MANY people are “walking corpses” but do not know they are. By the “walking corpse” or “walking dead”, I am not referring to “Coward’s Delusion Syndrome” or to the monthly “Walking Dead”, the black and white post zombie Apocalypse fiction comic service created by writer Robert Kirkman, artist Tony Moore and published by
Image Comics.
I take my bearing from a great column written about 20 years ago or more by the legendary columnist ALLAH DEY (Alade Odunewu) at the Daily Times newspaper of the 1960s and 1970s under Alhaji Babatunde Jose. I do not remember the details now. But I guess Alhaji Odunewu went to see his doctor over what he may have considered a “minor” complaint but which the physician must have considered life-threatening. If my memory serves me right, the prevailing health problem of busy business executives in those days was elevated blood pressure often refined to as hypertension. The doctor must have admitted Alhaji Odunewu for urgent treatment and observation, and he must have returned to his editorial desk soon after to write his column titled WALKING CORPSES or something like that. If I remember well, also, that column wondered if many people who were ravenously pursuing business and money every day thought of themselves as WALKING CORPSES, since they could be hypertensive and hypertension was a “silent killer” because it often gave no signs until it was ready to deal the death blow. In other words, many people were out in the streets, wining and dinning and making merry, unknown to them that, inside of them, they had been dying instalmentally and the remnants of their bodies in which they still hopped around were mere “Walking Corpses”.
I remember the “Walking Corpses” always when I behold how many people make Walking Corpses of themselves without knowing what they do. I once had a professional colleague who saturated himself with Cognac and, Cuban tobaccos as early as 10 in the morning. He used to tease us “queer” people that the skin of Africans was so thick it blocked all of the problems known to easily kill white-skinned people. The last of him I heard was that he was stricken by Cirrhosis (hardening) of the liver; He emaciated severely and died eventually. Another well-sung writer cast in similar mode became a neural (nerves) and hypertensive wreck before death took him away. I remember, also, a former pilot who later became an aviation correspondent on a popular newspaper. He was a heavy smoken and drinker One day, he was found dead, slumped on a water closet toilet at home. We have heard of motorists who stopped their vehicles when the traffic light beamed red, but who were found slumped and dead when the green light came on. My uncle, whose terminal bout with diabetics this column reported last year, had a special prayer room in his house where his family gathered every morning for prayers. One day, his wife failed to turn up. When he went to her room to fetch her, she told him she could not lift herself from the bed. In the night, she had had a stroke unknown to her. She was to die five months after the passage of her husband, whose younger brother had gone ahead of him about six months earlier, also of diabetes’ causes. All around us, these cases abound. Yet it does not seem to matter to us that almost everyone past the mid life ( 40 or 45) is a potential walking corpse who needs to pay attention to the health of the vital internal organs lest death strike sonner than it should. When I find my friends slouching beer or some other alcohol, when I find people rely heavily on drug medicine rather than nutritional supplements which may work better and safer, when I see young men and women relish cow skin in sauce or pepper soup, I wonder if they know they are making walking corpses of themselves. One day, I asked members of one group if they all knew health-conscious people did not eat the skin of chicken and fish for such reasons that should have made them avoid cow skin, which was more complex and could be deadlier to health. They all just stared at me!
Boluke Chemists
Thanks to Boluke Chemists, many people in Agege neighborhood of Lagos now realize they are “walking corpse” and have begun to do something about it. A few months ago, I was surprised to find a crowd at the diagnostic laboratory where, every month, I check my blood sugar and, sometimes, the electrolytes and cholesterol levels. Busy and stressed people sometimes suffer electrolyte imbalances which could present bodily biochemistry disorientation in various symptoms. On this day, my sodium level was slightly elevated, and my potassium level was slightly down. My blood sugar, like my blood pressure, was low as well. But my chloride was normal. That suggested I had to reduce Sea salt and biochemic sodium cell salts intake, increase intake of potassium cell salts and potassium-rich foods. The latter could. Which can be a tricky matter for a diabetic in my because of their sugar profile. Maybe one way to accommode such potassium- rich foods and fruits as yam, plantain, banana , orange, watermelon, pineapple, lime and lemon in this plan is to take with them food supplements as Chromium, Bitter melon, Fenugreek and Kyolic garlic, for example, which improve the body’s sensitivity to insulin and, thereby, diminish the cellular resistance to insulin and improve insulin potency. This scenario reduces blood sugar level to normal status. Another way may be to improve thyroid and adrenal glands functions by taking supplements such as Iodoral, Sea kelp, Dulse and thyroid Essentials for the thyroid gland and Moducare’s Plant Sterols and Sterolins for the adrenals. Good, also, are Amazon Adrenal Support and Swanon’s Adrenal Essentials.
