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Tag: antidotes

  • Aflatoxins in Nigerian foods, cancer, HIV…antidotes

    Despite the searing heat, Nigeria farmers are back to the land, preparing their farms for the cultivation of this season’s crops. As I suggested in this column last Thursday, under the title AGRO-DOLLAR RAIN ABOUT TO FALL IN NIGERIA, more rice and maize, in particular, should be produced on the farms this year. This assumption is based on the fact that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of more farmers will swell the population of farmers as more land is released for farming upcountry and, this time, land clearance, crop cultivation and harvesting will be mechanised. These are all features of the Anchor Borrowers Project mentioned last week.

     

    Aflatoxin

    But as we jubilate that there should be more food on the dining-table at cheaper prices, so should we worry about the risk of eating poisons with these foods, a risk many governments and food researchers in Nigeria have downplayed over the years or deliberately not sufficiently informed Nigerians about. This risk is the AFLATOXIN risk. If we do not care about what we eat or drink here, other people elsewhere in the world do. And that was why, a few years ago, the European Union (EU) banned importation of foods from Nigeria after it was discovered that their aflatoxin and mycotoxin load was too high for the safety of the health of Europeans.

    The website https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin says of aflatoxins:

    “Aflatoxins are poisonous and cancer-causing chemicals that are produced by certain molds (Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus) which grow in soil, decaying vegetation, hay and greens. They are regularly found in improperly stored staple commodities such as cassava, chili peppers, corn, cotton seed, millet, peanuts, rice, sesame seeds, sorghum, sunflower seeds, tree nuts, wheat, and a variety of spices. When contaminated food is processed, aflatoxins enter the general food supply where they have been found in both pet and human food as well as in feedstocks for agricultural animals. Animals fed with contaminated food can pass aflatoxin transformation products into eggs, milk products and meat. For example, contaminated poultry feed is suspected in the findings of high percentages of samples of aflatoxin-contaminated chicken meat and eggs in Pakistan. Children are particularly affected by aflatoxin exposure, which leads to stunted growth, delayed development, liver damaged and liver cancer. Adults have a higher tolerance to exposure but are also at risk. No animal specie is immune. Aflatoxins are among the most carcinogenic substances known. After entering the body, aflatoxins may be metabolised by the liver to a reactive epoxide intermediate or hydroxylated to become the less harmful aflatoxin M1.

    “Aflatoxins are most commonly ingested, but the most toxic form of Aflatoxin B1 can permeate through the skin.

    “The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) action level for aflatoxin present in food or feed is 20-300ppb. The FDA has had occasion to declare both human and pet food recalls as a precautionary measure to prevent exposure.

    “The term “Aflatoxin” is derived from the names of one of the molds that produce it, Aspergillus flavus. It was coined around 1960 after its discovery as the source of “Turkey X disease”. Aflatoxins form one of the major groupings of mycotoxins.

     

    Nigeria’s Problems

    Nigeria produces bumper harvests in the farms, but loses a quantum of them during storage or transportation. Yam and potatoes, for example, are thereby fungi-infected and loaded with aflatoxins in the cooking pot and dining table. In many road-side eating places, soups and stews are made from rotten pepper which the Yorubas call ata esa. Many people buy and eat “injured” or “wounded” banana, unknown to them that the rot areas on the banana are the handiwork of a fungus or fungi. Fungi denature oils. For this reason, care should be taken in consuming oil-rich foods. Groundnuts (peanuts) are oil-rich. In a region of the United States (US)celebrated as the biggest peanut grower in that country, cancer of the pancreas is reported to be a common occurrence. So, when peanut is off colour or off-taste, I do not touch it. I have learned to also avoid peanut butter for this reason. Melon is another stuff to be careful about. To make a delicious pot of melon soup, our mothers peeled melon from the shell, roasted it and then ground it. In other words, the soup was made with fresh melon just removed from its protective shell. These days, melon is sold to the lazy woman already ground and wrapped in cellophane. Not only would the acids in melon have reacted with the cellophane, picking petroleum residue for the pot of soup it is intended for, the melon may have over time become oxidised by oxygen, thereby stocking free radicals for the soup, and, additionally, bring along aflatoxins, being a ready prey for fungi attack.

