Category: Natural Health

Health and business war of words broke out late last year between plastic watchers and the plastic industry over whether chemicals in plastics cause about 52 types of cancer. The offensive against plastics was launched on Facebook by health watchers who claimed their evidence came from the American Doctors Association. About three governors in the north of Nigeria immediately pitched their tents in the health cantonment, warning their people in public announcements to avoid food packaged hot in plastics and foods in sun-heated plastic packaging. They also warned that bottled water should not be kept in sun-heated cars. It is an unending war which has been raging for years. In August last year , the controversies prompted Michael Olatubosun to publish in Fact Check by Dubawa, an article titled: Does Eating Foods in Different Types of Plastics Cause 52 Types of Cancer? The article floors the claims against plastics on some scores, including the fact that an American Doctors Association does not exist, and that the American Medical Association (AMA), which is known by almost everyone, has no such word on it. Whatever is the truth, my advice in this case, as in all controversial situations, is that it is wise to err on the side of caution. For me, the chicken is coming home to roost. For the latest volley of this plastics controversy has helped to create more awareness about the ubiquitous plastic, although there is still a lot of work to do, to bring a large proportion of the population into the awareness net. While, indeed, there may be many possible causes of cancer as Tubosun argues, we cannot, as he, also, suggests believe that chemicals in plastics cannot be one of them. What gladdens me in that controversy is the fact that the seeds some of us have been sowing for awareness about the dangers of dangerous contamination of food by plastics are finally making prophets to have honour in their own land. It does not matter if it took a warning from abroad to get those northern governors out of their offices into the streets to launch awareness campaigns. It does not matter how long it took for the health prophets in Nigeria to have honour in their own land. What matters is for the information on plastics and their dangers to become widespread. Like other Nigerians, this column has been warning for decades, yes decades, not years, that chemicals in plastic wrappers or containers leak into their contents when they are heated…and that these chemicals have been found to cause cancer. Thanks to whoever is behind the present war on plastics credited to the American Doctors Association, the prophet in another far, far away country, which has just issued a health alert that has got some state governors in Nigeria talking seriously to their people. Plastics are used everywhere in Nigeria, today. They have replaced leaves in the wrapping of foods that are cooked for hours.

• Some local restaurants make eba, a “swallow food”, in plastics by pouring boiling water in disused four litre paint buckets over garri, (cassava) flour and turning it until it solidifies.
• On their way home in the evening, many Lagos workers who do not cook at home buy hot food sold in shopping polythene bags by roadside sellers.
• School children buy food at the roadside in these bags. Back home, their meals are served in plastic bowls or plates.

Many people who eat on-the-go buy such foods as puff-puff, roasted plantain, corn, yam and boiled corn in polythene bags. Pop-corn is packed hot in polythene bags.

• More than half of the population drink cellophane packaged water we call “pure water” which are sun-heated during transportation from the factory to the wholesalers and retailers who keep them sun-bathed in the open.
• Companies who produce”soft drinks” now package them in plastic bottles instead of glass bottles. Their products are transported in open trucks from one street corner to another to be sold directly to retailers. These drinks are sun-heated in the trucks and also sun-heated where the retailers keep them.
• As a baby, I was fed with Oster Milk and Cow-Gate in a double nipple glass feeding bottle, and in plastic feeding bottles, both of which my grandmother kept for me as mementos . Obviously, baby feeds are not served cold but hot or warm.
• As a school boy at Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, between 1964 and 1968, our meals in the boarding house were served hot in plastics and covered with plastics. Every morning, we drank hot tea which was served in plastic cups. When I was a young man, my grandmother sold palm oil, coconut oil and groundnut (peanut) oil in glass bottles which were either aromatic schnapps bottles or Star Lager bottles. She displayed them, as many women still do today, on tables in front of her house or shops. These tables may or may not have roofs over them for protection against sun-heating and other weather vagaries. Goodness knows how much dangerous plastic chemicals that are gobbled today by consumers of palm oil, coconut and groundnut oil users at home and in restaurants.
• Today, women purchase for home cooking cellophane packed and sun heated items such as crayfish, tomato powder, ground ogbono, ground egusi, ground pepper…the list is endless.
• We should not forget that, nowadays, palm oil is brought to the cities from villages packaged in 25 litre plastic kegs which are exposed to the sun for several days during transportation and stored in warehouses where the ambient temperature is high.
• Even when some families go to reputable stores as Shop Rite, Spa or Addide to purchase their bottle and sachet water, do they not keep them in the boots of their cars, and does the heat in the car not heat them before they get home, especially when they are stuck in traffic?
• People who enjoy biscuits and sweets are not far from the net, because they are wrapped in cellophane. Even toothpastes are in plastic. Do we not sometimes leave them on the bathroom window, and does the sun not heat them?
• Today, plastics have replaced metal pipes which bring water into our homes. Our overhead water tanks are also made of plastic. The sun overheats the pipes in the earth, if they are buried, on the ground, or overhead storages in plastic tanks.

It is interesting, but not discomforting, that health officials in Nigeria did not pay attention to warnings over the years that the public needs education on these matters. We do not need to regulate the market, I always said. All we need do is educate the public. When the public knows plastics can cause cancer, there will be no business for water sellers who do not pay attention to public health. It is interesting, I said, because Nigeria woke up as it were in the middle of October last year after the “American Doctors Association” made public announcements about how plastics contaminated edibles and had been found to cause many types of cancer. No fewer than three governors in the north of Nigeria  echoed the messages.

Erik Solheim, UN environment chief, before his resignation in 2018 over criticisms that he broke internal rules and travel too often, said in an article titled: Story Chemicals & Pollution Action—The missing science:  “could our addiction to plastic be poisoning us?

“…When scientists took a proper look at these substances, they found them to be incredibly harmful to people and the planet. Now this attention is increasingly turning to one of the most ubiquitous materials in use today: plastic. The fact is that while we are acutely aware of the alarming rising tide of plastic waste, there is not a great deal known about the long-term health impacts of this pollution crisis. What we do know is that our addiction to convenience has placed it everywhere: leaching into food from kitchens, restaurants and supermarkets, floating in microscopic particles in our drinking water, drifting in the oceans and choking wildlife and ecosystems.

“For a long time, we operated on the principle that plastics are okay because there was no evidence that they were unsafe. This is not equivalent to proving that they are safe. The ubiquity of plastics, and the increasing evidence that we are ingesting many of them in microplastic form, demands a closer examination of the health implications. Until recently, much of the research, and concern, focused on food packaging and how tiny plastic fragments “migrate” into food from the containers they are stored in.

” Writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, a team of environmental scientists raised the alarm over “food contact materials” substances used in packaging, storage, processing, or preparation equipment. According to the research, food contact materials contain a total of over 4,000 chemical substances including formaldehyde, classified as  carcinogen category 1B by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. There are discussions at this moment on restrictions, which can focus on the placing on the market and use of formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasers in mixtures and articles for supply to consumers. The chemicals causing the most disquiet have been bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates. The former is a material used in hard, transparent plastics known as polycarbonates, a popular material for baby bottles and storage containers. Phthalates are a class of chemicals that, when added to plastics, make them more durable, flexible and long-lasting.

“Some research has indicated that BPA may disrupt hormone and reproductive systems, including abnormal penis development in men. There are also suspicions that it could contribute to diabetes, heart disease and even cancer. According to the US National Institute of Environmental Health Services, exposure to BPA has long been widespread. A 2003-2004 study conducted by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found BPA in 93% of 2,517 urine samples from people six years and older. Some regulations have been passed to limit BPA use, particularly in baby products, and more is in the offing in the European Union, but many believe it doesn’t go far enough.

“Recent research on phthalates pointed to equally widespread levels of contamination. The researchers found elevated levels of phthalates in the bodies of those who had eaten out the previous day 35 percentage higher. These chemicals are linked to fertility problems, pregnancy complications and other health issues. As ever in fields of emerging science, though, there is dissenting opinion. Stephen Ostroff, Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine at the US Food and Drug Administration, in February 2018 declared BPA safe for “currently authorised uses” in food packaging after a two-year study on rats”.

Plastics and Cancer

The following figures from Google may have no direct correlations between plastics use and cancer prevalence, but they are, nevertheless, interesting ones for anyone who would rather err on the side of caution. What I mean by this is that where one or more parties are “dragging” an issue, with one party saying there is a problem and the other saying the coast is still clear. It is better to not only watch the weather carefully but to stay indoor until the weather is absolutely clear. But, in these matters, is the weather ever clear? What has man veered into outside the dictates of Mother Nature which ever gives him or her a clear coast? Did we not once say tobacco smoking was safe? Did we not once say it was safe to use asbestos for roofing houses? Did we not once use lead pipes to supply water to buildings? Did we not once think aluminum cooking pots and microwave were safe for cooking? Are we not grappling with the radiation problems of cellphones? According to Google…

1) In 2015, Nigeria consumed about one million tons of plastics. By last year,  Nigeria was expected to have been consuming 1.5 million tons.

2) By November last year, it was estimated that about 72,000 persons die from cancer every year. That is about 6,000 every month. About 102,000 cases are diagnosed from her population of about 200 million people. If these figures correlate, then about 108,000 Nigerians may have died of cancer last year.

3) The current population of the United States is estimated at 333,484,850 “as of Wednesday, October 13, 2021, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United States Nations data”.

4) The United States consumes about 37 million tons of plastics every year. About 16 million tons are used in food packaging. On the average, every American consumes 100 pounds yearly of packaging and food service plastics.

5) As the United States population is about 1.7 of Nigeria’s population and the United States plastics consumption is about 24.6 times higher than Nigeria’s, will the cancer rates in both nations show such inferences?

6) Cancer death in the United States every year is about 608,570 whereas Nigeria posts about 72,000. This suggests that about eight or nine more persons die in the United States than Nigeria. There may, therefore, be more reasons people are dying of cancer in the United States than in Nigeria.

7) What about new cancer diagnosis? In the United States, 1.9 million new cases pop up yearly in relation to 102,000 in Nigeria. This means the occurrence rate in United States, a huge plastics consumer, is about 19 times higher than in Nigeria. But the cancer death rates is only eight times than that of Nigeria. This may suggest that there is no correlation between exposure to plastics or that cancer scourge is better managed in that country than in Nigeria.

The  way out

The best way out is the avoidance of plastics. But is there anyone who avoid them nowadays? Even the cellphone, ball-point pen, toys and car interior are made of plastics and plastic substances are in toilet soaps, creams and lotions, shampoos and fragrances. Two other options I find helpful are diet and detoxification.

 Diet

A diet rich in salads has been promoted by many authorities as these vegetables have chelating properties which help to move out not only microplastics, heavy metals but other toxins as well. Among these vegetables are the Cruciferous vegetables… Cabbage, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cauliflower and some other greens of the Brassicaceae family. These vegetables should not be over done because they are a rich source of goistrogenes which slow thyroid function. There are also Kale, Parsley, Cilantro, Garlic, Radishes and many more. Incidentally, all of these and more are among three proprietary food supplements I always mention here. They are a warehouse of more than 40 green plants and their extracts… pop up for recognition Daily Build, Purxcel, Spectra greens , Complete Phyto Energiser, C24/7, Liven Alkaline Coffee, which comes with about 16,000 plant factors and without the caffeine of coffee. I also encourage local plant powders such as those of Pawpaw, Jute Mallow (Ewedu), Potato leaves, Utazi, Moi Danielli. This is the trade name of the powder of Thaumatococcus Danielli, the leaf in which, guess what our forebears cooked Agidi (Eko, Yoruba) and Moin Moin have been found to heal, especially in sickle cell children, and to help livers damaged by alcohol.

 Detoxification

Detoxification may involve chlorella which removes heavy metals from the brain, Cilantro and Asparagus which detoxify the kidneys, Red Clover, Burdock root etc. Since plastics are naturally detoxified through the Glucuronidation system, some authorities suggest the use of Calcium D-Glucarate. Activated Charcoal cannot be ignored. Diatomaceous Earth (Diatom or DE) is a blessing. We cannot ignore organic coffee enema (inedible) which opens up and detoxifies the liver and intestine (please see Gerson Therapy online). As a co-worker, I suggest Cleanse  Capsules from LivePure. It is a big house of detoxifying plant extracts.

From the windows of my bedroom on the first floor of a house bordered by three roads, I distinctly hear private conversations going on on the street. At six in the morning, I am woken up by steel rollers of a factory gate in a residential house screeching against tight steel runners. At first, I thought motorists were not familiar with the road and were desperately trying to not plunge into a crevice where the road makes a 90 degrees left turn. I had cause to worry over those screeches because, about two years ago, a motorist ploughed into the fence of my residence after running over the open drainage and kerb stones beside it. The impact sounded like the sound of a blast. But the fence stood its ground with little few cracks here and there. This was a benefit of making the fence not with hollow but solid bricks which combined granite dust, sharp sand and cement, one bag of which produced not 30 bricks ,but 15. I noticed, amid it all, that there had recently come around professional drivers who either came early in the morning to take their bosses to work, or brought them back in the evenings. These men are not like the courier man who lives opposite my house and regularly picks things to dispatch for me or brings to me whatever other persons are sending to me. I know him as Bog Logistics Emmanuel (08134914838). He neither hoots nor knocks, let alone bang on my gate. Rather, he telephones me from the gate. He is an amazing world of difference from these drivers. They park on the road, hooting for minutes on end until their masters had boarded in the mornings or until the gates had been opened in the evenings. They are probably Christians or Moslems who had heard of the commandment Thou Shall  Not Steal. Are they aware they are stealing someone’s right to peace of mind? I always wonder. What if there was an insomniac around who hardly slept all night, who was just managing to catch 10 minutes sleep? What if there was a nursing mother around who didn’t sleep all night because her baby wouldn’t sleep but who was just about to fall asleep because she had just luckily got the baby to sleep? What of persons who rely on the calm of the night to do creative work and require dawn and early morning sleep to compensate their bodies and their health for the vicissitudes of night? I believe it is for those and more people, in fact because of all of us, both the noise maker and the noise consumer, that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared April 26 every year a No Horns Day. Actually, this article was originally intended for publication on or around 2022 No Horns Day.

