and Neck lines through the upper lateral quadrant. Here we have the area for axilla and clavicle. In the lower medial quadrant the line is drawn midway between the Bladder and Throat lines, and so demarcates the area for Loins. This line is the Axilla-Loin line, or Endurance line. Patients showing this line are very sensitive. One must not demand too much of such patients. They can neither bear nor endure much.

*5\78\2*

No matter what difficulties you suffer when you’re having your period, there are plenty of steps you can take to make life as pleasant as possible.

Clean is comfortable-It seems much too obvious to mention, but you won’t be comfortable unless you wash regularly and change sanitary towels or tampons whenever necessary. This can be a problem, particularly if you’re at work; how nice it would be if there were a bidet in the women’s lavatory in every work place. As it is, the best we can do is to carry a supply of towels or tampons with us and change them whenever we need to, which could be anything from two to five times during a working day, depending on how much blood we lose and how long our day happens to be.

I’m often asked how much blood women ought to lose and what colour it ought to be. We vary in this. Some women lose very little — just enough to stain two towels a day — especially when they first start their periods. Others lose quite a lot, especially on the first day when they can get through half a packet of towels. Some blood is quite red; some is quite brown. Don’t be alarmed by either colour. They’re both normal; just be sure that you don’t wear the same towel or tampon all day long.

*49\177\2*

Once you’ve found a doctor whose medical ability you trust, there are practical steps you can take to maintain a good working relationship between the two of you.

For instance, when you call the doctor’s office because your child is sick, you may not talk to the doctor but to a professional nurse practitioner who acts as the go-between in your communications with the doctor. You can have the same confidence in the nurse that you do in the doctor. The nurse is a qualified medical professional in his or her own right, and is well able to handle many of your questions. This means you don’t have to wait for the doctor to get through with a patient before he or she can talk to you. Of course, if your child’s condition does require the doctor’s attention, the nurse will have the doctor talk to you on the phone, or help you set up an appointment to see the doctor.

Whether you talk directly to the doctor or to the nurse when you call the office, be prepared to give the following information:

• Your name and the child’s name.

• Your child’s approximate weight; this is important because medications are prescribed by body weight, and the dosage that is appropriate for a 55 kilos teenager is very different from that given to a 11-12 kilos toddler.

• Your child’s temperature; whether or not the child is running a fever – and if so, how high a fever – is a clue to the child’s condition. Use a thermometer to take the child’s temperature. A guess based on flushed cheeks or a hot forehead isn’t good enough.

• Information on any illnesses the child has been exposed to recently.

• Details of medications the child is allergic to.

• The name, phone number, and business hours of your pharmacist so that the doctor can phone in a prescription if necessary. (Although the nurse can handle many of your questions and perform some examinations and medical procedures, only a doctor can prescribe medication.)

Be sure to have a pencil and paper at hand so that you can write down any information or instructions the doctor or nurse gives you.

When you call the doctor’s office you probably have an idea as to whether you just want some advice on the telephone, or whether you want to bring the child in to see the doctor. So tell the doctor or nurse what you have in mind – don’t expect them to guess. If the doctor or nurse feels it’s not necessary to bring the child in, you’ll be told the reason for that advice. However, the decision is yours, and if you still want a personal consultation you’re entitled to insist.

Another way to stay on good terms with your child’s doctor is to plan ahead so that both you and the doctor know what an office visit is intended to achieve. A common cause of communication breakdown between parent and physician is the parent’s complaint that the doctor was too busy, didn’t answer questions, or cut the visit short.

To avoid this, at the time you make the appointment also tell the receptionist what the visit is for. If you feel you’re going to need extra time with the doctor, make a point of saying this so that your request can be included in the doctor’s schedule. And, when you see the doctor, do not confuse the issue by trying to get a complete update on other family members’ problems in the course of one appointment. Let the doctor examine your child and deal with the reason you brought the child into the office. If you have other concerns not directly related to the present one, make an appointment to come back another time.

*251/84/5*