    Even maize is not free from fungi infection because of its oil and high moisture content. Vegetables are worse. They get rotten easily. I have learned, too, that onions and limes are not safe from fungi infection. If you watch a pack of ripening limes carefully, you may notice some that are becoming rotten. The market woman does not wish to lose money by throwing them away. So, she developed the idea of squeezing such limes in a bottle and selling them off to her careless or unsuspecting customer as lime juice. Back home in the kitchen, the lime is used to cure snails, fish, wash vegetables et.c. Unknown to the chef, aflatoxins have been introduced into a delicious meal. When I notice that onions are getting rotten,  I do not remove the affected peels and use the remainder. I throw away the bulb. During the mango season many people eat mangoes with spots on the skin.

    Dr J.H. Williams of the University of Georgia, United States, carried out a study of local African markets and reported that about 40 per cent of the commodities found the “exceeded permissible aflatoxin levels (in excess of the international standards of 10-20ppb) and that an estimated 4.5billion people in developing countries are at risk of uncontrolled or poorly controlled exposure to aflatoxins, and up to 40 percent of commodities in local African markets exceed allowable levels of aflatoxins in foods.”

    In the website www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/705839, he reports:

    “It is known that high aflatoxin levels in the bloodstream depresses the immune system, thereby facilitating cancer, HIV, and stunting the growth of children. A cross-sectional study conducted in Ghana and cited by Dr. Williams shows that immune systems of recently HIV-infected people are significantly modified even they have above median levels of natural exposure to aflatoxin.

    Referring to another study, Dr. Williams notes:

    “People with a high aflatoxin biomarker status in The Gambia and Ghana were more likely to have active malaria.”

    The website quotes Dr Oladele Dokun, a veterinary doctor at Nigeria’s Animal Care Laboratory as saying:

    “Research has shown aflatoxin causes infertility, abortions and delayed onset of egg production in birds as well as sudden losses in egg production in actively laying birds. Furthermore, loss of appetite, skin discoloration or even yellowish pigmentation on skin can be observed in fish.”

     

    The Euro ban

    A few years ago the EU banned the importation of Nigerian cocoa after a high Gamalin-20 (a pesticide) was found in chocolates and ovaltine. Later, another import ban covered beans, sesame seeds, melon seeds, dried fish and meat, peanut chips and palm oil. If you wonder what palm oil is doing on the list, as we say here, I would share my experience. I was told I could obtain fresh and pure palm kernel oil from a particular region of the country. So, I paid for 20 liters of palm oil which I hope to enjoy for months. But I was shocked one day to find a white film over the oil right inside the plastic keg. It was fungi! So, I threw the keg and, its contents away and proceeded with the detoxification of my system. This sort of thing can make one ill, and an inexperienced doctor would merely provide drugs to suppress symptoms he observes and not uproot the cause(s). If you shrug your shoulders in disbelief, saying our grandparents ate this things and live to ripe, old age, you may not have looked at the other side of the equation. That other side was their diet. Did they consume sugar the way we do today? Did they eat junk foods? Were they stressed up the way we are? Did they not sleep longer and more restfuly than we do? Their bodies were not as weaken as ours, and probably didn’t collapse as easily as our do under aflatoxin bombardment.

    The European Food Safety Authority said the Nigerian food crops were banned because their pesticide levels were too high. The pesticide level of the banned Nigeria beans was between 0.03mg per kg to 4.6mg per kg of Dichlorvos pesticide against an acceptable residue limit 0.01mg/kg.