I do not know if on board a Nigerian passenger bus, you have ever paid attention to someone several seats ahead of you making a phone call. He may be talking so loudly that his voice will drown the sound of the bus engine. People who speak like that  are probably going deaf without realising it. They shout because they do not hear their voices. Only when they do they believe other people are hearing them. They do not realise that they are shouting! WHO knows about such persons and us, their defenceless victims. To protect them against themselves and to protect us from their nuisance, March 3 of every year is celebrated worldwide as World Hearing Day. This event complements the world’s campaign against environmental noise pollution, in which even motorists are encouraged to observe a No Horns Day on April 26.

 

Noise poisoning  

Unknown to many Nigerians, some type of noise can damage the cells in the inner ear and cause hearing loss or deafness. Shouting before one can hear oneself is as much a sign of hearing loss as it is of a large thunderous sound to hear. This is why sound levels are regulated in noise and hearing conscious societies. Internationally, sound is measured with a sound meter for this purpose. In Lagos, Nigeria, a very noisy city, the approved noise levels are

• Daytime in residential areas…55 decibels
• Night time in residential areas…45decibels
• Day or night time in industrial areas…90 decibels

Expensive and big electricity generators produce between 60 and 90 decibels of sound , but smaller, smoky ones overdue for servicing produce much more. You can, therefore, imagine an environment where many small, smoky and noisy electricity generators are running at the same time. I do not like to be a difficult neighbour to my neighbours but, once or twice, I had to invite one of them to my sitting room. His generator was at the back of his house which was adjacent to my sitting room. He was shocked to discover that, inadvertently, he had been pumping noise and smoke on my household. He apologised and relocated the generator. In the opposite house, a woman in the top flat was nasty. She put her generator right beside the ground floor bedroom of a medical doctor whose wife had just had a baby. I intervened, as an elder, in their quarrels to no avail. When the doctor got tired of complaining, he stopped the generator one night, opened the petrol tank and filled it with table salt. The engine knocked. The woman called the police who detained the doctor overnight for wilful damage to property. When the doctor came out of detention, he reported the disturbance to the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency which promptly visited the property and sanctioned the woman. Many people who live in face-to-face room apartments experience worse circumstances. Electricity generators may run in the common corridors piling the rooms with noise, smoke and petrol fumes. The machines may mount in the compounds. Music may be played at the highest pitches. At outdoor parties, some people sit near the band stands or the massive loudspeakers. Agege Pen Cinema, like Oshodi motor park and Iyana-Ipaja, for example, are noise disaster areas in Lagos that LASEPA may never be able to control. It may shock many people who carelessly blare car horns that typical car horns may hit between 106 and 109 decibels. This is more than double the permissible level in residential areas during the day or night. In 2020, LASEPA received 4,700 complaints. About half of them were against noise making by churches and mosques. Twenty percent came from religious events in buildings and other enclosures not officially registered for religious activities. The remainder came from other sources. These included open air parties, business houses, and shops, which announce their businesses with loud music and, among others, motor parks which rely on loudspeakers to announce bus routes.

 

Noise damage

Noise causes not only the likelihood of hearing loss or deafness. It may also cause hypertension, insomnia and depression. That is why soldiers on a battlefield may suffer several types of damage to their health long after a war, and dwellers in the approaches of aircraft landing or take off need to be doubly concerned about their health. In noisy Lagos, a long track of rail line runs only a child’s stone throw from residential houses. In a residential estate I am familiar with, a boarding secondary school disturbs all day with drumming and microphone noise. According to www.cdc. gov: “Loud noise can damage cells and membranes in the cochlea. Listening to loud music can overwork hair cells in the ear, which can cause these cells to die. The hearing loss progresses as long as the exposure continues. Harmful effects might continue even after noise exposure has stopped.”

Nigerians account for more than 8.5 million sufferers of hearing loss in a 466 million global population, according to Professor Julius Ademokoya, president of the Speech Pathologist and Audiologists Association in Nigeria (SPAAN) in 2020.

 

How we hear

How we hear is an interesting process. Many of us know of the ear and nothing else. The ear is the external end of the hearing process. It gathers sound waves from the environment and channels them through a narrow passage called the ear canal because ear wax sometimes fills it up in an attempt by the immune system to trap dust, germs and other substances which may cause trouble(s) for the delicate inner tissues of the hearing system. The sound waves channeled by the outer ear through this narrow tube are received at the inner end of the tube by the ear drum. This is a delicate tissue which may be perforated by pressure and other impacts, causing deafness. The vibrations of the ear drum impact the first of three small bones in the inner ear. The three small bones are called Hammer (also called malleus, incus and stapes). Hammer is the outermost of the three, incus, the middle one and stapes, the innermost which connects the middle ear to the inner ear. Each of these tiny bones pass on the vibrations they have received from the ear drum. In other words, it can be said that the hammer vibrates against the incus and the incus vibrates against the stapes. It is like baton changing hands in a relay race. Thus, the effectiveness and efficiency of these bones, through diet and hygeine and, of course, the right amount of sound pressure impacted on them is important for their fidelity of communication and premium hearing capacity.

 

Inner ear

The bony stapes stands on the outer boundary of the middle ear towards the inner ear, vibrating into the innermost section of the ear divided into three sections. These divisions are the vestibule, the three semi-circular canals and the cochlea.

The vestibule, among other functions, is responsible for the body’s state of physical balance.

The three sem-circular canals are fluid filled. Their fluids move hither and thither in response to the body’s physical movements, to keep balance. In the cochlea, amplified sound vibrations from the middle ear are received and converted into nerve impulses which the auditory nerves take to the brain for interpretation. About 25,000 nerve endings are believed to be involved in the process. In the cochlea are hair like projections which help in the sound transmission. It is believed that every new born has 12,000 hearing cells. These may be damaged or lost during earth life by loud noises or other inhospitable circumstances. They are irreplaceable; noise induced hearing loss affects many professionals— carpenters , miners, oil explorers, heavy duty construction workers and, none the least, soldiers. Many Gulf War soldiers suffered hearing loss. Back home in Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari exhibits hearing loss symptoms from the Nigerian Civil War. Uncharitably, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar sought to exploit this in calling for a television debate with the President during their 2019 presidential election campaign.

Some of the early signs of hearing loss may be ringing in the ear, buzzing sounds in the ear, inability to hear high pitch sounds such as the singing of birds or hooting of automobiles, fullness or pressure in the ear, exposure to noisy music. Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) may be instant or gradual, depending on if the exposure is one off or continual.

 

Remedies  

Hearing is more about nerves than anything less. Thus, nerve nutrition and antioxidant defence against free radicals should be the cornerstone of daily care of the sense of hearing. I have sighted some proprietary formulas in the Nigerian market which may be of help. One of them is Hearing Health by Bell and the other is Neuro Booster by Shineway. Yet another is neurocell plus. There are others still that are not nerve specific by name but which nevertheless should favourably impact on the nervous system. In their ranks are such nutritives as Complete Phyto Energiser by Aim Global and from the same stable as well, C 247, an anti-aging formula designed to literally hold the hands of the clock or turn it backwards.

Of hearing health, the product literature says: “An innovative combination of vitamins, minerals, herbs and bioflavonoids…may help maintain and support healthy hearing, attempts to relieve symptoms of Tinutus, rich in anti-oxidants for projection of your hearing, possibly halts damage from free radicals”. The ingredients include “marjoram extract, citrus bioflavonoids, magnesium, parsley extract, potassium, NAD, zinc, vitamin B-12, folic acid (as in folliate) and vitamin D3.”

Neuro Booster from Shineway is, understandably, targeted at the brain, orign of the nerves. I added it to my shopping list for glaucoma after I read Joe Lovett’s report that he cleared his own glaucoma using coconut oil to stimulate brain derived neurotrophic factors (BDNFs). Referring to new studies which he said linked glaucoma to denaturing of brain cells which control the eyes, he said BDNFs must have cleared his brain discomfeitures to clear his glaucoma. This protection and strengthening of brain nerves is important for the health of nerves throughout the body. The nerve which makes hearing possible is called the Auditory Nerve. It arises from a complex web of nerves in the cochlea, located in the  inner ear, links up with the central nervous system (CNS) and eventually terminates in the neurons of the back brain in a location known as the “junction of the medulla and the pons”.

What has Neuro Booster to offer against hearing loss? It’s literature speaks of four ingredients…Alpha Lipoic Acid, Acetyl N Carnitine, Co enzyme Q 10 and naturally-fermented ubiquinone.

Neuro cell plus is another nerve health formula. It is put up as a stem cell formula and parades some important B complex vitamins. Some of them are methyl cobalamin, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), Niacinamide D panthenol. Methyl cobalamine produces vitamin B12. A deficiency of this vitamin may cause blood cells to develop into abnormally large shapes and cause megaloblastic anaemia. In sufficient amounts in the body, methylcobalamine may not only help to dissolve megaloblastic anaemia but address certain nerve problems as wel. Pyridoxine helps in the regulation of water balance. Dr. Shari Liberman, author of The Real Vitamin And Mineral Book, speaks eloquently of pyridoxine as not only important for formation of about 60 enzyme reactions, but for the making of melatonin in the brain. The association of pyridoxine to these neurotransmitters explains how important it could be to the nervous system. In fact, Liberman recommends it for such conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, especially when psychotropic drugs fail or cause toxicity. Liberman suggests, as well, that some childhood epileptic-like convulsions and some autistic children respond favourably to pyridoxine supplementation. Niacinamide relates with Niacin or Nicotinic Acid, the blood circulation promoting and cholesterol lowering vitamin B3. This vitamin is reported to exert beneficial influences on the nervous system. Pantheno is a derivative of pantothenic acid or vitamin B5, the growth and stress hormone.

 

Other remedies  

Bryophilium pinnatum is arguably Nigeria’s most popular solution for ear problems. The popular name of this plant is Miracle  Plant or Everlasting Plant. The Yoruba call it Abamoda(d:m:r:m). A leaf is taken from the plant, disinfected in saline solution or cider vinegar solution, placed on the cover of a cooking pot over a burning stove and, when tenderised by the heat, is squeezed to expel water which is gently eased in drops into an aching ear. This plant has other uses which space cannot permit me to mention here. In the book Natural Health Secrets From Around The  World, edited by Glenn W Geel Hoed M.D, and Jean Barillams, we learn of the use of ear drops from the oil of such plants as almond, echinacea, garlic, onion, mugwort, penny wort, and peppermint.

Hearing loss is better averted than treated, as delicate organs and nerves may have been irreparably damaged before the problem is detected. For example, some ear specialists suggest linkages between heart and artery damage and high cholesterol damage of the hearing system. Such signals ae Tinitus or ringing in the ear may be cleared up with blood circulatory herbs such as gingko biloba, cayenne, black pepper, gotukola and in the proprietary bracket, Vida Max and ISK clear, among others. When all seems to fail, cochlear implants help better than hearing aids, according to scientific reports.

 

Every man is known for who he is, by what he stands for. Medicinal plants are not different. Some are known for keeping the brain young and agile.

During the Second World War, the eyes of American pilots could not stand the glare of bomb blasts. British pilots faced the glare again and again almost everyday with little or no tribulation. The plant called bilberry made the difference. Bilberry jam was in the breakfast of British pilots. It turned out in studies later that plant medicines in the purple-colour bilberry has affinity for the retina, the light sensitive portion of the eye and protects it against photochemical insults from sunlight.

Since that time, bilberry, like gingko biloba and grape seed extract became an important component of any proprietary vision supplement worth its salt.When the brain does not receive enough blood from the heart or there is enough supply  but the circulation is poor, the job of restoring normalcy often goes to the likes of Ginkgo Biloba. Hawthorn berries, ubiqunol, vitamin E and magnesium are among live- sustaining remedies for heart and blood vessels health.

Cayenne pepper, like Ferrom phos(phosphate), In cell or tissue salt medicine, disperses blood clots. When the blood vessels become so weak that they leak blood, setting the stage for hemorraging anaemia and a possible collapse of the heart from insufficiency of blood to pump, it is time to call in rutin and the likes of horsetail  and diatomaceous earth (diatom ) for their silica which, like rutin, is a cellular cement. Buggle weed slows hyperative thyroid gland. Sea kelp shores up underactive thyroid gland. Bilberry helps the optic nerve. Zinc is good for the senses of taste, smell, healthy skin, hair  and nails, reproduction, immunity and wound healing, among more than 200 uses which includes  healthy night vision.

So, when the legs are suffering from venous return insufficiency, are weak, swollen, tired, numb, cramping, riddled with tingling toe pains and cannot bear the body’s weight or are instalmentaly dying, which plant medicine’s can come to their rescue? In the thinking of some alternative medicine practitioners, the answer is …Butchers’ Broom and House Chestnut. But this is not necessarily a wining ballot or in any way relegates several scores of the other helpful plant medicines to the background. For there  are many cooks who   can cook the soup well. It is only a question of choice, passion and/or familiarity.

The plants which may help include blood thinners, anti-inflammatories, vascular dialators, nervines, antioxidants, heart regulator.

Butcher’s broom

This herb is indeed a butcher’s broom.

Long  ago, European Butcher’s bundled it’s branches into a broom bundled to sweep clean their shop blocks after the days business. They little remembered that they had a medical plant in their hands, although the health benefits of Butcher’s broom had been known to mankind since about the  First Century AD.Then, it helped out in bone fracture healings, gout, kidney stones, and jaundice, among other health challenges. Then, in the 1950s,  it was known for other useful health benefits which included swellings in the hands and feet and arthritis inflammation. Then came a long spell of forgetfulness for this plant. It returned to human memory in the 1950s when scientists discovered that Butcher’s broom, which resembles Asparagus, an antioxidant, digestion, weight, libido and urinary tract system manager , contained two striking compounds in its edible root. These components constricted the veins in dogs and laboratory animals. The constriction increased blood flow and strengthened the veins against blood leakages.

Americans investigated Butcher’s broom in some human experiments but were not too sure it could give them all they wanted for venous Insufficiency. But the Germans were not as foot dragging or as ambivalent as the Americans in favour of Big Pharma when it comes to healing herbs. So, evaluating scientific data and case studies, they approved Butcher’s broom for use “in alleviating the discomforts associated with chronic venous insufficiency. In Europe, Butcher’s broom was evaluated for its effectiveness, to guide response to it by European Union members health policy makers.