Not to drag this matter of Boluke Chemists, a chain of pharmacy outlets in Lagos, I asked what the unusual crowd was all about. As I said, Boluke Chemists was in a public enlightenment campaign to educate the public about hepatitis, a liver damaging disease, and to help people discover, at no cost to them, if their livers were inhabited by the virus (es) which cause viral hepatitis. The campaign was financed in many laboratories in the neighborhood. From my laboratory, I learned that about 70 percent of the clients tested positive. The ratio was close to that among the staff who undertook the test at the branch of my bank nearby from where some of the laboratory client came. Some of the people who tested positive to the disease had progressed to near critical stages. Some other people were mere carriers. That meant the hepatitis virus was inactive in their livers and blood, but could cause harm to other people whose immunity may not be able to overpower it
Hepatitis Viruses
There are about six types of them, named Hepatitis A, B, C, E, F, and G. Hepatitis A is contagious and Lurks in fecal sources, food and raw shellfish, for example. That’s why I do not like to eat periwinkle still in the shell, which isn’t disemboweled and properly cooked. You may ask me: why hasn’t eating periwinkle in the shell depopulated the South-South of Nigeria? Well, long population exposure to a certain environment stimulates immune response which unexposed people may lack. Don’t West Africans stand the mosquito bite better than Europeans? And don’t South-West Nigeria stand red hot peppery sauce better than other Nigerians? Hepatitis A, which may also be sexually contracted, often produces acute effects. Hepatitis B is usually blood and sexually contracted, and may inflict chronic liver damage. Some hosts with immunity powerful enough to inactivate it are chronic carriers of this virus. Hepatitis C, the most common form, and usually contracted from the transfusion of unscreened blood, may predispose about 10 to 20 per cent of the hosts to cirrhosis of the liver, according to population studies, and liver cirrhosis may develop into cancer of the liver. Hepatitis E is water borne, may be resolied in four to eight weeks, but may progress in five to 10 per cent of cases to Chronic Hepatitis B.
Hepatitis is still sweeping through the world, in some cases in epidemic proportions. The reasons are not too difficult to discover. The liver is the major organ for removing poisons from the body. It is also the pantry where the body stores most of the excess nutrients, which, someday, say in emergencies, will be released for use as needed, just as grains reserves are released during bad harvests or a famine. The liver does far too many other things than can be mentioned here. Among some of these is the production and storage of bile in the gallbladder for the digestion of fats and detoxification of some poisons. It also conjugates the remains of dead red blood cells so that the yellow aspect, biluribin, poisonous to the brain in very high levels, does not mass up in the blood and skin. The liver may also be eaten up by worms, especially the flat worm named faciolopsis hepatica, which causes liver cancer, Candida, other yeast, viruses, bacteria and other microforms. We are limited here to the hepatitis virus.
The symptoms
The body speaks to us always. But we do not often understand its language and , so, do not heed its serious warnings. Three of the easiest ways the liver speaks to us are through (1) discoloration of a part of the tongue to which the liver is connected, going by acupressure and acupuncture medicine. These points, and how to activate them, like electricity switches, are well explained in the two books of Dr. Devendora Vora and the one by Dr. Kenyon, which were reviewed in this column a few weeks ago. (2) the colour of the stool and (3) the density of the stool… that is , does it float or sink in the water closet? Some of the other symptoms of Hepatitis are (1) Fatigue (2) nausea (3) loss of appetite (4) weight loss (5) clay colour stool (6) fever (7) diarrhea (8)elevation of liver enzymes in the blood (9) jaundice (10) enlargement and tenderness of the liver and, sometimes, of the spleen.
Fatigue
Every one feels run down one time or the other through overwork and stress, metabolic disturbances or disease, such as hepatitis. The liver produces many essential compounds for the body’s metabolic and biochemical balance. Without these compounds in the right quantum, a state of disequilibrium occurs. Some parts of the liver do not function optimally in hepatitis, leading to poor energy output. Even the little energy available is used up largely by the immune system to help the liver deal with its assailants.
Unfortunately for many people, the culture around here isn’t a lab test to determine the cause of fatigue which may have origins in underfunctioning thyroid gland, digestion and absorption problems, heavy microbial load in the system, mitochondrial failure, due to destruction by mercury in tooth fillings or food or other heavy metals in food, air and water, adrenal fatigue or insufficiency or simply nutritional deficiencies from junk diet. Often, people go first for energy drinks which are laden with. Caffeine, an energy waster. It is only when the matter has reached a head or is going out of control that the doctor is contacted who may diagnose hepatitis.