    Director-General Paul Orhyi, of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) blamed the ban on the “failure” of exporters to comply with regulatory requirements. I wondered them if it would not have been better to admit that NAFDAC’s hands were too full and that it required more men and funds to enforce compliance, as Nigerians were beginning to show interest in food exports as a way of diversifying their country’s revenue base. Or, if NAFDAC had enough policing capacity, did its officers look the other way while the food cargoes were loaded in ships? It is embarrassing, to say the least, to find ship loads of exported foodstuff returned to the country. Fearsome is the thought that we all at home may be consuming poisons whenever we eat beans in any form, fish and peanuts. To be fair to NAFDAC, it has embarked on a national campaign to enlighten the public about the contamination of Nigerian foods. But many Nigerians are not paying enough attention.

    In the website www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov we are advised:

    “Aflatoxin, one of the most widespread of the known carcinogens, is present at a high level in most common foods stored poorly for long periods in Nigeria. It may work synergistically with other carcinogens to produce the high incidence of primary liver cancer seen in young men at the age of 40. In the northern Nigeria Savannah areas, cereals, especially sorghum and millet, as well as groundnut products are the high risk foods. In the Southern forest areas, dried fish, groundnut and all palm products often carry unwholesome quantities of aflatoxin.”

     

    Symptoms

    Aflatoxic poisoning is also known as aflatoxicosis. It may present as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, convulsion, collection of fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema), collection of fluid in the brain (cerebral edema), abnormalities of the blood, including blood cancer even in children, bleeding, liver damage and cancer,  kidney and heart damage and even death.

    Consumption of a large dosage of aflatoxin may produce the symptoms described above. Accumulations over a long period of time may not hurt severely immediately, but may ultimately result in, say liver damage or cancer. Lung cancer may come from the inhalation of mold dust, especially in the cases of people who inhale mold dust from affected crops.

     

    Natural aflatoxin remedies

    Since mold and aflatoxins are known to cause all sorts of cancer, the first line of defence against them would seem to be (1) immune boosting (2) detoxification (3) anti-cancer foods and herbs (4) oxygenation (5) anti-inflammatories (6) anti-fungal herbs. Some of the well known anti-mold herbs are (a) Garlic, (b) Pau d’Arco (c) Thyme and (d) Cloves. To this group belongs, also, Golden Seal Root.

    When it comes to immune boosting, attention has to be paid to the liver. It breaks down poisons into simpler, non-poisonous ones or into less toxic toxins. Where the liver is healthy and functioning optimally, no cancer can erupt in any part of the body, as science is now discovering through autopsy reports which implicate liver weakness in the evolution and development of cancers.

    To prevent the liver itself from becoming cancerous, not only is it necessary to equip it to detoxify all toxins which the bloodstream brings to it to pulverise, it is important as well to prevent it from being overloaded with more poisons than it can get rid of and to protect it against them. Accordingly, liver-clearance herbs such as Carqueja are important as decongestants while herbs such as Milk thistle, Jerusalem artichoke and False Daisy (eclipta alba) are hepaprotectives. An hepaprotective is a liver protecting agent. Hepaprotectives obtain their recognition as such from their protection of the liver against carbontetrachloride. This is a chemical which easily damages and destroys the liver. When animals were fed carbontetrachloride, they died of liver damage. Only a few of them died when they ate Milk thistle, for example, simultaneously with the poison. Hardly did any die when fed Milk thistle a few days before ingestions of Carbontetrachloride. Protecting the liver enables it produce enough bile salts to mop toxins for excretion. One teaspoonful of Tumeric powder enables the gall bladder to empty half of its bile contents at once. But such a dosage is contraindicated in people with gall bladder stones or kidney stones, as a gall bladder stone blockage of the bile ducts may block bile passage and cause congestion in the bladder and liver, and, in the kidneys of susceptible people, the oxalic acid in Tumeric may combine with free or excess calcium salts to form calcium-oxalate stones.

    Liver health boosts immunity. We can boost immunity further by consuming herbs, which help to lower bacterial, viral and fungi load so that the immune system, freed of a heavy load of combatants against it, can act with more vigour. Echinacea, which sometimes is sold along with Golden Seal Root, is an immune booster. A product named Echinacea Supreme combines Echinacea, Golden Seal Root and Grape Seed Extract, another great name in the immune supporting therapy. Here is one secret I will share later: pawpaw leaf juice.