The work was to also help the guild of herbs, medicine products committee in respect of European Union nutrition. In Europe butchers broom use and effectiveness were evaluated by the Herbs Medicine Products Committee (HMPC) in a reference guild for health policy makers of the E.U. Its conclusions appear in ema.europa.eu/medicines/herbal rusci_aculeat.rhizoma.

In its conclusions, HMR says: “the conclusion in the uses of these Butcher’s broom medicines for minor blood circulation problems and for haemorrhoids are based on their “traditional use”. This means that, although there is insufficient evidence from clinical trials, the effectiveness of these herbal medicines is plausible and there is evidence that they have used safely in this way for at least 30 years (including at least 15 years within the EU). More over, the intended use does not require medical supervision.”

Its assessment also considered a study involving 116 women with minor blood circulation problems treated with butcher’s broom for 12 weeks. Foot and lower leg swelling was reduced to a greater extent in women taking Butcher’s broom than in those on placebo (a dummy treatment), but the overall benefit was not convincing. Also, because the study did not include men and it was of short duration, firm conclusions could not be drawn about the effectiveness of Butcher’s broom”

Horse Chestnut

This is a herb with many feathers in its cap.  The proprietary product called Leg Veins is formulated with butcher’s broom. Herbal medicine literature say it may relieve haemorrhoids, treat varicose veins, may help fight cancer, has antioxidants potentials, is anti-inflammatory. The miracle worker in horse Chestnut is believed to be a chemical compound called Aescun, to which are described multiple medical uses. Researchers say Aescun may increase venous blood flow. With 50mg of  Aescun used over night for weeks curbed chronic Insufficiency symptoms. That included leg swelling, pain and itchy leg.

Nerves tissues

Before we proceed, I would like to mention that chronic venous Insufficiency is not limited to the legs. It can occur anywhere.The blood is the River of life. It flows from the heart to all parts of the body and back to the heart. The return flow must not be blocked or delayed anywhere. Hypothetically, If 100 buckets are pumped out but 20 buckets are held down anywhere, 80 buckets would flow back. Any  cut back means a shortage of blood in the system, especially upstream. Let us consider the unlikely event of a quarter of the blood leaking out of the veins downstream, a situation we can remedy with Rutin, a bioflavonoid, or with Silica, and only half of the blood returns to the heart. May the heart not be affected one way another for want of enough blood to pump.

 

Pelvic circulation

Millions of Nigerian women suffer from uterin fibroids which are most probably associated with venous insufficiency in the pelvic region (Parts below the navel or the belly button). Blood circulation in the pelvic veins is compromised as blood begins to gather or pool in them. This raises pressure against the walls of the veins. The veins may begin to swell to take in more blood. The American journal of radiology says more than 23 per cent of hysterectomies (surgical removal of all parts of the womb)in that country is due to pelvic pain. The major cause of this is attributed to Pelvic Congestion Syndrome (pcs)and pelvic venous insufficiency (PVI). PVI is a major cause of pvs which causes pain  in the lower abdomen, hips, back and thighs. PVI has many possible causes, including multiple births, frequent births, obesity, rapid weight gain, blood clots, varicose veins.

In pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.hov, we are advised  of the cases of seven women whose uterine fibroids conditions were associated with pvi:

“Uterine fibroids have been described as an associate to acute venous thromboembolism (VTE), with case reports showing an association between large uterine fibroids, acute deep venous thrombosis (DVT), and acute pulmonary embolism (PE). However, there is little known about the association or causation between uterine fibroids, chronic thromboembolic disease (CTED), and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). We report on six women with uterine fibroids and CTEPH, as well as one woman with CTED, all of whom presented with exertional dyspnea, lower extremity swelling, and in the cases of CTEPH, clinical, echocardiographic, and hemodynamic evidence of pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure. Compression of the pelvic veins by fibroids was directly observed with invasive venography or contrast-enhanced computed tomography in five cases. All seven women underwent pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (PTE) followed by marked improvement in functional, clinical, and hemodynamic status”

 

Uterine fibroid symptoms

If you do experience fibroid symptoms, they may include:

Heavy, prolonged menstrual periods, sometimes with clots Anemia (fatigue due to low red blood count)

Pain during sexual intercourse

Pain or pressure between the hip bones or in the back of the legs

Urinary frequency

Constipation or bloating

An enlarged belly

Please forgive my digression from venous Insufficiency in the legs and “dying legs “to venous Insufficiency in  the pelvic floor and uterin fibroids. Our forefathers say that when we pull a shrub in the ticket, we do not know how Many shrubs tangled with it that this shrub will pull along. Uterine fibroids is widespread among Nigeria’s women folk. No fewer than about twenty possible causes are always assigned to it. One of the latest in the gossip mill not backed by science  is that women who eat okra soup are fibroids prone.  I have learned to not dispute a claim I do not understand. All I know is that my grandmother ate okra and had no uterine fibroids. I know, also, that the drawing part of okra is  calcium, the green magnesium and the white pods good storages of Vitamin A. Time will tell if these nutrients cause any harm in he uterus. That is why I thought it important to invite attention to Venous Insufficiency in this matter.

 

Eye circulation

When a vein is blocked, it may cause blurry vision or “missing”vision in parts of, or all of the eye. Even hardered arteries compressing a vein may so narrow it as to cause blood clots which may impact venous circulation. Blockages in the arteries may cause eye Stokes similar to Stokes in the brain. When a retinal vein is blocked, it creates drainage problem in the retinal system which may affect blood and oxygen supplies to cells of the retina, causing them to wither and probably die. Circulation venous obstruction may cause either ischemic stroke of the deadlier stroke in which leaks from the vessel to Brain Cells.

Prostate glang

Some, if  not many, prostate gland problems have been linked to Insufficiency in the gland venous system. In www.pubmed.ncbi.nml.nih.gov

We learn: “An important role should be attributed to the prostatic venous complex and to its pathology in the clinical aspects of prostate adenoma. This appears to be responsible for the acute retention of urine as well as for the hemorrhages that accompany the disease. The authors, on the occasion of 50 adenomectomies by the trans-vesical method, have carried out histological investigations on the excised tissues and made a correlation with the microscopic aspects of the peri-orificial urethra and of the prosthatic urethra, in connection with the changes noted in the venous system. The veins have displayed more or less important changes in all the cases. These consisted in stasis, lacunar dilatations or of the varicose type, inflammations or parietal modifications of a different origin. At the same time were noted signs of inflammation in the submucosa as well as in the muscular layer of the bladder wall, which appeared to be distrophic. The pathogenic role is stressed of the venous system in the developement of the clinical aspects especially in type II and III of a personal classification.”

Some remedies

There can be light at the other end of a long, dark tunnel as Butcher’s Broom and Horse Chestnut are promising us in any condition of Venous Insufficiency. We only need to know what it would take to stabilise the predisposing agent and do it. The following suggestions are made in this regard. But they are by no means all that  are in the treasure trove of mother nature.

The nerves

Yoruba elders say the hunter’s dog that will be lost in the forest does not heed the hunter’s whistle warning it that it is time to return home. The same can be said of the person who does not heed signals that the nervous system is growing weak. If the nerves (the hunters)are  weak, aging or injured, their ministration or control is weakened. So also, are the tissues and organs they control and nurse. The herbs which look after the health of the nerves are called Nervines. Vitamin B complex in particular vitamin B1(thiamins) is crucial for nerve health. It is water soluble. That means the body does not store it, and it has to be in the daily diet. The entire B-Complex, like zinc, are anti-stress vitamins. My choice nervine is Lion’s Mane Mushroom. It was discovered during World War II by an Italian female medical doctor  searching for a plant medicine that would heal damaged or mangled nerves. Lion’s mane mushroom proved able to do that.

Today, it enjoys a wider range of uses in Alternative medicine. It should be good for all region of the body suffering from Venous Insufficiency. There are three other nervines I do not toy with…Valerian Root, Chamomile and Passion Flower. I have found them useful in all sorts of headaches,  to relieve nervous tension, and even in cases of depression. I crossed my limits with vervain one day in the 1990s. I  had always used the dry form as tea to stop nerve and muscle spasms. In fact, it was the first herbs I used in my pratice. A man had been vomiting for three days running. I gave him a tea made from vervian and Basil (scent leaf), which stops the intestinal spasms and diarrhoea. The tea worked wonders.

Literally speaking, the turbulent nerves obeyed me. Or, was it the herbs they obyed? So, I cut a few wet vervain leaves into a sumptous vegetable and fish soup and cooked them. No one in my household could eat the soup. They could not stand the bitterness. Ordinarily, vervain  calms the nerves and promotes sleep apart from protecting gum and teeth health. Women who have period muscle spasms or pelvic floor venous insufficiency may wish to try vervain and Basil. So are lavender, St. John’s wort. I should not forget to mention Skull Cap, which curbs migraines in many cases. What about hyssop, schizandra, Goji berries, kava kava, lemon balm, red and white onion, hops, Damian’s, hawthorn, Willow, horsetail. In the proprietary medicine bracket, we cannot also forget such good blood movers as kayolic cardiovascular, cardiotonic pill, vida Maxx, ISK clear, Choleduz, neuro booster, golden six and many more.

Old persons in whose legs  blood cannot easily flow back to the heart walk slowly or sluggishly, find climbing stairways herculean, experience leg cramps, numbness, tingling pains in the toes. Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) may suffer skin discolouration and try all sorts of heat creams and hot water bottles to no avail. To regain springs of youths in the legs and they may intimately end up with compression stockings to encourage blood flow upwards through the ankles and reduce the sizes of varicose veins.

They should be lucky if they have an understanding of what is going on in their legs and know that there are food supplements which may ease or eradicate their problems. Such was the fortune of David whose unexpected healing and rescue from the pangs of death was mentioned by Dr. Ray Strand in his book, What Your Doctor Does Not Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You (Please see Restore LYF:Dr. Ray Strand, The Grape Seed Doctor at www Olufemikusa.com and at https//link.medium.com/QQLhlO8wob). He lost his driving licence and job, became wheelchair bound and was given a few weeks to live by his doctors. He sent good bye messages to his friends. But good fortune brought a grape seed extract drink his way. It had helped a boy in similar conditions. David took it, his legs came aIive again, and he got not only his driver’s licence and job back…but his life as well!

Dyingles

Four major reasons are always cited as the possible causes of this challenge. The first is neurological questions with brain origins. The second is blood clots. The third is damage to or weakness of the one way non-return valves in the veins. The fourth is diseases of blood vessels such as Buerger’s disease. We can add a fifth possible cause…emotional injury in the first chakra.

How do these problems cause instalmental death in the legs?  The heart pumps used and deoxygenated blood to the lungs to pick oxygen (oxygenation) from the air we inhale, Pulls back the oxygenated blood from the lungs to pump it  round the body through the (red) blood circulation system and the lymph system.The lymph is the non-red components of the blood, or the real blood, which seperate from the red blood circulation to take oxygen and other nutrients through the blood capillaries, tiny blood vessels, to the 100 trillion or so cells which compose the average adult human body.  When  these cells have used up these nutrients, they send their waste products, including carbon dioxide, to the lymph which conveys them to the veins for the return journey to the heart. Once again, the heart will pump the used and deoxygenated blood to the lungs for renewal. When the detoxifying organs (liver, kidneys, lungs and the skin), receive their new blood stocks, they rid them of wastes and toxins and consume the nutrients.

Meanwhile, the return of venous, deoxygenated blood to the heart may be blocked in “traffic”jams by a variety of factors such as nerves problems, blood clots, valves weakness or damage and vascular (blood vessels) diseases.

Nerves

There are billions of nerve cells in the brain which monitor every process in the body and governs it through an extensive nervous system. Regions of the body with reduced nervous system contact or efficiency are often weak, diseased or withered. It is thought that subluxation of the nerves which interface with the lower limbs may be a cause of venous insufficiency in this region. A subluxation is a shifting of one or more bones in the spinal column which impacts the nerve root (s) and, so, delimits nerve energy or impulses flow from the brain to the nerve destination in tissues and organs.

One senior citizen of Nigeria who can write books and books on his nerves is former military president Ibrahim Babangida (rtd). Juliette Ukabiala, as Defence Correspondent of The Guardian newspaper, long before she took her Ph.D in Strategic Studies abroad, wrote of how the general was tormented by all sorts of pain when he was in office. His leg nerves gave him a jaunty gait when he walked. Today, he walks on two crutches, unable to bear his weight, unaided, on both feet. Juliette said Gen Babangida kept himself going on acupuncture treatment and other medications. Nigerian public affairs watchers of that time will recall that Gen Babangida (rtd) went to France to have surgery for a condition known as Radiculopathy. His military and government stature at that time brought this word into the Nigerian lexicon.

Radiculopathy is a disease in a pinched nerve root. The disease causes pain which radiates down the length of the nerve. If it occurs in the neck (cervical radiculopathy), the pain radiates from there to both arms and the chest. If the problem comes from the middle of the spine, the pain (thoratic radiculopathy), disturbs that region. In Gen Babangida’s radiculopathy, the problem came from the sciatic nerve in the lower back and shot down from the waist to one or both legs.

There is a tendency to confront these pains with common pain killers or serious steroidal drugs rather than sort them out at their roots. And, of course, this may worsen the risk of venous insufficiency in the legs and elsewhere in the body. Western medicine is only now exposing itself to eastern medicine. In the Eastern world, problems of the legs are ascribed to First Chakra emotional injuries. The chakra is a vortex or centre of energy. It is believed that the real man, who inhabits the physical body, connects with this body at seven special points, the first of which is at the base of the spine. It is symbolised by the pink or red. This may suggest that persons who suffer from leg problems may wear red or orange/pink boxers, because in energy or colour therapy, these colours are believed to energise this part of the body.

