Metal poisoning in the north: southerners, beware
As I was contemplating this column, another important health hazard story broke out in Northern Nigeria, swamping especially Sokoto and Zamfara states. Poisonous heavy metals which were making the rounds included Lead, Arsenic, Mercury and Cadmium. The report did not say if the heavy metals were found in the air, water and food. They were the heavy metals which The Guardian Newspaper reported in the 1980s were present in Lagos State thousands of times more than the safe levels permitted by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Science reporter Seun Ogunseitan found then that these metals were prevalent in underground water sources, especially in wells, around which were mismanaged waste dumpsites, and that the public water works had no equipment to remove them from the drinking water pipes for millions of people. This sparked a controversy about whether heavy metal toxcity may not be widespread in Nigeria and may be a major cause of the growing rate of cancer and other killer diseases. It took about 30 years later for the the government of Lagos State to officially confirm that underground water was, indeed, poison. While heavy metals poisoning in Lagos maybe due to natural occurence, mismanaged waste dumpsites, traffic pollution and tyre burnsfires, the outlook in the Northm is still unclear. However, there are speculations that the major cause maybe a mishandling by the Chinese and Indians of illegal mines of gold and quantum energy minerals such as Lithium.
I cannot quickly abandon this subject despite the commitment I have to conclude the discussion on malaria and uterine fibroids begun last week from events in the United Kingdom and publications by Dr .Ignatius Onah. To do so may amount somewhat to an act of irresponsibility when heavy metal poisoning in the North may easily spread to the South through the food chain, and in view of the ignorant expressed by Orthodox Medicine managers in the North that they alone can treat metal toxicity in humans. By ignorant, I refer to the public campaign by health authority to exclude Alternative Medicine Practitioners from the management of heavy metal poisoning. This campaign is somewhat funny because Alternative Medicine had been in the forefront of therapy and caregiving for heavy metal poisoning for hundreds of years when Orthodox Medicine use gold, for example, as medicine or did no more than supress symptoms of heavy metal presence in the bloodstreams and tissues.
For example, Alternative Medicine recognises that not all cases of depression and behaviour imbalances are due directly to brain misfunction. Heavy metal presence in the brain has been found largely responsible for many of them, and this has been why detoxification of brain, bloodstreams and tissues has always been the starting point of therapy in such ailments under Alternative Medicine. For example, Chlorella is employed to move heavy metals out of the brain into the bloodstream and Cilantro employed to move them into the urinary system for excretion out of the body. For decades now, chelated minerals have joined the army of heavy metal detoxification agents. Chelation means attaching to, and dragging out from the body. Chelated Zinc is popular now and more expensive than Elemenal or plain Zinc. Sometimes ago, EDTA joined the league.EDTA is Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid. When Ferdinand Munz introduced it into the market in 1930s, EDTA was jealously prescribed only by doctors. Now, it is freely sold in health food stores and online as capsules, powder and suppositories e.t.c. In the 1980, I was excited by a reported side effect of EDTA. A gentleman was going blind because the vessels which supplied his eyes with blood were becoming blocked unknown to him. His doctor gave him EDTA for blockages in his arteries which made him hypertensive. The hypertension disappeared, and his vision simultaneously improved because EDTA cleaned out those blockages in his eyes blood vessels as well. Today, the internet described EDTA as fellows…”Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid is a synthetic organic compound commonly used as a chelating agent, which means it can bind to metal ions, such as lead, mercury, and calcium, and help remove them from the body or a solution. It has various applications in medicine, industry, and research.”
The North of Nigeria may impact the South with heavy metals challenges if puddles of water on the surface of its illegal and unprotected open mines run off into farm lands and crops pick up these metals molecules which are then transferred to man through the food chain. The air maybe a vector. So maybe streams and rivers which connect with Southern water resources. About two years ago, pilgrims to River osun in Southwestern Nigeria were asked not to bathe in the river or to take its water home for drinking, as they previously did in Osun-Osogbo festival of rrituals, because the river was suspected to be metal polluted. Many people in Lagos eat fish from this river and may, thus, become exposed to heavy metal challenges in their bodies.
The risks of heavy metal toxicity can be grave, depending on the level of exposure and individual factors. The symptoms, may include mood swings, cognitive impairment, drooling, various degrees of memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, nerve damage and neurological questions which may involve vision challenges, muscles and bone problems, intestinal issues, skin problems, respiratory problems and kidney damage, among others.