    If the brain has been affected, because some molds cause cerebral allergy and nervous system damage, brain-health herbs are called for. Ginkgo biloba is well known. It promotes blood circulation to, and in the brain, enhances memory and cognition. Lion’s mane mushroom repairs damaged nerves and supports their regeneration. Omega-3 fatty acids prevents inflammation of brain cells and is a mood enhancer and anti-depressant. Some sources of Omega-3 oil are flax seed oil and evening primerose oil. But fish oil is the best. Noni juice is also good. If behaviour and mood are disturbed, a proprietary product named BEHAVIOUR BALANCE or MOOD SUPPORT are suggested.

    For general well-being in a state of aflatoxin overload, orange peel powder can be terrific. It is anti-toxin, anti-inflammatory, a lung decongestant and blood purifier.

    Adaptogenics, too, are indispensable. From low gear or high gear, they bring the body to normal gear. One of the most well-known among their ranks is Siberian Ginseng. We should not forget about greens…Wheatgrass, Chlorella, Kale, Spirulina and Liquid Chlorophyll taken alone or together. They detoxify the blood and lymph. They also recompose and oxygenate the blood. We should not relegate Stinging Nettle as well.

    The new farmers are pouring into the farms in hundreds of thousands, if not millions nationwide to ignite Nigeria’s real green revolution. IITA (international institute for tropical Agriculture) and NAFDAC are helping out with aflasafe on the farms and in storages. But they may not capture all the mold and aflatoxin in the net. So, when we eat, we should be reminded that aflatoxins may be present in the food. Therefore, our meals should not be without protection. You may have been reading in this column that I sometimes eat groundnuts and banana with pawpaw leaves (papaya). This leaf is an antioxidant and offers digestive protection. So are Bitter leaf and Basil leaf (Efinrin in Yoruba). Ditto garlic and tumeric.

  • Antidotes to life failures

    No one loves to fail; yet everyone fails at one point or the other. But failure is never the main thing. The main issue is how it is handled and converted to riches.

    This is what Dr Peter Obadan sets out to achieve in his new book Surmounting failure (Biblical perspective). The 207-page book admits that failure is inevitable but surmountable.

    Failure, according to the author, “connotes inability to realise hopes, expectations, aspirations or objectives which gravitates to a calamitous end if not handled with great care.”

    He adds: “There is always bitterness in failure but the ability to surmount it makes you a hero. That capability to overcome failures gives you the quantum leap that yields results in geometric progression.”

    The author begins with himself, showing how he failed in several ventures in life. Yet, he rose to the pinnacle of life, becoming the first executive deputy governor of Edo State.

    Without going through tertiary education, Obadan also qualified as a Chartered Accountant (UK) at a time graduates failed the examination woefully.

    He writes people fail because of cultural obstacles, generational debt, environmental essentialism and self-defeatism. These four critical factors, Obadan insists, have been bringing down even the bravest of men.

    To succeed, the author says people believe in God and follow divine vision. There must also be self-belief and great determination.

    But in all, he says being in Christ remains the best “insurance” against failure. Christ, according to him, already paid the ‘premium” for failures with his blood.

    This book easily qualifies more or less like a mini autobiography. The author alludes a lot to personal struggles and triumphs.

    This gains attentions and wins readers over to his side because the stories strike a chord.

    It also confers credibility on Obadan as an overcomer that deserves the attention of others. The book is a great contribution to Christian literature with the capacity to usher readers into a season of victory over failure.

    It is written in simple, friendly language, reading more or less like a warm letter from a father to his beloved children.

    In it, readers will learn how to prevent avoidable failures and learn from inevitable failures.

    It is laden with scriptural references that will further help believers to handle the treated issue.

