Year: 2007

Newstarget has an excellent article on the benefits of Aloe Vera. Check out this brief excerpt:

The aloe vera miracle: A natural medicine for cancer, cholesterol, diabetes, inflammation, IBS, and other health conditions

“When I say aloe vera is the most impressive medicinal herb invented by nature, I don’t make that statement lightly. Of all the herbs I’ve ever studied — and I’ve written thousands of articles on nutrition and disease prevention — aloe vera is the most impressive herb of them all. (Garlic would be a close second.) There is nothing on this planet that offers the amazing variety of healing benefits granted by aloe vera. In a single plant, aloe vera offers potent, natural medicine that:

– Halts the growth of cancer tumors.
– Lowers high cholesterol.
– Repairs “sludge blood” and reverses “sticky blood”.
– Boosts the oxygenation of your blood.
– Eases inflammation and soothes arthritis pain.
– Protects the body from oxidative stress.
– Prevents kidney stones and protects the body from oxalates in coffee and tea.
– Alkalizes the body, helping to balance overly acidic dietary habits.
– Cures ulcers, IBS, Crohn’s disease and other digestive disorders.
– Reduces high blood pressure naturally, by treating the cause, not just the symptoms.
– Nourishes the body with minerals, vitamins, enzymes and glyconutrients.
– Accelerates healing from physical burns and radiation burns.
– Replaces dozens of first aid products, makes bandages and antibacterial sprays obsolete.
– Halts colon cancer, heals the intestines and lubricates the digestive tract.
– Ends constipation.
– Stabilizes blood sugar and reduces triglycerides in diabetics.
– Prevents and treats candida infections.
– Protects the kidneys from disease.
– Functions as nature’s own “sports drink” for electrolyte balance, making common sports drinks obsolete.
– Boosts cardiovascular performance and physical endurance.
– Speeds recovery from injury or physical exertion.
– Hydrates the skin, accelerates skin repair.

Truly, there is nothing else that compares to the medicinal potential of aloe vera.”

There are pure aloe vera juice products on the market that I have used and enjoyed… if it is very pure, it “tastes” just like water… which means it has pretty much no real taste, but it is a great addition to your herbal remedies!

Wow! Is there no end to the good news on Vitamin D!??! Take a look at this:

Low-cost vitamin D supplement blocks tuberculosis (TB) for six weeks after a single dose

“Scientists have shown that a single 2.5mg dose of vitamin D may be enough to boost the immune system to fight against tuberculosis (TB) and similar bacteria for at least 6 weeks. Their findings came from a study that identified an extraordinarily high incidence of vitamin D deficiency amongst those communities in London most at risk from the disease, which kills around two million people each year. The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Department of Environmental Health at Newham Council and Newham University Hospital NHS Trust Respiratory Research Fund, is published online in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Whilst a diet of oily fish can provide some vitamin D, the main source of the body’s vitamin D comes from exposing the skin to sunlight. In Britain, however, the amount of sunlight is usually insufficient to make vitamin D in the skin between October and April, and much of the population becomes deficient during the winter and spring. Researchers from Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Research in Clinical Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London, studied patients at Newham University Hospital and Northwick Park Hospital in London who had been exposed to TB. They found that over 90% of such patients had a vitamin D deficiency.”

Take a look at that last statement! “90% … had a Vitamin D deficiency…” Wow. As I say, get 20 minutes of sunlight on your skin a day! Allow your body to produce natural Vitamin D!

So, if you could use a natural substance with no side effects that was readily available and inexpensive to treat a condition, would you use it rather than expensive drugs? Well, check out this story!

Topical Honey Tested As A Treatment For Diabetic Ulcers, UW Study

“Editor’s note: Antibacterial properties of honey are not news. It is very easy to understand why it is effective against bacteria. But how many doctors would use honey to treat ulcers is another story. Doctors are trained to prescribe drugs and honey is not a drug, meaning that use of honey may be limited even if it is found to be effective in fighting bacteria. Complications from a 2002 car accident left Hurlburt, a borderline diabetic, with recurring cellulitis and staph infections. One of those infections developed into a troublesome open sore that, despite the use of oral antibiotics, continued to fester for nearly eight months. Then Hurlburt’s physician, Jennifer Eddy of UW Health’s Eau Claire Family Medicine Clinic, suggested she try using topical honey. Within a matter of months, the sore had healed completely. ‘I remember thinking, holy mackerel-what a difference,’ says Hurlburt, who can’t use topical antibiotics because of allergies. ‘It’s a lot better than having to put oral antibiotics into your system.'”

This is yet another example of using natural treatments being better, more effective, and cheaper than drugs. Hopefully, folks will begin to understand this and “come around” to natural methods!

“Experts believe that treating wounds with honey has tremendous potential for the approximately 200 million people in the world with diabetes, 15 percent of whom will develop an ulcer, usually because of impaired sensation in their feet. Currently, every 30 seconds someone somewhere in the world undergoes amputation for a diabetic foot ulcer. In 2001, treating diabetic ulcers and amputations in U.S. patients cost $10.9 billion.”