The First Chakra is all about groundedness or security on Earth. We were all born into journeys through life on Earth. If in the first seven years of earthly existence, our caregivers gave us sufficient nurture (love, food, water, clothing, good housing and a calm environment etc), we tend to trust the world and to believe we are secure in it. We are secure on Earth and become able, as we grow up, to live balanced lives. But if our circumstances were otherwise, we may become insecure, distrustful, unbalanced, fight unnecessary battles which may cause emotional injuries and emotional energy blockages from the pelvic region down to the legs, the province of the First Chakra. This is very important because the body is merely a lifeless material replication of a living essence, the spirit. Here, we are speaking of Etheric Energy Flow, the unseen “blood” circulation. From studies of chakra literature, it is easy to correlate outward events (blood clots in the legs, for example, with an orign or root in clumped chakra energy disturbances, since the physical body has no life on its own but is a mere echo of what is going on inside the inhabiting soul. On the basis of the foregoing, can it not be inferred that people challenged with venous Insufficiency need to examine their inner lives and make the necessary corrections to errors of imbalances which they may have carried over from baby and childhood days? Anyone who wishes to have a better grip of health needs to understand The Seven Chakras

Blood clot

The blood is meant to flow unhindered from the heart to all parts of the body and back to heart throughout one’s existence. But, sometimes, accidents such as injuries do occur in the blood vessels which may constitute hindrances. When an injury or a break occurs, blood cells known as Platelets clump  to protect the injury or prevent blood loss outside the vessel.These clumps may break off and constitute blockages. Long distance travellers who cannot easily stretch or excercise their legs may develop obstruction to blood flow in the deep vein which runs under their knee joint folds. This clot is known as Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). Some women who sit crossing one knee joint over the other suffer from DVT because of compressions of  the deep vein.Blood clots breaking from a DVT may cause heart attacks and strokes, or block venous return circulation in the legs . This often causes back up of blood in the lower limbs. In addition to the symptoms stated above, the sufferer may experience tingling toe pains or numbness in the foot and legs.

Some sufferers may experience Intermittent Claudication as well. This is a condition of periodic, cramping pains in the legs and in the calves during walking or other foot exertion. It may be caused by blood clot blockages in the arteries in the legs or in the veins. Many people take these cramping pains less seriously than they should. It is possible they will take them far more seriously if they know that what is going on in their legs is not different from what had gone on in the hearts of persons who had heart attacks or in the brains of those who suffered from strokes. This means their hearts and their brains may be as endangered as their legs. Superficial venous Insufficiency or poor blood circulation in the hands and legs is a symptom that the blood circulation may be growing killer blood clots in other parts of the body.

When some challenged persons are told that smoking or obesity may be the cause(s) of their problems, they challenge these viewpoints, quite understandably because they may never have smoked a stick of cigarette all their lives. They do not appreciate the fact that they may be daily passive smokers or are exposed to other damaging smokes. The cigarette smoker is protected by the filter in the cigarette stick, but the person standing by inhales the smoke or she puffs out is unprotected. In that puff is a high load of Nicotine. This substance narrows the arteries, slowing blood circulation to the tissues and organs  and inducing elevated blood pressure (hypertension). Besides, the smoke gives the passive inhaler carbon monoxide, not oxygen. Cunning as they are, snakes hate the tobacco plant and do not venture near it because they easily pick up the nicotine fragrance.

Nicotine deprives the human blood circulation of oxygen, already in low supply because of venous return insufficiency. As for obesity, it impacts more pressure than is reasonable for a foot that is already under pressure from oxygen insufficiency. And where cracks in the foot are not well and speedily attended to, this may be the beginning of infections up the ladder in a leg too weak to easily look after itself. Worse may be the fate of that foot and leg if it is at the same time confronted with elevated blood sugar.

Another cause of clots are prescription drugs designed to fight inflammation and pain. In this situation, nutritional or herbal blood thinners may  work better and safer than the pharmaceutical drug  Aspirin or inuafarin. Some of the prescription drugs which cause blood clots are pharmaceuticals such as non-Aspirin, Non steroidal  Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) often prescribed by doctors for inflammation and pain. According to www.webmd.com : “people who use painkillers called Non steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) which include Aspirin, Naproxen (Aleve)and Ibuprofen (Advil, matrin)…may be at increased risk for potentially deadly blood clots”.

We are advised by www.sciencenordic.com

“Drugs can increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, thrombosis, and blood clots in the legs and lungs. The EU is currently working to enforce stricter guidelines on the use of NSAID drugs.  Common painkillers can cause blood clots Common painkillers double the risk of blood clots in the legs and lungs, new research reveals. EU warnings against the pills are underway. Voltaren. Ibuprofen. Naproxen.

These are just some of the NSAID drugs that may be familiar to the average consumer.

Even though painkillers are widely used, they are by no means harmless. According to new research, the risk of developing blood clots in the legs or lungs is actually doubled when NSAID painkillers are consumed.

“What’s new about our study is that we show that patients who take NSAID medicine have a greater risk of developing blood clots in their legs or lungs. We already know from previous studies that several NSAID drugs increase the risk of cardiac fibrillation and thrombosis,” says doctor and PhD student Morten Schmidt, of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Aarhus University Hospital.”

Few aging people escape from NSAIDS from the prescription pad.  I did not in my thirties when I had a bout of pain in the right shoulder. An orthopedic doctor gave me NSAIDS which failed to clip the pain. Two weeks after, he changed the prescription to corticosteroids, which are often presented for rheumatoid arthritis. In this class of steroids are Prednisone and cortisone. I began to see harmattan hazes soon after in bright rain dry season weather. I kept asking my wife if it was about to rain. My opthalmologist, Prof Bukola Adefule Oshitelu, asked me which drugs I was on lately. When I told her, she took me off them immediately. The orthopedic doctor meant well for me. My right shoulder ached so badly and it was so weak I could not turn the car steering with it, wind the glass of the driver side door or even carry  my office briefcase. I was lucky I did not develop clots which may have led to a heart attack or to breathing problems. Age was my friend. Since that time, I learned to pay a great deal of respect to Panadol (acetaminophen oral), a liver-damaging drug when taken in excess and to which many people pay the least drug respect. Many old people are not so lucky. They suffer a lot from bone degeneration, inflammation, pain and nerve pain, and are often given these drugs. If their diet is such that thickens the blood, such as red meat, bread, milk, sugar, margarine and butter and fried foods to mention a few, NSAIDS or corticosteroids may do them in for blood clots which cause Venous Return Insufficiency in the legs.

One way valves

Veins are designed with one way or non-return valves in them. As the heart pump drives  the blood from downstream towards the heart upstream, their job is to prevent the blood from, literally speaking, falling back downstream under the force of gravity. If these valves are weak or damaged, they would not be able to perform this function in the successful return of blood to the heart through the veins. Weakness or damage of these valves is the  flight of persons such as police men and soldiers, surgeons and nurses and such other persons who stand for too long. It is also the problem of persons who sit for prolonged periods of time.

Diseases

There are many diseases of the blood vessels which may cause venous insufficiency. One of these is Buerger’s  Disease. It is a swelling of blood vessels largely in the hands and legs. The swellings narrow the vessels, inhibiting blood flow and encouraging clots to form. If care is not taken, pain and tissue damage may follow and this may lead to gangrene, in which the tissues begin to decay or die. Before I address possible natural solutions to these challenges, which should be easy for avid readers to guess, please permit that I only scratch the surface this week with the mention of two plant medicines rarely mentioned here. One of them is Butcher’s Broom. The other is Horse Chestnut. More will join the train next week.

Add to these recipes the help that is likely to come by exercising The Second Heart. All of us have two hearts. We know of the one in the chest region but not of the other. That other is The Calf (back of the lower leg). When we stretch out the foot and move it  backwards as many times as we can, the calf muscles are in activity. We can feel the movements in the muscles at the back of the lower limb.This helps to force the blood upwards against the downward push of gravity and, thereby, reduces pressure on the one way non return valves. This saves them unnecessary labour and elongates their life spans.

Nigeria is back in the rainy season, that part of the year many senior citizens do not like. For asthmatics and arthritis- challenged persons, too, the weather  may be too cold to handle, and unfriendly. The fields will soon green up and plant pollen, enemy of some persons with breathing difficulties, will soon fill the air. Arthritis pain may worsen in this season, too.

As for many senior citizens, their legs and feet may become so cold that they may appear lifeless. Blood hardly circulates in their legs.  The leg muscles suffer painful cramps. Standing or sitting for too long, for want of something useful to do, old persons may suffer damage  to the valves in the hand and leg veins. This may make blood to accumulate in these legs, causing gradual death in these legs from lack of oxygen and nutrients and poisoning by wastes and toxins.

Some old persons wear compression stockings to bed to keep their legs warm and blood flowing through them. They massage their legs with all sort of heat lotions. They do not walk well during the day as their legs are hardly able to bear their weight. Their troubles with their cold, heavy, painful and probably dying legs is called venous insufficiency. That means not all the blood the heart pumps  to all parts of the body return to it to be refreshed and pumped out again. Why blood is pooling or hanging out in the legs instead of returning to  the heart, thereby causing death by instalments in the legs, will gain the attention of this column from next Thursday (March 24, 2022).

Young citizens do not look forward to a life like this. Concidentally, Nigeria has set up a National Senior Citizen Centre to register all of its old citizens and make life more meaningful and comfortable for them. October 5 has also been declared a National Citizen Day, while a  national policy on aging  is in the  offing.

From next Thursday, this column will contribute its widow’s mite  to the care of senior citizen health in a series of articles on how  to easily cope with or overcome venous insufficiency, as the afore- mentioned problems are  called.

Today, Dr. Payal Kohli  and Tim  Newman will take the floor to educate us about how the heart works. It is the organ, which rest neither day nor night,  pumping  blood round the body and whose health conditions  may impact the legs and the hands in various ways. In the second  presentation,  Colin Doyle will educate us about  how disturbances in the heart negatively affect the hands and legs causing pain, cramps, swelling and heaviness, among others problems.

Structure of the heart

Medically reviewed by Dr. Payal Kohli, M.D., FACC — Written by Tim Newman — Updated on September 29, 2020: “The human heart is a finely-tuned instrument that serves the whole body. It is a muscular organ around the size of a closed fist, and it sits in the chest, slightly to the left of centre.

“The heart  beats around 100,000 times a  day, pumping approximately eight pints of blood throughout the body 24/7. This delivers oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood to tissues and organs and carries away waste.

“The heart sends deoxygenated blood to the lungs, where the blood loads up with oxygen and unloads carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism.

“Together, the heart, blood, and blood vessels — arteries, capillaries, and veins — make up the circulatory system.

In this article, we explore the structure of the heart, how it pumps blood around the body, and the electrical system that controls it.’’

Anatomy of the heart

Below is an interactive 3D model of the heart. Explore the model using your mouse pad or touchscreen to learn more.

The heart consists of four chambers:

The atria: These are the two upper chambers, which receive blood.

The ventricles: These are the two lower chambers, which discharge blood.

A wall of tissue called the septum separates the left and right atria and the left and right ventricle. Valves separate the atria from the ventricles.

The heart’s walls consist of three layers of tissue:

Myocardium: This is the muscular tissue of the heart.

Endocardium: This tissue lines the inside of the heart and protects the valves and chambers.

Pericardium: This is a thin protective coating that surrounds the other parts.

Epicardium: This protective layer consists mostly of connective tissue and forms the innermost layer of the pericardium.

How the heart works

The rate at which the heart contracts depends on many factors, such as:

• Activity and exercise
• Emotional factors
• Some medical conditions
• A fever
• Some medications
• Dehydration

At rest, the heart might beat around 60 times each minute. But this can increase to 100 beats per minute (bpm) or more.

Learn more information about a “normal” heart rate here.

Left and right sides

The left and right sides of the heart work in unison. The atria and ventricles contract and relax in turn, producing a rhythmic heartbeat.

Right side

The right side of the heart receives deoxygenated blood and sends it to the lungs.

The right atrium receives deoxygenated blood from the body through veins called the superior and inferior vena cava. These are the largest veins in the body.

The right atrium contracts, and blood passes to the right ventricle.

Once the right ventricle is full, it contracts and pumps the blood to the lungs via the pulmonary artery. In the lungs, the blood picks up oxygen and offloads carbon dioxide.

Left side

The left side of the heart receives blood from the lungs and pumps it to the rest of the body.

Newly oxygenated blood returns to the left atrium via the pulmonary veins. The left atrium contracts, pushing the blood into the left ventricle. Once the left ventricle is full, it contracts and pushes the blood back out to the body via the aorta.

Diastole, systole, and blood pressure

Each heartbeat has two parts:

Diastole: The ventricles relax and fill with blood as the atria contract, emptying all blood into the ventricles.

Systole: The ventricles contract and pump blood out of the heart as the atria relax, filling with blood again.

When a person takes their blood pressure, the machine will give a high and a low numberTrusted Source. The high number is the systolic blood pressure, and the lower number is the diastolic blood pressure.

Systolic pressure: This shows how much pressure the blood creates against the artery walls during systole.

Diastolic pressure: This shows how much pressure is in the arteries during diastole.

Gas exchange

When blood travels through the pulmonary artery to the lungs, it passes through tiny capillaries that connect on the surface of the lung’s air sacs, called the alveoli.

The body’s cells need oxygen to function, and they produce carbon dioxide as a waste product. The heart enables the body to eliminate the unwanted carbon dioxide.

Oxygen enters the blood and carbon dioxide leaves it through the capillaries of the alveoli.

The coronary arteries on the surface of the heart supply oxygenated blood to the heart muscle.

Pulse

A person can feel their pulse at points where arteries pass close to the skin’s surface, such as on the wrist or neck. The pulse is the same as the heart rate. When you feel your pulse, you feel the rush of blood as the heart pumps it through the body.

A healthy pulse is usually 60–100 bpmTrusted Source, and what is normal can vary from person to person.

A very active person may have a pulse as low as 40 bpm. People with a larger body size tend to have a faster pulse, but it is not usually over 100 bpm.

Valves

The heart has four valvesTrusted Source to ensure that blood only flows in one direction:

Aortic valve: This is between the left ventricle and the aorta.

Mitral valve: This is between the left atrium and the left ventricle.

Pulmonary valve: This is between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery.

Tricuspid valve: This is between the right atrium and right ventricle.

Most people are familiar with the sound of the heart. In fact, the heart makes many types of sound Thrusted Source, and doctors can distinguish these to monitor the health of the heart.