    The author deserves a pat on the back for standing up to pass on his experiences as an elder statesman.

    Like most creative works, the book is not free from imperfections. There are typographical errors and a few grammatical misconstructions.

    Aside from these, it is a brilliant effort which readers will find enjoyable and helpful.

  • Some antidotes to Systemic Lupus erythematosus

    THERE is no time I think about my health that I do not remember Dr. Roger Williams, a biochemistry giant, Dr. Williams, author of 21 books and 300 articles,  discovered folic acid and vitamin B5 or Pantothenic Acid, and went on to write the beautiful book, THE WONDERFUL WORLD WITHIN US.

    Lest I put off my friends who see everything spiritually, as indeed we all should, that “wonderful world” should actually describe biochemistry within “our bodies”. For we are not these bodies but residents within them. So, in effect, I remember Dr. Williams whenever my eye dims, or my heart races a little faster, or I tend to be forgetful, literally run out of steam, or when a lab test suggests I need more oxygen, or potassium, or chloride or whatever else in my blood.

    Dr. Williams’ book shows how the body’s biology and chemistry are powered by about 53 elements in particular ratios and how deficiencies cause varying stages of illnesses or disease.    So, when I am confronted with a case of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) or Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (DLE), this beautiful book encourages me to wonder what may be going on inside that disturbed wonderful world within which the skin wraps away from the eye.

    My niece, the daughter of a Reverend gentleman, was the first SLE person I knew. She returned from holiday in the United States in the 1980s with an SLE diagnosis.  In that country, patients had become so knowledgeable about health questions that doctors no longer took them for a ride. In Nigeria, many people still return from a visit to their doctor without knowing something as basic as their blood pressure reading.

    Last week, I spoke on the telephone with a university student in Ado-Ekiti who always felt faintly or fainted on stepping out of bed in the morning. I had asked her to see her doctor and have her blood tested for red blood count, glucose level, oxygen etc. She had no personal records of these checks. All she remembered was that the doctor said “something about vascular something”.

    This young woman cut a totally different picture from my niece who died in of SLE in the 1980s she returned from the United States with a box load of literature the hospital gave her on her health challenge. The idea was that patients should be knowledgeable about their health conditions so that they could become healthy and active participants in the healing processes of their bodies. My niece was so ill she couldn’t do almost anything on her own. She couldn’t even climb or descend the stairs. So, her bed had to be brought down to the sitting room. She suffered from pains in her joints, which were almost always inflamed, a condition that may be easily mistaken for rheumatoid arthritis which, like SLE, is an auto-immune disease. Sometimes, also, it may be confused with fibromyalgia, a condition of inflammation and pain in the joints, muscles, nerves and perhaps the connective tissue as well with loss of energy. In such a circumstance, it will require proper lab tests to make the right diagnosis.

    Another SLE case I witnessed was that of the mother of an engineer. This woman, tall and agile in mid-life, became almost immobile and hardly able to talk. It took her minutes to rise from a seat. She could not support her grossly reduced weight. She liked to be independent, nevertheless. So, to walk to the toilet, for example, she would drag her feeble body along, holding tables, chairs, a standing fan or whatever lay within her reach. Her voice was lifeless, her eyes sunken. The soldiers of her body, her immune system, were trying to destroy that body, not its enemies, believing the body was an enemy that were meant to fight and eliminate.

    How would this happen? Simple!

    The answer requires an understanding of how the body defends itself, why it fails to do so but instead wages war on itself.