We have said many times in this Blog that the near “hysteria” over staying out of the sun has caused a deficiency in most folks in the U.S. of Vitamin D. We have also seen the link between Vitamin D and many debilitating and serious conditions. New evidence only strengthens this connection!

Vitamin D casts cancer prevention in new light

“For decades, researchers have puzzled over why rich northern countries have cancer rates many times higher than those in developing countries — and many have laid the blame on dangerous pollutants spewed out by industry. But research into vitamin D is suggesting both a plausible answer to this medical puzzle and a heretical notion: that cancers and other disorders in rich countries aren’t caused mainly by pollutants but by a vitamin deficiency known to be less acute or even non-existent in poor nations. Those trying to brand contaminants as the key factor behind cancer in the West are ‘looking for a bogeyman that doesn’t exist,’ argues Reinhold Vieth, professor at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and one of the world’s top vitamin D experts. Instead, he says, the critical factor ‘is more likely a lack of vitamin D.’ What’s more, researchers are linking low vitamin D status to a host of other serious ailments, including multiple sclerosis, juvenile diabetes, influenza, osteoporosis and bone fractures among the elderly.”

Notice this quote from the article I linked to above: “But perhaps the biggest bombshell about vitamin D’s effects is about to go off. In June, U.S. researchers will announce the first direct link between cancer prevention and the sunshine vitamin. Their results are nothing short of astounding. A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn’t take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error. And in an era of pricey medical advances, the reduction seems even more remarkable because it was achieved with an over-the-counter supplement costing pennies a day.”

Simple, inexpensive Vitamin D supplementation, or even better, just getting out into the sun, which produces Vitamin D in the body naturally, can stave off these conditions. This doesn’t “help” the financial “bottom line” of Big Pharma… but it sure helps people stay healthy! Also notice this quote:

“Only brief full-body exposures to bright summer sunshine — of 10 or 15 minutes a day — are needed to make high amounts of the vitamin. But most authorities, including Health Canada, have urged a total avoidance of strong sunlight or, alternatively, heavy use of sunscreen. Both recommendations will block almost all vitamin D synthesis.”

Sunscreen, which we are being told to use ANYTIME we venture into the sun, BLOCKS “almost all vitamin D synthesis!” It is no wonder we are in an almost epidemic deficiently of Vitamin D! What DO we need to do? we need to get 20 minutes a day of sun on our skin, every day. That is not enough to cause cancer, but it is enough to produce Vitamin D!

Finally check this quote: “‘There is no better anti-cancer agent than activated vitamin D. I mean, it does everything you’d want,’ said Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council.”

Get out there, and get some natural sunlight!

Imagine! They discovered that Americans are too “clean-centric” and that we NEED certain bacteria to be healthy! Natural health advocates have known this, literally for, years and years! Make that generations!

Hacking Your Body’s Bacteria for Better Health

“Modern humans are bacteria-killing machines. We assassinate microbes with hand soap, mouthwash and bathroom cleaners. It feels clean and right. But some scientists say we’re overdoing it. All this killing may actually cause diseases like eczema, irritable bowel syndrome and even diabetes. The answer, they say, is counterintuitive: Feed patients bacteria. ‘Probiotics (pills containing bacteria) have resulted in complete elimination of eczema in 80 percent of the people we’ve treated,’ says Dr. Joseph E. Pizzorno Jr., a practicing physician and former member of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. Pizzorno says he’s used probiotics to treat irritable bowel disease, acne and even premenstrual syndrome. ‘It’s unusual for me to see a patient with a chronic disease that doesn’t respond to probiotics.’ Clinical trial data on probiotics is incomplete, but there are many indications that hacking the body’s bacteria is beneficial.”

This is just amazing to me! But as funny as it is… it is also sad!

You know that I am constantly “dinging” pure, white refined sugar as a “Metabolic Poison.” Well, now studies indicate that it can also increase the risk of cancer!

Blood sugar ‘boosts cancer risk’

Women with high blood sugar levels are at an increased risk of developing cancer, a major European study finds.

“Diabetes causes high blood sugar, as does eating too much sugary food. The Swedish research, which looked at 64,500 people, linked raised blood sugar with pancreas, skin, womb, and urinary tract cancers in women. Diabetes experts said more evidence was needed to confirm the link. The study comes as other work links a high fat diet to increased breast cancer risk. In this study, carried out by a team at the University of Umea, high blood sugar was also linked to breast cancer risk – for women under 49. Overall, the research found women in the top 25% range of blood sugar readings after fasting had a 26% higher chance of developing cancer than those in the bottom quarter.”

Prospective Study of Hyperglycemia and Cancer Risk

“The association of hyperglycemia with total cancer risk in women and in women and men combined for several cancer sites, independently of obesity, provides further evidence for an association between abnormal glucose metabolism and cancer.”