The opening and closing of the valves are key contributors to the sound of the heartbeat. If there is leaking or a blockage of the heart valves, it can create sounds called “murmurs.”

The heart’s electrical system

To pump blood throughout the body, the muscles of the heart must work together to squeeze the blood in the right direction, at the right time, and with the right force. Electrical impulses coordinate this activity.

The electrical signal begins at the sino-atrial node, sometimes called the sinus, or SA, node. This is the heart’s pacemaker, and it sits at the top of the right atrium. The signal causes the atria to contract, pushing blood down into the ventricles.

The electrical impulse then travels to an area of cells at the bottom of the right atrium, between the atria and ventricles, called the atrioventricular, or AV, node.

These cells act as a gatekeeper. They coordinate the signal so that the atria and ventricles do not contract at the same time. There needs to be a slight delay.

From here, the signal travels along fibres, called Purkinje fibres, within the ventricle walls. The fibres pass the impulse to the heart muscle, causing the ventricles to contract.

Blood vessels

There are three types of blood vessels:

Arteries: These carry oxygenated blood from the heart to the rest of the body. The arteries are strong, muscular, and stretchy, which helps push blood through the circulatory system, and they also help regulate blood pressure. The arteries branch into smaller vessels called arterioles.

Veins: These carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart, and they increase in size as they get closer to the heart. Veins have thinner walls than arteries.

Capillaries: These connect the smallest arteries to the smallest veins. They have very thin walls, which allow them to exchange compounds such as carbon dioxide, water, oxygen, waste, and nutrients with surrounding tissues.

The heart, blood, and blood vessels make up the circulatory, or cardiovascular, system.

Here, learn about some diseases that can affect this system.

Cardiac arrest: When the heart stops

The heart is essential to life — if it stops beating, blood will not reach the brain and other organs, and the person can die within minutesTrusted Source. This is called cardiac arrest”

How Your Heart Health Impacts Your Leg Veins

By Colin Doyle, APRN

“Vein issues do not affect your heart health, but it’s important to recognise that a heart condition may make vein problems worse. If you suffer from a heart problem, you need to find out why your leg veins may be at risk for getting much worse.

February has been declared national heart health awareness month, providing an opportunity to discuss questions regarding cardiovascular disease and heart health. With this in mind, individuals diagnosed with vein disease are often concerned about possible cardiac implications. This concern stems from the condition’s pathology, which involves the breakdown of valves and the dilation of blood vessels, both of which reduce blood flow back to the heart and cause a pooling of blood in the lower extremities.

Does venous insufficiency damage the valves in my heart?

With venous insufficiency, the stress placed upon valves of veins is a result of gravitational pressure. Gravitational pressure is essentially neutral at the diaphragm (a large muscular partition at the base of the lungs). This pressure increases from that point to the foot. Luckily, the heart is just above the diaphragm, so gravity places no pressure on its valves.

Does the pooling of blood in the legs damage the heart?

Venous insufficiency is a chronic condition and the pooling of blood can result in increased pressure in the veins of the legs. This can cause discomfort that is often described as an ache, heavy pressure or cramping. The pressure can also cause the veins in the legs to bulge. Fluid that should be in the veins can leak into the surrounding tissue where it can cause swelling, colour variations and texture changes in the skin, and eventually even skin breakdown. The condition is chronic and occurs over time. The body accommodates for pooling of blood and plasma in the legs.

So, to sum up, venous insufficiency doesn’t affect the heart or cause heart problems to progress. On the other hand, existing heart problems, especially congestive heart failure, can make vein problems in the legs much worse depending on the degree of the heart issue. A  heart that isn’t squeezing effectively can cause massive back pressure in the veins of the legs to the extent that fluid is pushed across the vein walls into the tissue, resulting in massive swelling of the legs.

This cardiac condition can be treated in several ways. All of these treatments need to be carefully supervised to ensure that further problems don’t arise and the patient’s ease of breather has been monitored. This is best done by a cardiologist. While the cardiologist is the person to follow heart functions and pumping efficiency, a vascular or general surgeon specialising in venous therapy is the best person to monitor leg therapy with compression and treatment of the underlying venous disorder.”

Eye doctors have been warning us since last Sunday (March 6, 2022) that more people are suffering from glaucoma. They will be doing so  until March 12 under a World Health Organisation (WHO) programme. Their goal is to let us know that glaucoma is an eye disease which can cause blindness if it is not detected early and diligently attended to. This column is my widow’s mite contribution to their efforts.

According to a survey of the Nigeria National Blindness And Visual  Impairment: “… 1.1-1.4 million adults in Nigeria have glaucoma, most of whom are not aware that they have the disease. One in every 20 Nigerians aged 40 years and above have glaucoma, and one in five being blind.”

I have had glaucoma for 27 years with visual ups and downs since I was 45 in 1995. Aged about nine or 10, I watched my father’s mother in the village struggle with her vision. Now, about 60 years after, I cannot recall if her vision problem was caused by glaucoma. But I remember that, back in the city, my father never failed every month to include one or two bottles of marmite in her provision chest. Marmite is a brewer’s yeast nutritional product  rich in the B-complex vitamins and promoted as good for healthy vision. I do not recall when my father began to have night vision challenges. But I knew in 1974 that he disliked night driving. One day, I was alarmed when he could not easily pick his way around the house. He told me he had seen an eye doctor who diagnosed immature cataract of the eye lens which could not be surgically treated until it had matured. All through my university days, his condition worried me. I spent a great deal of time at the Nnamdi Azikwe library of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, researching glaucoma and cataracts in encyclopedias.

My father made one mistake many health challenged persons make: they hardly research their condition or seek a second or third medical opinion. It was when I took him to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital(LUTH) Guinness eye centre and we met professor Bukunola Adefule-Oshitelu that we knew what was happening …cataract was in both eyes, had overmatured and become compounded with advanced glaucoma.

Several of the surgeons thought the eyes were better left alone. But Prof. Adefule-Oshitelu decided to take the bull by the horn. From the way her colleagues wrote off surgery, the success she made of it may be attributed to not her alone. Prof Oshitelu said afterwards that she would have followed normal procedure, and she may not have been successful, but for an idea which struck her on the eve of the operation and made her adopt a different procedure. A few weeks later, my father surprised my step mother when, from the balcony of their first floor apartment, he asked her to suspend the house chores she was attending to downstairs till the following day, because “the day has gone”. “How do you know”? she asked. “Because it is 6.45,” he replied.

She was speechless when she checked the time. The recovery of his vision was slow. In those days, the knowledge of eye antioxidants was poor. Opthalmologists did not appear to know of them or did not believe in them and, so, did not prescribe them. Cod liver oil, with its small doses of vitamin A, was about the only visible vision food supplement in the market. Our parents gave it to us when we were babies, and we, too, gave it to our babies. Everyone tended to forget about it when we grew older, used the eyes more, and stressed them more, without looking after them. Additionally, we hardly protected the eyes against the harsh  African sunshine, the blue spectrum of which may cause cataracts and glaucoma, whereas Europeans with little or no sunshine in their countries always wore protective eye glasses. Happily, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, quantum energy eye glasses arrived in Nigeria. They block dangerous sun rays and energise the eyes.    My horizon about nutritional supplements, especially for the eyes widened about 1994 when Gen Sanni Abacha, now of blessed memory, shut The Guardian newspaper for one year. I was the director of publications and editor-in-chief. The closure meant an income shortfall from a salary shortfall. My wife was a university lecturer and had not been paid for months because  Gen  Sanni Abacha could not stand university teachers being on strike, embarrassing his government and earning their pay at the same time. With children to look after and keep in school, I opened my first health food store at Illupeju Model Market on Town Planning Way, Lagos. This turned out to be a case of one door closing and another opening and of Gen. Abacha’s brutality being a blessing in disguise.

Jobelyn was our first product line. One by one, several stockists gave us food supplements on credit. Two of them were Lutein Eyes and Visual Eyes. I did not realise that I, too, would soon need them!.

I had no need for reading glasses until I was 45. Work slow down in the Abacha closure year may have toned down my work rhythm and weakened my eyes. I was returning home on Saturday evening from a speech I went to give somewhere in Lagos when, suddenly, the windshield was covered with rainbow colours. I knew that was a sign of glaucoma. Fluid had built behind the lens of the eyes and, like a looking glass smeared with water, it couldn’t faithfully transmite light to the light- sensitive  retina which would take the visual images to the brain for interpretation. The following day, what looked like  harmattan haze fogged my vision. I went to Prof Adefule – Oshitelu. She asked if I was on any pharmaceutical medication. I had been on NSAIDs (Non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) for brewing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and, when they didn’t bring down my shoulder pains, on corticosteroids, their stronger cousins. This smacked of genetic heredity. But the drugs could have hastened  glaucoma onset. I went on Visual Eyes and Lutein Eyes in rotation as an addition to pharmaceutical beta blockers and other drugs such as Diamox.

I hated the pharmaceuticals. Beta blocker eye drop crashed my regular 110 /70 blood pressure to about 80/55. Once or twice , I fainted. Once, I was writing my column and the pen fell. As  I tried to pick it up, the muscles of my chest pulled, and I was out. Next, I was pulling out the gills of a fish head in the kitchen. I was hungry and wished to quickly fix a meal. I came around only to find my son lifting me up on my feet. I learned to bring my blood pressure up before I made water or emptied my bowels. My doctor was understanding, sympathetic, took me off those drugs and replaced them with Adefuleson (Bitter kola eye drops). Just about then, I studied Lutein eyes and visual eyes.The contents were similar. My interest in them were Lutein and Zezanthin, two carotenoid antioxidants which protect the eyes against oxidative damage from the blue spectrum of the sun. As they were commercially extracted from Marigold flower, I planted this flower in my garden, consuming it as salad in food or as tea.  So, my symptoms became so clear that I clearly saw the white roads markings at night and even ventured, stupidly maybe to look, straight on, the full head lamps of big trucks, for assurance that I was doing well with visual eyes and Lutein eyes. Stupidly, too, I did not kick the bottle. I was not a hard drinker. Just one or two bottles with friends. But I noticed that the first glass almost simultaneously impacted a sharp “warning” pain in the right and 20/20 vision eye.I would soon try Maxi  Vision. Opthalmologists in Nigeria had begun to prescribe Maxi Vision. From then on, many eye food supplements began to pour into the market. Some people said Spectra Green improved their vision. Others praised Spectra Red, a warehouse of many berries. Asthazanthin joined lutein and Zezanthin, being their family member. Later, some supplements paraded as many as 24 nutrients which the eyes are said to require on a daily basis. Some of these are vitamin A, vitamin B-complex, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, selenium, zinc, manganese, alpha lipoic acid, N-Acetyl cysteine (NAC), magnesium, Gingko biloba, Co enzyme Q10 or Ubiquinol and rutin.

When these nutrients are comprehensive in one formula, their dosages are often low. I do not mind them, though, because I do highlight some of them as singlet food supplements. For example, I never fail on 400mg of magnesium everyday and about 3,000mg of buffered (Alkaline) vitamin C. Two times Nobel Prize winner Dr Linus Pauling proved that high dosages of vitamin C lower eyes Pressure. Magnesium may make beta blocker drugs unecessary. Beta blockers block  excess calcium infiltration of eye muscles  which  open drainage channel.Calcification hardens them. Calcium turns up in excess amounts because of magnesium deficiency. Calcium and magnesium are antagonists. Calcium combines with magnesium in about ratio 2:1. At ratio 6:2, two units of Calcium will become free to cause riots. My first choice of multiple-nutrients antioxidants was eye max plus with about 24 nutrients for the eyes. The dosages were small. But they provided cellular nutrition which I could upgrade with singlet antioxidants such as zinc or alpha lipoic acid, as the need may arise.

27 years on

Over 27 years, I heard and learned many things about glaucoma from professional and unconventional sources. I cannot address them all here so, I will mention only a few. Many eye specialists believe glaucoma is unconquerable. I have followed the lead of a glaucoma challenged former Nigerian diplomat in South Africa to the Japanese embassy in Abuja for a link to Nobel Prize winner professor Shinya Yamanaka. He won the Nobel prize for teaching the world how to turn mature stem cells to baby stem cells and using them to regenerate damaged organs. Prof Yamanaka has now gone beyond this to using natural substances in patches placed over the eyes, and is reported , through this effort, to have helped about half a million of his country -men and women with ailing vision to regain healthy vision. I guess there is an element of colour therapy in his work which is linked to sixth chakra energy medicine. Professor Yamanaka is so busy that he is unable to honour all country invitations. I sought to reach him through the Japanese embassy in Nigeria on behalf of Nigerians who may benefit from his work. The embassy has not been able to get him to make a Nigerian commitment.

Blood, oxygen  starvation

The eye is a small, yet complex organ which consumes large amounts of blood. But, in many eyes,  blood vessels which supply fresh, oxygenated blood or take used blood away have become so congested or blocked or leaky that the eye does not receive enough fresh blood  and oxygen, while evacuation delays depress and poison tissue. Rutin and bioflavonoids may firm up weak or leaking vessels while Cayenne, Vitamin E and Grape Seed Extract may decogest and improve circulation.

Emotional blockages

Sorrowful people are said to bottle up a lot of pressure. Some doctors would rather have grieving persons cry their hearts out. I have tried to test this suggestion on every case of glaucoma I encounter but cannot  as yet say yes or no. My father’s mother was widowed early in life. My father, her beloved child, defied her appeals to grow up in the village. He went to Zaria. Was my grandma depressed? Between 1979 and 1982, I experienced emotional turmoil over a failed childhood relationship. I lost appetite and suffered insomnia. But work and a strivings for higher aims blocked the way to grief. Did I bottle any stress?

Liver and Kidneys

Many Nigerian eye doctors dislike conversations that subnormal liver and kidneys may have hands in glaucoma. Yet, this is an area doctors in Asia do not ignore. Chinese acupuncture and acupressure believe these organs and the eyes sit on the same energy meridians or “lanes”. If these meridians are blocked, etheric or , if you like, spiritual energy from the overself cannot efficiently and effectively flow to maintain them. Thus, the freeing of these blockages and holistic care of the liver, kidneys and the eyes, is the approach to glaucoma therapies in these countries. Paradoxically, our doctors believe that some pregnancies do impact the kidneys and bladder well enough to cause blurry vision which clears on its own soon after child birth.