    The Immune System

    We can liken this system to, say, the Armed Forces of Nigeria. These armed forces comprise the Army, the Navy and the Air force. In the body, the defence system include organs, and mobile cells. These organs perform different roles which complement the functions of the mobile cells. They all function within an environment which we can liken to the human society, say Nigeria. Among these immune organ are the bone marrow, the thymus gland in the chest region and the lymph nodes in the armpits, groin, neck etc. The bone marrow produces cells which may differentiate into immune cells. In infancy, these cells migrate to the thymus gland, which matures them, hence their name… the T4 cells, T standing for thymus. In many adults, the thymus gland is found to have shrunken to about a quarter of its size because of Zinc deficiency. This is why people whose sores do not heal quickly or well, or who fall ill frequently or take longer time to overcome infections are given Zinc food supplements. It has been found that within two months on such a supplement, the thymus gland grows back to its normal size and it can produce more T4 cells for the immune system. In this generation which is bedeviled with sexual explosion to such extent that the sexual problem has been spiritually described as “an incurable disease”, men lose a lot of Zinc with every ejaculation. This is because about 80 per cent of the Zinc in a man’s body is stored in the prostate gland. Among its function there is the provision of an antioxidant alkaline environment and defence for the sperm in the acidic vagina, and to curb the excesses of an enzyme, 5-Alpha reductase which triggers enlargement of the prostate gland when there is not enough Zinc there. Additionally, Zinc deficiency in the body may aid deterioration of the eyes because this organ cannot absorb, let alone use, Vitamin A to build its health, without the aid of Zinc. Without enough Zinc in the thymus gland, this organ cannot produce enough thymulin hormone which aids the maturing of T4 cells.

    The lymph nodes are like filters in the lymphatic system. They may be likened to filters in the kidneys which remove poisons from the blood as it passes through them for excretion in the urine.  The lymphatic system is circulatory system parallel to the circulation of blood in arteries, veins and capillaries, the better known blood circulatory system. Red blood flows in this system. Actually, the colour of blood is not red. It is the red blood cells which give it that colour. At certain points in red blood flow system, the plasma, the clear fluid in the blood, separates from the red cells to flow in the lymphatic vessels which carry the lymph to feed the cells and remove their wastes or poisons. The lympth nodes are strategically located to filter toxins so they do not return to red blood circulation when the lympth rejoins the red cells in the blood vessels. When a lymph node enlarges, it suggests it has had or is having too much to chew in respect of too much poisons to filter. Blood tests often reveal an abnormally high number of white blood cells. This indicates a rapid production of these cells to deal with an urgent or critical invasion by foreign bodies, very much like a national army massively recruiting and training recruits in the course of a war.

    Therefore, swellings in the armpits, groin, neck and other places should be taken seriously, as these places may become cancerous (Hodgkins lymphoma, for example) if the toxemia grows out of hand.

    Organs of the immune system complement the work of immune cells. These cells are of various shapes and sizes, move about in the blood or are resident in the organs or lymphatic vessels. They are like policemen or troops on patrol. Based on their nature and work, they bear all sorts of names, including Basophils, Neutrophils etc.

    Some of these immune system cells produce chemicals which stain germs and other foreign bodies. Some other attack these stained germs and other parasites with enzymes which kill or maim the foreign bodies. The big cells, the macrophages, surround and engulf or eat up these stained bodies. Yet other immune cells gather information on foreign substances, like intelligence personnel of the secret service and pass it on to the cells or organs. This way, these cells and organs produce chemical substances with which they fight off any offensive. The information gathered would include data on the chemical or protein structure of the enemy, and the cells and organs, ready for a fight, would produce chemical substances which can neutralise or destroy the chemical or protein make-up of the enemy.

    Dr. Roger Williams’ book, THE WONDERFUL WORLD WITHIN, is, indeed, an interesting work.  The question most people would ask is, how does the immune system do these things when the cells and organs have no eyes and brains? I will come to that soon. Before then, I would add that recent research has shown that the environment in which these cells and organs function is crucial to their effectiveness and efficiency. Again, I would like to draw a parallel with the human society. Isn’t the effectiveness and efficiency with which the Nigerian Armed forces will deal with the Boko Haram rag-tag army in the kidnapping of  about 300 girls in boarding school related to the society in which these forces operate and of which they are integral members?

    In the body, this environment would include such integral members as the nervous system, the blood system, the blood system and the excretory system, particularly the lungs, liver, kidneys and intestine. Add the diet to this list.