Dr. Ignatius Onah
I was talking about several well-packaged anti-malarial pharmaceutical drugs which may be selling in Nigeria, and have been found to cause kidney failure and damage in the United Kingdom (UK)… and Dr. Ignatius Onah’s evidence-based revelations that breast cancer and uterine fibroids are rampant now among women of African descent because hair shampoo, hair growth creams, hair relaxers, reset oil and hair colourants nowadays contain toxic chemical substances. He said they enter the bloodstream, disrupt and vandalise the endocrine gland system to cause this health”armageddon”. From the North came the news of an outbreak of metal poisoning among the population and the warning that Nigerian Traditional Medicine (NTM) Practitioners should not treat it. The government public health alert and warning did not immediately state which type of metal poisoning it was referring to, and it betrayed ignorance that Traditional Medicine of many countries have been treating metal poison for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In Nigeria since the 1980s or much earlier, even Alternative Medicine Physicians have been educated enough to know that heavy metal detoxification and detoxification of other substances is the first step they must undertake in the treatment of any gruesome or cruel disease such as brain death threats, depression, Attention Deficit and Hyperactive Disorder( ADHAD), Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, neurological disorders, prostate gland challenges, uterine fibroids and cancers, among others.
Back to Mrs. Obayuana
Irrespective of the importance of North metal poisoning outbreak, this series will go to bed today. In the first part, literally speaking, I nervously searched for Mrs. Comfort Obayuana, of Health Ways whose activities with healing herbs kept many Nigerian families malaria free for some decades. The last time we spoke years ago about her seeming sudden disappearance from the natural health products scene, she said the high cost of diesel oil which powered her production lines compelled the retreat. What I have tried to do here, before I hurry to Northern Nigeria, is to recapture years of the following safe, anti-malarial herbs on which Nigeria ought to have built, without lying prostate before importation of foreign drugs which may now be the root cause of kidney and other organ damage in near epidemic levels. If the purveyors of these toxic drugs can invade the United Kingdom and perhaps other European countries, irrespective of their sophistry, what chances against them has a country like Nigeria where public officials are like “born thieves” and are too ready to sell off their country for a pot of pottage?
Uterine Fibroids
Like the growing rate of kidney troubles, uterine fibroids among women of all ages in Nigeria appear a ravaging epidemic. About three weeks ago, I heard the heart wrenching story of a 65-year-old woman who lived for some years with uterine fibroids of the size of a baby. Finally, she resolved it through surgery. Even then, she is not smiling now in victory because her doctors said she had, meanwhile, developed endometrial cancer. This is the cancer of the endometrium, that is lining of the uterus or womb which is shed very month to kick-start menstruation if the egg descended from the ovaries is not fertilised in the fallopian tube. This is an interesting development because, at 65, estrogenation should not be a problem of this woman, unless she is consuming chemical or exogenous estrogens from plastic packaging such as in water sachets or plastic bottles or from poultry egg, chicken, turkey, cow milk and estrogen-fed chickens. I sought a clue in anti-mosquito sprays and hydrocarbons. Dr. Ignatius Onah, a prolific writer on research findings, suggested in one of his articles last week that the uterine fibroids menace in Nigeria may be from hair dressing salons. There may be a great grain of truth in his statement because I did a quick rule-of-the-thumb check which seemed to confirm it. With my mind’s eye, I scanned the uterine profiles of many women who cannot do without a treatment with chemical relaxers, shampoos e.t.c. and those who long ago turned their backs on them, including my wife and immediate younger sister, and advised myself that almost everyone in the latter group had no history of uterine fibroid or even breast lumps.
This would have been a good harvest season for Mr. Sam Ayeni to bring to Nigeria Alafia Hair Care Products. They are made in the United States by some African Americans who imports the ingredients from Benin Republic and Cote d’Ivoire . The ingredients for the shampoos, relaxers, sprays, lotions and creams include palm oil and palm kernel oil, among others. Mr. Ayeni had business talks with the African-Americans when he went for Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar with Mother and Maria Treben Bitters. He gave up on a follow-up after sea pirates, operating legitimately as shippers, literally speaking, chopped off his fingers and making away with containers load of his Bragg orders.
This column has been urging him not to fear another step. Afterall, didn’t we all, as children learning to walk, not mistep and fall several times before we learned to walk and to run?
Back to Mrs. Comfort Obayuwana
This sub-heading is my peg for natural medicine for quelling malaria storms. Mrs. Comfort Obayuwana was making quite a number of them before she, too, stepped out of line. Here are suggestions for herbs which must always be in the Herbal First Aid Box of every Nigerian home, from my experience.
Awopa Bark
It was one of the herbs which saved my life during an encounter with Corona Virus: Look-Alike Symptoms, Join the Lexicon….See facebook @johnolufemikusa. It was one of the plant medicines which bounced covid-19 from me. It was as though hot charcoals were placed all over my body. I lost appetite and could not sleep. I alternated, to see which was better, with boiling some cuttings and drinkng the water infusion, and soaking them in a glass bottle which I kept in the sun from sunrise to sunset to solarise the extracts and add some power from all Seven Colours of Light (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet). Our forebears did this for radiations of the sun or of the moon and stars in their medicinal portions or bath water. Not long after, the news went around from other sources worldwide to Nigerians in diaspora that this tree bark could save their lives.