NAUSEA is not often immehately linked to hepatitis. The tendency is to assume quesiness in the stomach and prescribe stomach calmants or settlers such as Basil, Mint, tea, Stomach EZ, Vervain, Marigold and other antispasmodics. But an experienced physician would see a stomach disturbance as a digestive system malaise, in which one organ is probably the first reporting station to tell of a nasty situation, or is reporting it in its own peculiar way. After all, even gallbladder stones, in the gallbladder right inside the liver, sometimes causes vomiting and nausea! Sometimes, too, trouble in the liver may signal in the vomiting of blood!
Loss of appetite
The liver may shut down some services or, better still, embark on skeletal work when impaired and battling for its life … and yours. We do not feel like eating, yet feel the need to eat. Weight loss is apparent in such circumstances. I have seen many people who will do practically everything to eat but just don’t have the appetite. Such people are usually underweight ad skinny and appear malnourished. When one finds oneself in a situation such as this, it is better to immediately run liver function tests to at least rule out hepatitis or any other hepatic problem.
Jaundice
This is often a tailend signal that all is not well in the liver. As stated earlier, the liver processes dead red blood cells into their simplest component parts for recycling or elimination of any excess. One of the troublesome components is biluribin. If the liver is too weak to handle it, bilurbin piles up in the blood, and may soon appear as yellowish tinge under the skin, in the nail bed and in the eyes. If it becomes too much and crosses the brain-blood-barrier which prevents substances in the blood which may disturb or harm the brain from getting into it from the blood circulation, biluribin may damage the brain. That’s why babies born with neonatal jaundice, or who develop it soon after birth, become “vegetables” when biluribin runs a violent or stormy riot into their brains.
Beating Hepatitis
Many people are upset or depressed by the news that they have viral hepatitis.
They recognize it may lead to cirrhosis (hardening) of the liver and, perhaps, cancer of the liver, and, so, are frightened that it may eventually kill them. But they brighten up when they learn this condition is reversible.
The first step on the road to recovery is to learn, as in all ailments, the causes of this problem so that, while they are receiving treatment, they do not continue with those precipitate lifestyles. Hepatitis not of viral origin may be caused by alcohol or drugs or chemicals. People who drink lots of beer and other alcohol without consciously caring for their livers dig their own graves thereby. Alcohol is a poison which the liver must detoxify to protect the entire body. Ever seen firemen putting out a raging fire without fire-fighting equipment and special non-flammable shoes and uniform? That’s what happens to the livers of people who take alcohol, who are dependent or toxic pharmaceutical drugs, who are exposed to many chemical preservatives in food and who are exposed to chemicals in mosquito coils, sprays and dish washing soaps, laundry detergents and bleaches, bath soaps and body creams and lotions, and tooth fillings, to mention a few sources of chemical exposure, which must include fertilizer grown foods
Some escape routes
The first steps is to watch the diet. Food, like the liver, speaks to us. In a liver disorder, the liver cannot tolerate saturated fats and fried foods. In fact, one of the symptoms of a liver malaise is that we cannot stand the sight or the smell of fatty and fried foods, according to Dr. H.V. Vogel in THE NATURE DOCTOR. He says, also, that a disordered liver hates fruits or fruit juices, especially orange juice, because it cannot easily digest fruit acids. If these foods are forced on the ailing liver, they get undigested properly and the poisons they produce as they begin to get rotten in the system are sent to the skin and kidneys for elimination. As Dr. Vogel says, this is why severe itching of the skin is a sign that the liver is not working well. Of course, one thing leads to another. Poisons in the body affects the cells and nerves, every molecule, and end up making us break down emotionally, another symptom of liver disorder, sometimes to the point that nothing seems to cheer us up. Therefore, treatment of liver troubles should start with foods that do not add to the problem. The liver profits from unsaturated fatty acids, such as Flax Seed Oil or the proprietary Udo’s Oil. Meat and if possible, fish should be out of the diet. Proteins can be obtained from Free Form Amino Acids such as in the proprietary brand AMINO BALANCE or Bragg’s Liquid Amino. They hardly need digestion, so the liver is saved a lot of hassle. Whole grain meals, especially brown rice, are good. So is vegetable brooth and green powder drinks which are now plentiful in Nigeria . I hover from Spectragreen and Superior Green to Beyond Greens and Green Fusion, my latest toast which comes with abiut 30 billion friendly bateria (probiotic) cells per jar. This morning (Tuesday 22 October) my breakfast will be Bob Jill’s organic whole grain steel cut oat, Green Fusion Powder, (ayenne, Forever Aloe Lite and liquid amino plus, of course, my regular food supplements… Vitamin B, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Grape Seed Extract, Parasheld.
PARASHIELD, for a shield against parasites, including hepatitis viruses, reminds me it is time to draw up a battle plan against these unwelcome quests worrying the liver. So, here we go. The “war” objectives are:
(1) Elimination of the hepatitis viruses with antivirus with antiviral herbs
(2) Detoxification of the liver
(3) Regeneration of damaged liver cells
(4) Boosting of immunity
