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Tag: blood

  • Asaba specialist hospital to set up 24-hour walk-in donor unit

    Asaba specialist hospital to set up 24-hour walk-in donor unit

    On World Blood Donor Day, Asaba Specialist Hospital (ASH) announced a campaign to Drive home the need for more awareness about the importance of blood donation. 

    They also disclosed that the facility hopes to eventually provide easy access for willing donors and ensure the timely availability of blood for patients in need. 

    The Chief Medical Director, Dr. Peace Ighosewe made this announcement at a Blood Drive organised on Friday, June 14, 2024, by the management of the hospital to commemorate World Blood Donor Day, 2024.

    While Speaking on the idea behind the Blood Drive and the plan to make the exercise more frequent due to an increase in demand as a result of the increased inflow of patients to the facility, Dr Peace Ighosewe, the Chief Medical Director of ASH stated that it has become imperative to have a walk-in blood donor unit at the tertiary health facility which can be accessed by people willing to donate blood at any time and the management team are committed to actualising it.

    Dr Ighosewe also stated that she was greatly impressed with the turnout of donors who willingly visited the hospital on Friday as a result of the Blood Drive to make voluntary blood donations. She also revealed that the staff of ASH — from Doctors to Nurses, including members of the cleaning and security units also came out to selflessly donate to support this lifesaving cause.

    Dr Peace Ighosewe, expressed her gratitude to the Delta State Government for providing an enabling environment and to the Delta State Ministry of Health, led by the Honorable Commissioner Dr Joseph Onojaeme, for their support and commitment to the success of the blood drive. 

    Furthermore, she appreciated her dedicated team of Medical Laboratory Scientists, led by the HOD, Faith Emetonjor, for their exceptional work in planning and executing the project, members of her management team and Organising Committee and all the 46 amazing donors, particularly donors who are staff of the hospital.

    Faith Emetonjor, the HOD Medical Laboratory Science Department, who spoke to newsmen at the event said the blood drive was organised to celebrate old donors and encourage new people to begin to donate. She also reassured donors that there are comprehensive medical checks that have been put in place to ensure the safety of all donors and blood products, with two functional blood banks and a refrigerated centrifuge in the facility, to ensure proper storage and utilisation of the units of blood donated.

    Mr Emeka Nwangwu, a businessman who stumbled on the event while on a visit to the hospital said he felt morally obligated to donate. He said, “I Brought my daughter to the hospital for immunisation unknowing to me that today is World Blood Donor Day and on seeing the Blood Drive, I felt it was part of my responsibility to volunteer and help save lives by donating to this cause.” He concluded by encouraging more people to come forward and donate.

    A staff of the Asaba Specialist Hospital, Mr Chukwuebuka Obidike who was one of the 46 donors said, “I am a frequent donor and I have been doing this for a while now. When I saw the announcement for a blood drive I decided to come and donate. 

    Asaba Specialist Hospital is dedicated to making blood donation a quarterly moral responsibility, encouraging everyone to participate. With the plan to eventually set up a Blood Donor Unit, the hospital is poised to revolutionize blood donation and patient care in the State.

  • Hospital, NGO team up to promote voluntary blood donation

    Hospital, NGO team up to promote voluntary blood donation

    Esteemed Life Saver Initiative, a non-governmental organisation, collaborated with Randle General Hospital, Surulere, Lagos, to conduct a voluntary blood donor drive, aiming to encourage blood donation and create awareness about sickle cell disease during World Sickle Cell Awareness Month. The event, organised by the blood transfusion committee of Randle General Hospital, saw active participation from numerous voluntary blood donors.

    Dr. Olumide Sojinrin, the Medical Director/CEO of Randle General Hospital, expressed gratitude for the initiative, recognising it as aligned with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s THEMES Agenda to save lives. He emphasised the importance of working with NGOs to meet the demand for voluntary blood donation and underscored the state government’s commitment to partnering with private organisations and NGOs to enhance healthcare delivery.

    Read Also: Lagos shuts hospital for transfusing unscreened blood

    Dr. Abosede Adabale, a Consultant and Head of the Haematology Department, who represented Sojinrin at the event, highlighting the necessity for increased voluntary blood donors and advocating collaboration in combating sickle cell disease.

    Esteemed Life Saver Initiative board member, Mr. Adam Alimi, praised the partnership between the NGO, the state government, and the dedicated staff of Randle General Hospital. He explained that voluntary donors underwent thorough medical examinations, including blood pressure, weight, height, and blood quantity assessments to ensure their suitability for donation.  Mr. Husseni Muhammed, an Executive Secretary at Sick Kids Hospital Foundation and a blood donor, shared insights on the benefits of blood donation. He lauded the initiative and encouraged more stakeholders to join hands with the state government in this noble endeavour to save lives.

  • Rivers of tears, blood and gore

    Even though the 2015 general elections in Nigeria were applauded as a positive watershed in the country’s electoral evolution, Rivers State proved a regrettable exception. The election that year, in Rivers State, was characteristically difficult to distinguish from war. Armed militias loyal to different political actors shot and killed innocent persons at will; while scores of people were routinely beheaded in an orgy of barbarism.

    This year’s national and state elections held on February 23 and March 9 have been widely adjudged to be a marked improvement on the 2015 polls in terms of fairness, freeness, logistics, credibility and security. While there were isolated incidents of violence in some polling units in parts of the country, these were nipped in the bud and most Nigerians were able to exercise their civic rights in safety. Much more importantly, their votes counted.

    Yet again, however, Rivers State has been the notorious exception.

    For example, the governorship and House of Assembly elections in Rivers simply hang in a limbo since collation of results was suspended as a result of the widespread violence and unremitting bloodshed that marred the polls despite heavy security presence in the state.