     

    Signaling or Vibration

    he immune organs and cells have no eyes, alright. They recognise one another and other kindred cells of the body which number about 100 trillion in the adult through a unique vibrational frequency. In nature, every living and non-living thing vibrates on a frequency peculiar to it alone. The 100 trillion or so cells in the adult body originated from one sperm cell which fertilised one egg cell to form a single cell, the zygote, which kept dividing, one into two, two into four, four into eight etc. until the peak number was attained. As they divided, these cells differentiated according to the nature of their work. Cells that formed the eye differed from those of the kidneys or the brain or the bone. But wherever they found themselves, these cells never forgot that they belonged to one great family which, in unison, vibrated on the same frequency. That is why the immune cells reject organ transplants for these foreign organs would vibrate on different frequencies. The immune system would, therefore, have to be surprised with drugs, for the body to accept these strange organs.

    I experienced this on another scale when I was rearing animals. Somehow, the mother hen would know certain chicks were not hatched by her. She would peck them sometime to death, to stop them from following her. If a baby rabbit falls from the cage and you pick it with naked hand, the mother rabbit would smell your vibration on the young one and reject it. In the pig farm, the farmers are not happy with mother pigs (sows) which produced small litter. Pig spend three month, three weeks and three days from mating to birthing. If the sow produces three piglets, for example, where as many as 10 are expected, the fresh mother is sent for mating at the next menstrual ‘heat’ period, and the three piglets mixed up with those from a large litter. If the farmer does not first run his hands over the mother pig and thereafter massage the bodies of the three piglets with the vibrations thus picked, before mixing up the piglets, the mother pig would not agree to breast feed them. Before I learned the ropes, I always watched, amazed, at how the mother pig lying on her side, eyes closed while her piglets sucked her breasts, would suddenly rise to chase away foreign piglet which dared to try to suck her breasts. If these hungry piglets were stubborn and would not go away, the  mother piglet may bite them to death or eat them up!

    People who are fond of wearing second hand or used clothes should learn a lesson from this. Their vibration may be modulated by the vibration in those clothes which may still be linked to the vibrations of their last owners. This may be the source of certain seemingly inexplicable diseases or misfortunes so often attributed to ones ‘enemies’ in this part of the world.

    Immune System derangement

    Why would an otherwise intelligent immune system gradually or suddenly derail and begin to attack the body, of which it is a member and which it is meant to protect?

    Many reasons have been advanced as possible answers. I would like to mention only two of these possible factors because they appear to warehouse other factors. One is LEAKY GUT SYNDRONE. The other is ACIDOSIS.

     

    LEAKY GUT

    In leaky gut syndrome, the intestine is leaking. That is, the pores or holes through which digested food is absorbed into the bloodstream are wider than is normal.

    Consequently, larger or bigger molecules pass through. This is largely the function of a sick digestive process and system. The process begins in the mouth where teeth are supposed to break the morsel into small chunks in order to increase the surface area on which ptyalin, the alkaline-based enzyme in saliva, will act. Ptyalin converts complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides) to disaccharides. Another enzyme in the intestine converts disaccharides to monosaccharaides one of which is glucose, which produces energy for the cells, muscles and the brain. The failure of the digestive process begins in the mouths of many people. Many people do not chew their food properly, if they do at all, and do not let the morsel become liquefied by the saliva before they swallow it. The outcome is that polysaccharides do not get well converted to disaccharides and cannot be absorbed through the tiny pores of the intestinal villi (wall). In the intestine, the sludge forms food for bacteria and viruses and candida which grow abnormally large populations on this nurture. The parasites produce poisons which damage intestinal wall. They also nibble on this wall. In the end, the intestinal wall becomes so weak and its pores or sieves so large that abnormally large molecules of food are absorbed by the blood. The immune cells recognise these abnormally large molecules as irregular members of the household, and attack them to destroy them. When these molecules are incorporated into cells and tissue through adaptation in the absence of anything else, these cells and tissues come under immune attack for destruction.