Pressure paradox

Several challenged persons believe they have glaucoma only because their intra occular Pressure (IOP) is high. Thus, people who have normal and low IOP  believe they are safe. How wrong they are. There must, then, be other disposing factors. An abundance of free radicals and insufficiency of antioxidants is one of those possibilities. Besides, the eyes are not only organs which collect light waves and pass visual messages to the brain for reconstruction into intelligible interpretation of the images. They are also organs for gathering and directing light energy into the pineal gland and the hypothalamus, both in the brain, partly for hormone making and balancing . GisellaI Reiners explained in Germany decades ago that this was why children who excessively watch television grew abnormally and were like hot house plants…like broiler chickens. Disturbances in the pineal gland and in the hypothalamus may, therefore, impact vision. Some eye clinics abroad nowadays add colour therapies to their regimen. This is why I still have a great deal of respect for marigold. It is said to be a sun plant. The sun is about light and colours!

Karma

I do not discountenance spiritual effects in material life. In the 1970s, I met a woman in Lagos whose cause of blindness was glaucoma. She believed she was one of the priestesses of the sun God in ancient Egypt. Non believers in this god were forced to  look directly at the sun until their eyes weakened and developed problems or went blind. Re-incarnation may afford such sun God disciples the opportunity to experience blindness in another earth life to pay off their karmaic debt. When I heard this, I thought of the various executions carried out on the orders of Yoruba monarchs before colonisation modernised the judicial process. The executioner plunged a sword into the eyes of the condemned person until the deadly metal appeared at the back of the head . What gory deaths they were! In a universe where there is  a Ruler, order and justice, will such persons get away with such brutal killings? Re-incarnation and karma may enable us to understand some cases of  glaucoma and such other diseases as rewards for earlier misdeeds.

Colour therapy

Colour therapy is tied to the knowledge of the Seven Chakras. Dimness of the chakra colours is believed to cause diseases in the organs they govern. The first chakra which governs the lower limbs and the pelvis  profits from Red. The second governs organs from below the navel to the pelvic girdle and profits from Orange. The third, from above the navel to underneath the breast bone profits from Yellow.  Green, for the fourth, awakens the heart, lungs and the immune system. Blue, for the thyroid gland (fifth) normalises metabolism. Indigo works well for the Third Eye (sixth), and the eyes. Indigo eye lenses are scarce in Nigeria. So are clothing and paper filters to make indigo solarised water for drinking or for use as eye drops. Balanced metabolism is crucial for vision. Hypothyroidism or low thyroid is believed to cause many diseases. Some Eye doctors use Iodode formulas, dangerous as they are, to stimulate metabolism in sluggish eyes.

Six years ago...

I was roused from deep sleep on the sitting couch in the dead of the night by gun shots too near for comfort. I hit the right eye ball hard against the sharp edge of wall tiles, as I made for safety upstairs. And that threw upon me another challenge to normalise IOP without beta blockers and to save the nerves. One day last year, one IOP read 48, the other 37. I returned home from the doctor to, over three days, use bitter kola eye drops almost 10 times a day… Within two weeks, the pressure fell to near normal.

Gratitude

If you wonder how I write this column when Iam unable to follow my writing on paper, I will say it all has to do with the Abiding Grace of the Most High and the helping love of such persons around me as Seun Kusa, Udeme Edet James, Better Effiong Happiness, who will be 15 on March 23 and Joy John who has just left us for nursing school.

 

WHENEVER Dr. George Ubeng calls me nowadays, Iam right on the mark about his intentions. He is a former senior State Security Service (SSS) operative who went back to school for a doctorate in Political Science, at Uyo, making trade deficits in African trade with the United States between 1999 and 2019 his concerns.

Dr. Ubeng is a health market adventurer always searching for what is cooking, what is new on the shelves. Ahead of his call today, I decided as I began to write this column, to tell him as I predicted last month in one of the 2022 Outlook series, that there are already rumbles in the jungle.  Aim Global, one of the toasts of the networking business, has pushed registration fee up from N50,000 to N80,000.

Live Pure, which broke the spines of its wholesalers recently by abolishing wholeselling in its business, has taken registration fee from N77,000 to N92,340.

NG4 (Nature’s Gift for Life), has just restocked about 12 lines of products. Two of these are Robust Roots for erectile dysfunction and Fibroid Away. I highlight these products for special reasons. I use robust root not because I have erectile dysfunction challenges. It is also not because I am still in the “market” and, therefore, still on the road. I have long hung my boots. Rather, I use robust roots, among other reasons, for prostrate gland health and because I always like to see the effects on me of what food supplements I would like to suggest that other people try. As I once stated in this column, erectile dysfunction is hitting epidemic proportions, perhaps because of physical and psychological stress nowadays. It was in a similar adventurous habit that I discovered Mychoco tea, from Aim Global. Alone or combined with unsweetened cocoa powder as night cap tea, Mychoco tea offers great possibilities for restful sleep. What about Fibroid Away? I have not checked the nutritional facts to be certain that this new product is not just an old wine in a new bottle. What I mean is that : Is Fibroid Away another name for a collection of herbs for the female reproductive system questions or a brand new addition or replacement for Fibroid Clear and NS Fibrin in the same stable?

ShineWay

This is another Chinese flag already fluttering in the Lagos skyline while new Age, hooked down in South Africa headquarters, delays its presence in Nigeria. I understand the chief executive officer (CEO) is a Nigerian woman formidable in networking marketing of food and nutritional supplements. She tore away from one of the top shot companies to partner with Shineway Healthcare. The company has placed no fewer than eight products on the market. Three of them are in the bath soap, dishwashing and laundry categories. I wondered how these could survive in a Nigerian market where the giant labels of my days as a boy and as a young man have been pushed under the bushel by younger and aggressively marketed labels. My market guide informed me they are health friendly. I have neither sighted nor tried them out. Nevertheless, I believe there may be space for them in the Nigerian firmament if, indeed, they are not offensive to the nose or irritate, squeeze and damage the skin with harsh chemicals as many of the screaming brands do. Two weeks ago, I tried to wash three boxers I soaked overnight with detergent water. I remembered that my wife never touched these detergents without wearing plastic hand gloves. When the skin of my hands and wrists were all terrorised, I rinsed the detergent off and used a popular, softer bath soap instead. For a long time, I had been urging Sam Ayeni to get his Sea Duck company to seal a planned deal with Alafia in the United States. The company is owned by some African Americans who import palm oil, coconut oil, palm kernel oil, among other ingredients from Benin Republic and Cote d’ivoire to produce nature friendly hair creams and shampoos for women in addition to health friendly laundry soaps. But his experiences with Nigerian “factors” in respect of two products he brought to Nigeria, Bragg’s Apple cider vinegar(with mother) and Kyolic garlic, makes him tread with caution.

So, how is Shineway (China way) taking the market head on? For as young people say in Nigeria Ko s’ere ni Moscow (There is no fooling around in Moscow). Who fools around in a terribly cold or terribly hot country and economy? The starter bonuses are similar to those of Bell Nigeria, very friendly to the marketer. There is no compulsory autoship until the networker has sum very far afield. In Longrich, Aim Global and other companies, for example, a distributor begins to earn bonuses only after he or she has pushed a certain volume of business, which may be humongous in Naira terms. If the distributor delays in meeting periodic targets, Live Pure as an example, would flush out or cancel the bonus points for cash generated by such a distributor. This was an Archilles heel of Foreever Living Products (FLP) from the United States, which Tianshi from China resolved for the market. FLP operates on case mode. Every two months, the distributor is weighed on a “promotion” scale. If in January and February, the  company expects N5000 worth of goods moved, and N4500 is moved in January but N200 is moved in February, the “promotion” bid would fail. The next opportunity for an upgrade would be February and March. The company will flush the N4,500 score for January and weigh the distributor on N300 in February and N4,700 in March. Tianshi introduced the cumulative score point which the networking industry considered a fairer deal.

In shineway, there is no point or bonus flushing. Bonuses are paid on every product purchased from the onset and autoship or a semblance of it is reserved for only distributors at the Apex rank. The registration fee is N60,000 but the referral bonus would appear little at N4000 compared with N20000 for Aim Global against a registration fee of N80,000 for a minimum package. Aim Global also stands shoulder high in the comparison of their second registration options. For where shineway takes N120,000 and gives away N8,000 AIM global gives N40,000 for taking N130000. But shineway beats AimGlobal   L for not putting hurdles on the way for distributors.

As I said earlier, Shineway has come to the market with eight products: Golden Six, Isk Clear, Pearl Bloom Menstrual Care, Evening Primrose Oil Plus Vitamin E, Astreelife, Neuro Booster, Feminine Gel, Peptide Ginseng Oyster, Body Wash, Laundy Detergent and Dish Washing Liquid.

Golden six

This is a leader proprietary formula in Japanese Kampo medicine which is widely used in Asia. I believe Kedi was the first multi level marketing company to market it in Nigeria for kidney, liver and female fertility questions, among others. The formula is made of six herbs. The first is common yam rhizome. It addresses kidney and liver damage conditions.

Rehmannia Root

Is suggested for diabetis melitus, atopic dermatitis, tired blood (anaemia), bone weakness(osteoporosis), fever and allergies. Many people use it as a prophylactic and general tonic. Tree Peony has a wide application which, according to an authority include “viral hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, upset stomach, muscle cramps, hardening of the arteries(arteriosclerosis) and to cause vommitting”. The same goes for “spasms, whooping cough, epilepsy, nerve pain, migraine, headache, and chronic fatigue syndrome”.

Fructus corni, another ingredient, is active as in liver and kidney nourishment, immune boosting, anti oxidation, cancer fighting and longevity promotion. Yet another ingredient is Poria, a mushroom, which is used for memory loss, anxiety, fatigue, restlessness, nervous tension, fluid retention and urination challenges, insomnia, enlargement of the spleen, cough, tumours and sundry health issues. This product appears to Target the brain,the stomach, the kidneys, liver, immune system and the skeletal system.The golden six are like the generals of a herbal medicine army ready for action with their troops for the prevention of health problems and their management and cure.

ISK Clear

ISK is another way of saying ischemic. That, also, is another way of saying the supplement is designed for heart health care. As noted, Isk in oak clear is derived from ischemia, a condition in which blood, nutrient and oxygen supply is insufficient for any organ of the body. The term is more commonly used in heart and brain blood and oxygen starvations. The ingredients of isk clear include safflower oil, borncolum syntheticum, vitamin E and vitamin B6. While vitamin B6, working with folic acid and vitamin B12, rids the blood vessels of homocysteine, a dangerous greasy material which may block them and cause ischemia particularly in the heart, B6 alone may help to rid the body of excess fluid which, in hypertension conditions may support heart health. VItamin E is an antioxidant, a blood thinner and helps the body maximise little oxygen stocks, a good servant in ischemia. Safflower oil may help to improve blood sugar levels, lower blood cholesterol and check inflammation and pain.

Feminine Gel

When I listened to a discussion of this gel, my memory raced to the days of TUSIN with us in the struggle to reposition traditional and alternative medicine in Nigeria. He was an engineer. His wife had a bad vaginal infection after child birth in a Lagos Hospital. She had to be isolated in a side ward because of the smell. Tusin went to his village and returned with a local formula with which she cleaned up when all hospital medications seemed to fail . In no time, the odour was gone. Encouraged by many of his friends including Mr Olajuwon Okubena who makes Jobelyn, Tusin partnered a retired pilot and put the formula in a tube which I named Pure Virgin. This was because many women I gave it to said it so tightened them up, their men would have thought they were still virgins. Pure virgin disappeared from the market with the physical demise of Tusin.

There are six gels in one pack of feminine gel. To use it, a woman is advised:

“Wash hands properly, take out the gel and pull out the sterile top cover. Lie down and put the sterile top cap into the back of the pusher. Insert six centimeters and inject the gel into the vagina and wait for the gel to absorb”.

One of the benefits of using this product is that it helps to maintain a favourable vaginal PH which is believed to be between 3.8 and 4.5. Anything below 3.8 may make the vault become too acidic that it may kill sperm cell deposits. Anything above 4.5m may tilt to alkalinity over seven and this may give rise to infections as the vagina is unable to defend itself. Older women have a tendency towards abnormal vaginal pH and infections. Besides, it relieves itchiness, promotes elasticity, moisturises and cleans the vagina. Women who use it are unlikely to experience vaginal dryness, said a woman who has tried the product. Vaginal dryness is a problem of many women as they approach menopause and estrogen blood levels drop. Overnight Insertion of vitamin A or vitamin E soft gels helps some cases.

Two of the seven ingredients which immediately caught my attention were Propolis and Olibanum (frankincense). Propolis is anti microbial while Olibanum,  also anti-bacterial is anti- inflammatory and refrigerant.

Coffee

Asians have made Nigerians coffee drinking, like themselves.Their companies in the natural health sector never seem to mind that their kindred here are locked down in coffee competition. I guess Edmark blazed the trail in a battle with Nescafe. Nescafe was  caffeinated coffee. High school (and I guess university, too) students of the 1960s were its unfailing patrons because it kept their heads awake for night reading especially at the approach of examinations. Edmark’s Ginseng Coffee was a knock out with many people, although the caffeine, milk and sugar irritated many others. Edmark was too slow to respond to criticisms. One of the winning secrets of this coffee was its aroma which, hyperbolically speaking, could diffuse to over a kilometer away. Another was the energy building potential.But the caffeine! Dynapharm tried to solve that problem with several brands in which sugar and dairy were subsumed with highlights of other medicinal components. For example, Dynapharm unleashed GI instant coffee with Tongkat Ali, GI Instant coffee mixture with Ganoderma and green tree extract, Red coffee mixture with ginseng and DI instant cappuccino coffee mixture. The Ganoderma Coffee brand addressed immunity with Ganoderma mushroom while Lapacino Coffee was an anti-microbial variant. Meanwhile, Edmark introduced a sugar free Ginseng Coffee. The market is a funny place with hosannah praises for a product today and howls of “crucify it” tomorrow. Customers who wanted no sugar, got “no sugar”  but then thought coffee was dull without sugar! I lost touch with the coffee market until Aim Global sprang its Liven Alkaline Coffee on the market, claiming it was the world’s first alkaline coffee. I waited for this claim to be disputed before I stretched forth my hand and took its first sips. To my surprise, the coffee didn’t keep me awake beyond whenever I wished to sleep. Then, it must be truly alkaline, I reasoned, wondering if Dr. Don Colbert heard about it. He is a Christian doctor and author of health books which preach a return to the Creation Diet. A fastidious lover of coffee, caffeinated or not, he solves his caffeine problem, he says, by drinking his coffee with alkaline food supplements such as magnesium, calcium and zinc, which, he believes, takes away the acidity. Since he adds plenty of vitamin C, I often wonder if he recognises that, when not well buffered, large amounts of ascorbic acid, too, is acid. In Liven Alkaline Coffee, these fears were eliminated by completely taking out the caffeine and replacing it with about 20,000 alkaline substances, including antioxidants and phenolic compounds. These alkaline Aim global  liven coffee brands are Liven Alkaline coffee original, Liven Alkaline Coffee Cappuccino, Liven Alkaline coffee latte and Liven Alkaline Coffee sugar free.