Chanca Piedra
Mrs Obayuwana of Health Ways made the powder of this versatile, ubiquitous evergreen plant for sale. When I suggested it to a young architect whose blood sugar count rose to over 400, he went for it with a shrug of the shoulders. About one week later, he came to see me with a gift. His blood glucose level was only a few points from normal! Opthalmologist Prof. Bukola Adefule-Oshitelu has added a feather to the cap of this plant Yorubas call Ehinbisowo or Ehin Olube. She has made an eye drop of it for glaucoma and cataract. Asians gave it the name Chanca Piedra or “stone crusher” because they say it dissolves kidney and gall bladder stones which often require surgery to address. This plant is hypotensive, that is good for lowering high blood pressure, it’s an anodyne (pain-relieving) improves male virility and provides iron in anaemia. However, Chanca Piedra is more reputable in my view, as an anti-malarial. During my encounter with covid-19, I boiled it or solarised it as I did with Awopa Bark. I also soaked it in aromantic schnapps and solarised. The outcome is not only a terrible weapon against COVID-19…which are worse than malaria fever temperature but against blood sugar as well. When boiled or solarised, chanca has a golden yellow colour. Solarised in aromatic schnapps, all the chlorophy 2 infused, I became afraid of it without food beside me!
Karella
This product from Mrs. Obayuwana sold like hot cakes in Lagos and other parts of the country. Like Chanca, it was a multi-purpose herb used more as ann anti-malarial. It is the Indians who call it Karella. The English call it Balsam Pear and the Yorubas, Ejirin. In men and women, it may slightly offset fertility if taken in excess, but the fire returns almost as soon as it is withdrawn. There are some reports that it may work against uterine fibroids. Definitely, it is a good anti-malarial to have ready in the cupboard.
Utazi
As Mrs. Obayuwana is an Igbo, you can trust her to not forget what this herbs represents in Igbo herbalism. Utazi is an ingredient in a pepper soup brand that is given to women who have just been delivered of babies to help them rid abdominal tissues of fluid logs and prevent wrinkles. Against the malaria parasite, plasmodium, this plant can be a heavy duty warrior. As I often had malaria calls from the school of my Genotype AA son, I worked out an agreement with him. He loved the sweet protein-milk product Muscle Blast for building sport muscles. Boys love to grow tall and muscular. You men know why. This product is sugary, another problem. I got round that by emptying about four powder packs of Karella into the big jar of Muscle Blast until the sugar was virtually hidden. The product kept its proteins and cream. We defeated malaria in school!
Egungun Eja
This is a Yoruba plant which translates in English as FishBone. So, many Yorubas at first assume it is powdered fish bone. However, it is only so named because the leaves have the shape of spinal contours in some fish.
Pawpaw leaf
Like Egungun Eja, pawpaw leaves come in powder packaging from Mrs. Obayuwana’s Health Ways. The leaf stimulates platelet production to minimise or stop internal beeding. In Vitamin K-2 defficient persons, it has been used in Asia to stop dangerous bleeding in Dengue Fever caused by a particular breed of mosquito, has enzymes to destroy foreign proteins, including those of typhoid parasite. Above all, this is a wonderful anti-malarial.
Lemon Grass
We probably underestimate it because it easily grows almost everywhere. I add two or three drops of Lemon Grass Oil to about 1.5 liters of water for re-hydration in malaria fever. One or two bottles are enough to quell the fever. I have not tried to solarise it or to extract its contents in gin. However, boiling it is popular in Nigeria. In almost every Nigerian village, it is known as a malaria healer.
Awogba Aarun
This is a cure for “200 diseases”, going by its Yoruba name. I grew it as an anti-snake in and around my house when I noticed their furs on the steps of the entrance door. They disappeared. Their smell is so intense that I, too, sometimes step away from them. Passers-by who know this plant for malaria, migraines, Hypertensions cures stop over to ask for leaves or seedlings. Some squeeze out the juice right there on the road and massage it on their foreheads, around their necks or on the temples.
Inexhaustible Bar
As we say of the bar at a pub or at a party, the “bar is inexhaustible” with Mother Nature when it comes to plant remedies for any ailment. It is as if she foresaw our carelessness and stupidity or ignorance and took the troubles to make provisions against every blunder. Thus, I cannot understand why we head on a dangerous mission to Sokoto (m:m:m) town for an anti-malarial recipe while what we need is in Sokoto (d:d:d) pocket.