    Researchers have found that when cooked food is eaten, the swarm of the immune cells in the stomach is enormous but decreases when raw food or water is taken before such meals. These are important points people challenged with SLE should bear in mind always. The intestine needs to be cleared up and leaky gut healed while the digestive function should be improved. Every morning, I try to take an anti-parasite formula on empty stomach. With my meals, I take probiotics. These are friendly bacteria which inhibit overgrowth of unfriendly bacteria. In between one meal and another, I sip Lasena artesian water. At 7.8pH, it is the most alkaline natural water in Nigeria today. It comes from a 522 meters deep well with zinc, silica and other medicinal and alkalising minerals. They help to neutralize dangerous acids in the body which may cause acidosis. Even then, I add Bio-plasma and homeopathic biochemical cell salts and 50mg Zinc to the water to make it more alkaline. Alkaline water has been found to be a key of longevity in many parts of the world. Nigeria’s top bottle water brands test acidic. In acidosis, that ‘wonderful world within’ described by Dr. Roger Williams has been poisoned by the air inhaled, the water drank, the food eaten, by stress and by negative emotions such as hatred. It has been found that the milk of nursing mothers who hate passionately often tastes sour, and that may be a reason a hungry baby rejects it and cries nevertheless for food.

    When the cells become acidic, a microscopic organism microbiologists call microzyma emerges from within them to destroy them. The body works optimally at 7.4pH. The pH scale is graduated 0-14. Readings below 7 are acidic, above alkaline. In acidosis, the signally of cells is grossly diminished, and the environment is literally filled with a babel of voices (signas or vibrations). The immune system is disoriented and misrecognises kith and kindred cells for enemy cells, attack and destroys them with antibodies.

  • Before antidotes become ineffective

    SIR: The flow of a river can only be stopped by killing its source. If one tries to block its way without tampering with its source, one is only deceiving oneself because it will always find another way. The greatest challenge facing Nigeria today is insecurity from the Boko Baram insurgency.

    Obviously, the government is trying its best to combat this menace. But for me, the killing of Boko Haram members cannot bury the insurgency. The menace has its own source, the members of this insurgent group have sponsors who act as the godfathers and for as long as these godfathers remain “untouchable”, they will keep on recruiting more members. So, we can only celebrate the death of Boko Haram insurgency if we are able to track down its sponsors.

    Another problem robbing the country of development is corruption. The legislature, executive and most unfortunately, the judiciary are corrupt. To add salt to our injury, impunity is also now of greater height in the country. Corruption drowns development and incapacitates progress. When corruption is alive, development is dead. So, for as long as we have leaders who are corrupt, our progress as a nation will be at stake.

    Those who are in the position to hammer corrupt people but refuse to do so are in fact, the most corrupt because they are encouraging corruption by condoning corrupt acts.

    One thing is certain; one will be remembered for what one does today. For instance, every June 12 of the year, Nigerians always remember two past leaders for vertically two opposite things,good and bad. This teaches us that anybody who found himself in any position should respect people’s rights because whatever we do today will become history tomorrow.

    The country’s oil is also rotten. NNPC cannot account for a missing US$10

    billion. Sometimes, I wonder whether the oil we have in this country has done an average Nigerian any good. Nigeria is the largest producer of crude oil in Africa yet its citizens are buying fuel at a price which is higher than the price of fuel in some African countries that don’t even have a spill of oil embedded in their own soil. This is unfortunate!

    Our government has shifted all attention to crude oil and this has caused a decline in the agricultural exports of the country. Crude oil is a non-renewable energy resources; so, it may finish in some hundred years to come. If we must provide for our children, we have to invest in the agricultural sector.

    In a nutshell, it is better for us to effect a change now before the antidotes become ineffective when there may be no way out. So, corruption and impunity must stop, Insecurity must be buried and poverty must be totally eradicated if Nigeria must move forward.

     

    • Jamiu Idowu Esho

    Eruwa, Oyo State.