The coffee brand I would hear of almost soon after was trim and burn green coffee from LEIMALL. LEI stands for Life evergreen International of Delaware state in the United States. Trim and burn green coffee is targeted at cholesterol mishaps in the body, including obesity, hypertension, heart disease and heart attacks, and stroke. One of the key ingredients is green tea. But I have also heard some of the distributors talk about Malaysian white coffee and donkat Ali, the anti malarial and male virility herb. I do not know why trim and burn green coffee has been domesticated by its distributors in Nigeria as Manpower coffee. The distributors who push “manpower” to market the product are probably referring to Peruvian Macca, a possible component, which is known for improving productiion of sex hormones in men and women. It targets male virility with herbs which are tonics for the male reproductive system.

It is against this background that I view Shineway’s coffee brand as diving into a tumultuous sea to swim in rough weather as it were. We can guess its target market from its composition, a suggestion that the sky is wide enough for all manner of birds to comfortably fly.

In its Peptide Ginseng and Oyster Coffee Arabica, shineway is trying to say it’s ginseng is natural, not synthesised and the best quality. For there are many ginseng variants in the ginseng market, some mountain grown, others synthesised , yet more cultivated for commercialism. Ginseng peptide fractionalisation tells which kinds of ginseng proteins are available in the product. As for the oyster, this sea animal has for long been associated with make libido enhancement. With its rich resources of zinc, copper , manganese, phosphorus, selenium, vitamin D and several trace minerals.Oysters are also seen as good for preventing osteoporosis or weakening of the bones, especially in menopausal women. As a rich source of vitamin B12, oysters are good for brain health. VItamin B12 deficiency in the brain has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts. And also high selenium content makes it good for immunity, especially to prevent or to manage HIV.

Apologies Dr. Ubeng, if I do not visit all the shelves. I cannot depart, though without mentioning Neuro Booster from Shineway. There are seven plant ingredients in the formula. It is prescribed for brain nutrition, prevention of neuro degeneration, improvement of memory focus and recall, improvement for interest in, and capacity for learning, anti oxidant work, energy production, healthy blood circulation, anti stress activity, nervous system health, clearance of the brain among other uses.

It is a herb worth remembering in several situations, none the least of which are strokes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, depression, insomnia, nervous system insufficiency and the problems they cause. So, Dr. Ubeng, the coast is clear…!

The aroma of love and semblance of it such as infatuation and co quetry is in the air everywhere. Any wonder Monday, February 14 is Valentine’s Day? It is the day in the Gregorian calendar all sorts of people world-wide declare all sorts of love or request it, or re-affirm it. I am not on the train. For my understanding of love is… doing benefit to him or her. Nevertheless just to test the waters, I teased a 15-year-old girl to be my val! I received a flat and unmistaken no for an answer. And when I asked why, she gave me a small mirror from her school bag. She meant, politely, to tell me that 70 calendar years plus have railroaded me out of the season! I began to write this column on  January 9, 2022, ahead of February14, using her as a tour guide into a world I had long exited and almost forgotten about. By 7:35, the baby fat girl, Better Effiong Happiness, my foster daughter, interrupted me, to say I had an urgent message on my telephone.

 

 She read it out:

“Please I just want  to  hear from you before I die. I am an old  man of 92 years,” the message began, indeed with a lot of urgency. “I read  Thursday, The  Nation  Newspaper because of you”.

I called him immediately on 08060755615. He is Pa A. A. Adedigba of Ibadan. The last column he read which prompted his message was… Dementia: Olu Jacobs down, what lessons for us all? of December 30, 2021. Pa Adedigba wanted to know if the column had been published into a book. I told him it had not, that he could read them all in www.olufemikusa.com.That looked like a mount Everest as he wasn’t on WhatsApp, bang “a poor man”typical of her, Better told me afterwards…”I wish I had money”.

That is Better for you, ever so kind irrespective of some of her tempestuous teenage exhibitions which often unsettle her guardians. Deep within her, there is love, that type of love which meets your needs and not necessarily your wants, much of which will be on exhibition on April 14. Before I proceed to the kernel of this column, I will mention two of her kind and love deeds which touched my heart.

One day, I sent her to purchase something for me in a nearby store. It was quite a load she couldn’t push home in a cart by herself. She asked one of the young workers there to help her. He said he had not had breakfast and had no energy. His pay could not support him, and he did not help himself with company resources as the other fellows were doing to raise their heads above water. Better gave him N200 and, right there, a true friendship began. Near our house were two girls aged eight and 16. They are two of the four children of a welder I’d known for about 15 years. Their mother had left their father. The two girls always sighted her passing by their house on her way to school. On her way from school one day, the two girls pleaded for some money for food. They had not eaten all day, they said. Better had no money on her. But she felt like helping. So, she approached a gentleman who stood in front of an office near the residence of the girls with a plea that he give each of the girls N500. The man asked no questions and obeyed. The girls thanked him, ate, became his friends as well as Better’s. I wasn’t surprised that Better turned down my Valentine request. She is an out-door person with friends almost everywhere she goes, whereas every other member of the household is an indoor person. She wants to “catch fun”, but we fear for her. She wants to bring her friends home. But we say “books first”. She says we are bottling her up and that the house, like us is “boring”. I do not have biological daughters, so my understanding of teenage girls is limited to my teen years about 50 years ago. But my spiritual understanding of the conception Child kept pulling me by the shirt collar, admonishing me to be her friend and not her  Intimidator  and/or Inquisitor. Intimation and Inquisition are two of the four Human Dramas through which we humans impact  one another to subdue the weak one, steal his or her psychic energy to grow ours, leaving the assaulted person devitalised and conquered.James Redfield postulated ideas of The Four Human Dramas in his celebrated book, Celestine Prophecy.

As I stated, the words which ring out during Baby Blessings where I worship keep ringing in my ears. The child is not the property of his or her parents but “A Gift To The Right Mother” who is to be a “faithful guardian” of his or her paths. A child has not come to the Earth for the first time. In many cases, children may be older human spirits than their parents. They are merely old ones in young bodies  in a new earthly environment through which they are to be guided until they are able to safely navigate their paths. Gibran, author of The Prophet, says it another way when he likens children to Arrows we fire from a Bow. This shows they are distinct personalities on their own merely trained and guided by us until they can fly on their own. The fired arrow never returned to the bow. Every child has a purpose for being on Earth which may be different from the parents’. In my time as a child, it was much difficult as it is today to tear away from the family bond and bondage for self expression and fufillment outside the fold. School cartels, sex cartels, sex education at school, consuming social media and mainstream media have all conspired to take the child out of the control of the parents. Thus, a parent who would be like a “faithful guardian ” of the paths of a child must first learn to think like the modern child, understand his or her ways to make safe passages out of today’s thicket of thorns in which young people are growing.

We are back to Better Effiong Happiness and 2022 Valentine’s Day. Her father and mother departed in their thirties. At 71, I am standing as  a father, grateful to the Most High for the priviledge of being a guardian to this unique human soul. I have begun, through her , to learn the vocabulary of the modern teenager. Every parent should do this , in my view. For the language is what we adults or the children  are. It is like the food we eat. We cannot flee from our shadows. We are our language. We brought it about. We are it.

 

Teenage Slangs

Which generation does not have its own slangs? I remember my grandmother always falling into depression whenever I was going to a party and I told her Mo Nlo J’Ebo(I am going to eat sacrifice!)Ebo was my generation’s slang for a party. We did not know the effects of words which our tongues rolled out. Better Effiong Happiness taught me today,’s slang such as Bestie. A Bestie is a special friend one can share one’s innermost secrets with. Parents have become distant persons. The Bestie is one’s collar bones. Boys and boys and girls and girls do “Besties”. But boy and girl besties are the commonest. There is school bestie, street bestie, neighbourhood bestie. There are two basic types of besties…the non benefit bestie and the benefit bestie.

The bestie benefits may or may not date. Many do not date. The benefit in the bestie is that if the girlfriend of a party is not available for sex, he can ask his girl bestie benefit and she would be obliged to give him. She, too, can likewise ask him for sex. Dating teenagers always let their partners know that they have Bestie Benefis so that sex leaks do not cause trouble. The bestie is a social cult which has engulfed the teenage generation.

 

Joy Giver

The rule of the game here is that, however angry or saddened someone else must have made you, you must smile and be happy in the presence of your Joy Giver. Sometimes, teenagers saddened by strictures at home sneak out to their Joy Givers to regain their balance. They may stop over on the way from school if they are day students Both may go on joy trips. It would not matter if school bags are searched to prevent them from taking home clothes to school. They can always borrow a home dress from a friend or from a friend’s friend. And there will always be an explanation for coming home late from school.

Miamor

This  is  a person who offers protection against all sort of vicissitudes…other boys, financial challenges etc. Imagine that your daughter comes home late from school, too late for comfort and, angrily , you ordered her back to where she was coming from! What is a mi amor for? She may have not only broad and muscular shoulders to cry on but a cosy bed as well for the night or until the coast is clear at home!

 

Other Half

This is expected to be a relationship with prospects of growing towards marriage

 

Best Bite

This person has a high opinion of you, hardly sees your faults, and says only good things about you to everyone everywhere.

 

Butter Biscuit

Many girls do not like this fellow. He is thought to be too soft for the male figure they desire.

 

Cuddle Cakes

This is a boy or a girl his or her partner enjoys cuddling with. This is different from Cuddly Bear, which is a person with a bigger frame, a feature which makes cuddling more exciting to some girls.

 

Candy Lips

He is liked because he is a terrific kisser. In my teenage years, my generation adored a bit music entitled: Lucky Lips by Cliff Richard who said “lucky lips are always kissing, lucky lips are never blue”…It amazes me that people are still kissing these days of HIV and COVID-19.

 

Street Auntie

A double edged sword, this is often a single , grown role model woman for teenage girls. Her dressing is upbeat and her mannerisms may be foreign. Sometimes, she has money to throw around. She may be a work class or hook up woman. As a hook up woman, she probably lives alone in her apartment,  the rent paid by men in her life. There is no way her street nieces would not pick up some of her nuances, which may include lesbianism, as is often reported. This is why mothers need to pay serious attention to the women their daughters interface with. The lives of young girls are not necessarily protected by older women in the street than they are by street uncle’s.

 

 Street Uncle

Many young girls are money lovers and status concious too early in life . They flaunted Black Berry phones when this brand was the Vogue but their parents could not afford it. Now, there is a new song…I Phone. Many parents do not ask how their sons and daughters in high school come by phones which cost as much as N100,000 a piece. The girls exchange their bodies for it. So do the boys if they fall into the hands of gay street uncles. It is incorrect to assume that the horizon of the Junior or Senior high school girl today in respect of the street uncle is limited to three school drop outs who found their ways into “hand work” such as painting, tiling, bricklaying, air conditioner and generator repairs, electricity fixing and plumbing. They come to puberty much earlier these days, are more wordly wise than their mothers and prefer men of whatever age who can pick their bills.

 

Street Mother

She is a mother role model for the street daughters.The term ‘street’ here and elsewhere in the teenager’s vocabulary is not necessarily a dirty, negative word. It refers to not the ghetto or to the slum and their nuances. The street means anywhere outside one’s own home. Thus, a girl who lives in Banana Island may have a street mother or friend. The hazard in the street mother for a girl as well as for her biological mother is that someone else is sharing with the biological mother the duties of bringing up the girl. A child is a gift to the right mother who is to be a faithful guardian of her paths. She has to learn to combine these traits with friendship with her daughter to not lose her to the street mother. Friendly mothers are playing, listening mothers. Teenage people are still in the Sanguine and early melancholy age brackets. The first of her seven years were spent in groundedness, when they were showered with love by their parents to make them feel self confident or inwardly secure. The next seven years (age 8 to 15) features development of the sexual characteristics. Puberty sets in . Boys wish to grow tall and muscular and be a hit with girls. The girls wish to have big breasts and buttocks, both instruments of coquetry among women. They want special clothes, shoes and bags. They are now moving away from him shorts, which caused terrible crisis in many homes to Big Shows. The big show is an oversize polo top which may cover up to the mid thigh or the knee. The show is that there is no knicker or bum short under it. There is only a panty or non at all. school still does not permit outlandish hairstyles. But they are mindful of quality skin complexion and texture and facial looks. They are ready to take on men of any age. If they cannot discuss their sexual experiences or the men who talk to them with their biological mothers who still see them as hardly out of the womb, the street mother will give them listening ears . But who are these street mothers? They may be fickle women on the broad way. Lucky is that baby girl whose street mother is an upswinging or upward looking woman who can lead her aright as though she is her own child sent to her. The conceptions existence of the street mother should challenge all biological mothers to deepen their understanding of the real and true meaning of  “Mother” and “The Child”.

 

Street Daddy

When a parent hear that his or her daughter has a street daddy, the tendency is to assume that he is a man who honours fatherhood. These girls are smart they have merely replace the Sugar Daddy of old for Street Daddy. The sugar father lavishes money on his sugar daughter in exchange for her body. It was a mutually benefitting symbiotic exchange for both parties. The girl had financial leverage into an upland world her income capacity could not take her. The ebbing street daddy received a second wind for his life through renewal of his animistic energy. It was a demand and supply market deal. So it still is  today in the age of the street daddy.

 

Conclusion

Mothers and daddies, we cannot exhaust the lexicon. You can expand the database by paying more attention to the conversations of your teenage children and those in their 20s. By their 30s, when they should have graduated from melancholia into choleric age, pursuing bread and butter for their estate in life, they should have simmered in that new season or become softened by it. Didn’t all of us? The long and short or the bottom line, as we say, Who is your daughter going out with on Monday, February 14, Valentine’s Day 2022? Her boyfriend, Bestie, Bestie with Benefit, Street Friend, Street Daddy, Street Uncle… who? And how much of her coded language can you decode?

When my girl would not tell me how February 14 will be like, I teased her that she will not go to school that day. She fired back that she will then know she lives in a prison. When I reminded her of the various outdoor activities I oblige her, she agreed the house was not a prison but a mini-prison. I look forward to February 14, trusting that she will tell me how it goes.

TAHITIAN Noni is thundering this year into Nigeria’s nutritional or food supplements market in the same old bottle and label…but under a new owner, New Age, and a brand new marketing plan as well. Live Pure, like New Age from the United States, set for this year by discarding the wholesaler or stockist interface with its distributors last November, jerking prices up a little and finalising standardisation business procedures in Nigeria with those in America. Alliance In Motion, a.k.a Aim Global, continued a winning streak last year as predicted in this column would place it among the top notchers this year.

Last Saturday, it jerked up registration fee from N50,000 to N80,000 ending a business promotion phase. The return of chymall e-commerce from the shackles of COVID-19 pandemic total lockdown in home country Malaysia was the fervent prayer of about three million Nigerians whose trades and trading capital have been out of business for one straight year. Leimall, springing in from Israeli and Egyptian backgrounds, is struggling to wriggle around the market with agriculture, medical and neutreceutical products. It is a networking company like the others. In agriculture, it aims to add its weight to the new farming consciousness, or to ignite a revolution.  It collects monies from subscribers promising a 100 percent yield in some cases over one year periods in fish pond farming and other farm activities Nationwide. Investors who splash N1 million per slot are promised a profit of N1 million. In medicine, leimall runs a surgery business. If a subscriber knows anyone who is sick and requires surgery, and the sick person can afford the bill, leimall flies in the specialist surgeon to carry out the operation. The finder of the business gets his or her own commission , of course. The food supplements aspect of the business is still weak, in my humble opinion. The products are largely duplicates of products already in the market but refreshed only with new names.

The old, well known networks are still very much around. Forever Living products (FLP) and Edmark loom large in Ikeja area of Lagos with their palatial offices and wide range of nutritional products. Also moving on, irrespective of the economy are long rich, Nature’s Gift for life (NG4), eternal, FOHOW, Kasly, Dynapharm and Bell to mention a few. IAM nostalgic about three products from Kasly…Cardiotonic pill (for blood circulation), phytoestrogen for women tormented by excess of harsh human estrogens and bee Propolis syrup for gum, mouth and throat challenges especially. My heart goes to Dynapharm as it does chymall e-commerce. They are both from Malaysia which was severely stricken with covid 19 infections. With the whole country literally shut down, it became difficult for Dynapharm to easily obtain its star products. Some of them are liquid chlorophyll with guarana, dynatonic (for the liver and kidneys), goat milk, capuccino coffee and ganoderma powder, and red coffee with ginseng. The liquid chlorophyll  competed with edmark’s splina. Chlorophyll has the same same structure with haemoglobin of the human red blood cells except for their central atoms. The structure is Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Oxygen. So, it helps oxygenation in its own ways. In chlorophyll, the central atom is magnesium which is needed by the muscles and quietens palpitations of the heart. In haemoglobin, the central atom is iron. Thus, with the consumption of chlorophyll, the body replaces the magnesium with iron and, literally speaking , the blood becomes “recharged” as with the recharging of a cell phone call credit.

Generally speaking, except perhaps for outages such as Hemptonics which, I am told is struggling to return to the market, 2021 was not a bad business year for the industry, irrespective of the foreign exchange challenges.

 

New Age

This is a baby of the pandemic in the United States. Worldwide, everyone had been saying life on Earth will never be the same again after Coronavirus pandemic. For about 16 companies in the United States which prior to the pandemic individually pushed their businesses in their home country, nothing could be truer. They discovered that, individually, they could not easily or any longer achieve set goals in a severely stricken American economy, and that their survival in business lay in pushing together in a new super company which would not only subsume their identities but also market their products abroad, particularly in Africa. The consolidation achieved, New Age set for Africa and made South Africa its African headquarters. From there, it was expected to arrive in Nigeria last month or this one. From the look of things so far, the list of sixteen has shrunken to about six with a parade of several nutritional food supplements, two of which I immediately found interesting.

The first is Tahitan Noni. The second is newcomer to Nigeria Hiro. By highlighting these two, I am not saying or predicting that the other products in New Age stable cannot be or are not destined to be fire crackers, too. Almost everyone in my generation has heard of or taken Tahitian Noni as a nutritional supplement. It came in through Ghana in the late 1990s after its introduction to the world in 1996. The Nigerian brand comprises Tahitian Noni juice, natural grape fruit juice and natural blue berry juice.It was imported into Nigeria by a company called Something New. The importation was taken over later by C.J. Frankin (Nigeria ) Limited. When the exchange rate became intolerable for this importer, it yielded way  to  vifest services limited which began to market it in Nigeria under the Unilevel networking business plan. The products literature of Tahitian Noni promotes it as an antioxidant, energy giver, immune booster, adaptogens, stress reliever, joint health and mobility, etc. Irrespective of the hundreds of independent studies on Noni fruit juice, the proprietaryTahitian Noni fruit juice which incorporate grape juice and blueberry juice is validated by no fewer than 8 human clinical trials.These clinical studies additionally promote it as a “perfect antidote to today’s stressful life”. With the change of management internationally, Noni has had to be rebranded abroad in a new glass bottle packaging amid with a new label to reflect the changes. But, in Nigeria, the product will be an old wine in an old bottle because of an anticipated huge cost of getting the changes approved or accepted by NAFDAC.

To get New Age going, the Chief Executive Officer of Tahitian Noni international, John Wodsworth, subsumed himself as a director on the board of New Age which is cheered by Brent Willis. The other companies which also came in town are Noni, Ariix, Limu, Zennoa, Mavie and Aliven Invel Alliance.

I do not need to gaze on a crystal ball to know what questions will trouble the old distributors of Tahitian Noni as it comes under a new company and business plan. Will they maintain their old ranks in vifest services limited or are they starting afresh? No, they will not start afresh. Their new identification number will be preceded by alphabet “N” to stand for Nigeria But they will move to a new marketing plan…Multiline away from Unilevel. The Multiline is said to have more compensation benefits than either the Unilevel or the Binary level.

 

Live Pure

If you keenly watch a mother dog at play and in a row with her puppies, you may quickly catch the picture of policy changes in this company November last year. A South-western Nigerian saying captures it all: the set of teeth a mother dog at play tickles her puppies with is the set of teeth the mother dog, angry, bites them with. Live Pure has been in existence for over 11 years. It came into African market through Nigeria and began business in March 2019, pushing only about six of its products in the Nigerian market. These are Pure Organic Sulphur, Cleanse capsules, Daily Build, Purxcel and Goyin. Unknown to even many distributors of a networking business, it is not the company they are dealing directly with at startup. The company “officials” they see “on the ground” and relate with are business contractors. A contractor is hired to open up the market in Africa through Ghana, South Africa or Nigeria, for example. The contractor becomes the first “upline”. That is his/her “inheritance” or “aje mo’nu ti e ni yen” as we say in Yorubaland. Being the first upline is that, irrespective of the contract fee, he/she is entitled to bonuses for life from all purchases of the products. It is a case of “he who works at the altar must eat at the altar”. The contractor is mindful that purchasing power in Nigeria is weaker than it is in America and, so, steps down rigorous business terms in Nigeria. For example, where the minimum monthly order acceptable in America for a distributor to be entitled to bonuses from the purchases of downlines is N100,000 a month, the contractor may step it down to N50,000 in Nigeria. What the home head office expects is a blue balance sheet, not excuses for red prints.

Live Pure behaved to terms at startup. Even the terms for company-paid foreign trips for top achievers were lowered because even the lower goals, were thought too hard to achieve. But the Nigerian entrepreneur spirit shocked the contractors. Far too many distributors than expected qualified, impacting pressure on a slim travel budget. So, literally speaking, the operations were wheeled into the theatre for surgical corrections of flabs and frills. The first major casualty was the stockist or wholesaler plan. The stockist was like a service center. The plan was costing the contractor huge bonus payoffs for taking sales pressure off the office. Now, the office would rather face the pressure and pocket the payoffs to reduce operational costs. And now that the stockist bridge to the distributor market has been removed, all distributors from last December were required to make direct online purchases from the company which is the business model in the United States. The orders are to be delivered through courier services. How easy for business this will be in Nigeria, only time will tell.

When more Nigerian distributors than were expected qualified for foreign travels to the United States last year, Live Pure almost ran into a ditch. All distributors who qualified in every country were to congregate in the United States under the programme nicknamed “Unite”. But COVID-19 was still seriously on the rampage in that country.  Foreigners previously invited to Unite were asked to stay at home. This created quite a stir among prospective Nigerian “pilgrims” to Unite who were prepared to bear the health risks. In the end, the agitation was resolved when Live Pure paid each of the qualified distributors N500,000. Although this pay off could not purchase a return ticket for each person, not to mention hotel, food and local transport bills, it was half a loaf of bread better than none in the heated Nigerian economy. In any case, it was money for the pocket in Nigeria which the American economy would have drained through tourism. So, head or tail, Nigeria and the Nigerian distributors won. Hitherto, live pure did not pay cash bonuses in lieu of foreign travel.

 

Aim Global

There is no bigger dice than was stated in 2022 Outlook: Aim Global, Earn For Life (please see www.olufemikusa.com). The products are unique in many cases because of their alkaline, antioxidant and polyphenol thrusts. The I-Protect is about the slowest coach because of the packaging. It is a product said to destroy bacteria and viruses within three meters radius. That should excite the market in a COVID-19 pandemic season. To be honest, it did in the first packaging which was a metal bangle and a necklace. The present package which look every bit like a roped ID card hung from the neck lost the fashion appeal.

It is possible Aim Global would have achieved bigger growth last year if it reformed its marketing theme. Much marketing appears to be done on radio with little time or none to answer enquiries. These are reserved for business plan presentations called “seminars”. The impression is inadvertently created in the marketing stunt that daily income earning would begin immediately one signed up with N50,000 to become a partner or distributor. Chasers of easy money become frustrated when they learn later that hard and consistent work bring plum daily earnings. It is difficult to blame the business plan presenters of deceit. The business plan provides for daily huge earnings, no doubt. The flaw in the presentations is that the would-be gold digger is not well advised that he has to dig out the gold to have it. Thus many of the prospective distributors who enrolled with high expectations of automatic earnings may have become inactive so soon after.

Aim global products are unique and frontally confront the health challenges of today with the phyto nutrients which the research community says can vanquish them…antioxidants, alkaline and phenolic compounds. But big players in the distribution network have become, as in other unsuspecting networks, like huge fruity trees such as the mango which do not allow any folliage to thrive or to grow under them. Take the mango tree as an example. Does another tree grow under it? Does the cocoyam or the pawpaw tree permit vegetable seeds down under the shadow of their leaves to sprout and to grow? What IAM saying is that these big players mop up new product stocks whenever they arrive, making it difficult for the upcoming distributors to get products to buy without paying obeisance to their overlords, their hefty uplines. Thus, some infants drop off now and then. But the lion hearted soldiers on. Some in this category even restock their Nigerian stores from the Aim Global offices abroad, since the business is international . But how many can go through the stress and the manouvres? The company cannot be blamed for this. Nor can the big players. We are in a free market economy which subscribes to the conception of Warefare In Nature in which the strong overcomes the weak. But the company, playing the smart Maverick, can keep it’s lines growing by discouraging hoarding to create artificial scarcity. It can provide more stocks after each mopping.If the re-orders cycle is once in three months, it may be brought down to six or four weeks with some of the stock warehoused outside the main stores like grains of maize kept in silos to be released during market shortage.

To do nothing worthwhile is to helplessly watch like Edmark when the big boys sold its products right at the gate of its offices in the heavy Opebi road traffic about a decade or more ago. Nutrihealth from South Africa fared no better before it bowed out. Bell is probably still on its feet today, and still generous with bonus pay offs, because it was able to gird its loins in good time. Hardly do I hear of green world, Keri, tianshi and other forerunners of today’s twinkling stars. They all had their fair tastes of the “Nigerian business factors”.

 

A Forward Match

The business weather is still roughened by economic uncertainties. But the hope of a bright future is never in want in any mangled Nigerian economy. The population is still rapidly growing, providing a huge market for business than in any African business hub.  Politics should as usual throw up some cash this year, a pre-election year. An aging population means more business for the health sector. A growing craving for nutrition in the prevention and management of health discomfeitures means more patronage for Alternative Medicine services.

The Nigeria market is still too weak to make home-grown medicines. It cannot make garlic oil from garlic bulbs, although it is one of the biggest garlic bulb growers worldwide. The market cannot make lemon grass oil although it can grow lemon grass from Lagos to Ibadan. We grow palm fruit, but can we extract tocopherols and tocotrienols from it? We make coconut oil from coconut. But can we make coconut milk powder from it? Euro Americans will exploit this weaknesses and a vacuum. Nigerians will tickle them to come over with networking. Aren’t we already expecting encapsulated bitter leaf and okra imported from the United States for sale through network? We live in an ever mobile world, in obedience to nature’s law of perpetual motion under which stagnation brings collapse or ruin. Year 2022 will, therefore, not be a stagnant year. We will all be a part  of its forward match. So, guard your loins. The safety valve is to not join or risk business with a network without deep intercontinental roots.