    In a full page advert in this newspaper on March 19, six eminent indigenes of Rivers State, namely, Atedo Peterside, George Etomi, Tein George, Emmanuel T. Georgewill, John Azuta Mbata, O.C.J. Okocha and Herbert Wigwe, expressed alarm and concern at the prevalent situation in their state.

    Aptly titled ‘Rivers Lives Also Matter’, the advert strongly condemned the violence that characterized the elections in Rivers both on February 23 and March 19, stressing that “These violent deaths have led to the needless loss of so many lives, especially youths in various communities. We do not believe that elections which are designed to enable the people choose their leaders should lead to their death instead. Therefore, every single death must be investigated and the culprits brought to justice”.

    The advert expressed concern at the role of the military engaged in election duties in the state and called for a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to undertake a “thorough, professional and unbiased” investigation into the issue.

    Incidentally, another newspaper advert published yesterday, signed by another group of no less eminent Rivers indigenes, put the blame for the electoral crisis and political disharmony in the state squarely on the shoulders of the Rivers state INEC and colluding political actors.

    The advert, however, commended the professionalism with which the military conducted itself in the state during the elections. Signees of this advert were a former governor of the state, Mr. Rufus Ada George and other statesmen – Chief Alabo T.O. Graham-Douglas, HRH Alabo Prof. D.M.J. Fubara, Chief Sampson Agbaru, Rear Admiral O. Fingesi and Group Captain J.I. Ben -Kalio (rtd).

    It is our view that seeking to blame the military or INEC for the unsavory situation in Rivers State is absolutely misplaced. After all, Rivers is not the only state where functionaries of these agencies operated during the elections. Rather, what we have on our hands is an entrenched culture of impunity, intolerance, arrogance and lack of respect for human lives among a broad spectrum of Rivers political elite transcending partisan boundaries. The hazardous terrain, entrenched culture of militancy and too much money in the hands of criminal gangs makes Rivers the electoral umpires nightmare.

    The ‘Rivers Lives Also Matter’ advert struck the nail on the head when it stated that “We are deeply troubled by the inability of the political leaders in our State to manage their rivalries and differences within acceptable norms of a civilized society as has been done in several other States in Nigeria”.

    For Rivers, therefore, charity must begin at home. These adverts by key Rivers elite are a starting point. The next step is to begin to take concrete steps to mobilize both the elite and the masses against the prevalent political imbecility that makes Rivers a national laughing stock.

     

  • The blood, albinism, leaking urinary bladder (3)

    JUNE was a month of one World Day after another. The blood, albinism, sickle cell disease had one day each. Last Monday was Mosquito Day. The urinary bladder may find a place on this growing list. Only people who have been challenged by “Urinary incontinence” will recognise that, while this may not be an incurable disease or seriously life-threatening it is, nevertheless, an embarrassing which may make the sufferer feel disabled. The picture I often see when thoughts of these conditions cross my mind is that of a pretty, effervescent woman reduced to a caricature by a stroke which took away from her control over her urinary bladder. It was bad enough that her husband was gone, and all her children, grown, had left home to found their own families. To worsen matters for her, she had to live with her son whose wife soon got tired of changing diapers for an old woman. The emotional stress which followed the stress of her son’s marriage must have made her lose the will to live. Some women are luckier. Their leaks are not caused by a stroke and are often easily treatable because they are not disease, but symptoms of them or other less problematic events. The bladders of a man and a woman leak little amounts of urine when they laugh, cough or lift heavy objects. Some of them may be old, and and the nerves and muscles of their bladders may have become weak in the ageing process. Some may have germ infected urinary bladders which make these storages contract irrationally to expel urine. When a woman has had her womb surgically removed, urinary incontinence is not too far from the picture. For the womb and the urinary bladder are supported by muscles and ligament common to both, and the surgeon’s knife may have been intruded hither and thither. Child birth does not always leave a woman unscathed. Apart from the pressure of the uterus and foetus on the urinary bladder during some pregnancies causing small and frequent emissions now and then, the uterus may prolapse, that is leave its bounds. The intestine, too, may protrude into the vaginal region, disturbing equilibrium in the pelvic. In some men, the phosphate gland may be inflamed, enlarged or it may have become cancerous. Some pharmaceutical medicines may be the culprits behind urinary incontinence. So can a large dosage of vitamin C or diuretics. At work, also, may be coffee, caffeine and spicy foods or drinks.

     

    Types of incontinence

     

    Doctors divide urinary bladder incontinence into different groups in accordance with their presentations. The common groups are related to stress, infection, overflow, function, timing (temporary or permanent), medicating (heart and blood pressure medicines, muscle relaxants e.t.c.)

     

    Stress

     

    Coughing, laughing and exercises, such as lifting of heavy objects, may pile pressure on the urinary bladder and cause urine leakage. The spincter muscles at the neck of the bladder ought to withstand the pressure. As it doesn’t, there is a suggestion that, either in constitution or tone, this muscle is weak. This may be a subtle message that the health of muscles throughout the body needs to be addressed. This is important. The heart is a crucial bundle of muscles. Muscles hold the skeletal system together. The uterus, too, is a muscular organ. Muscles hold the eyeball to its socket. Even in the eyeball, muscles are present. In such disease conditions as glaucoma, muscle weakness is indicated. But all too often, attention is not paid to the entire body or to the fact that muscular dystrophy may be emerging, worsened as well by nerve deterioration. You probably have heard reports of people who collapse on their own weight. Their muscles and nerves just cannot hold their bodies together. I was told of a case in Ibadan last year. She was in her 60s. If she tried as little to cross a road in haste, she crashed. So, she had to seek help all the time. I suspected this could be a case of “mild beriberi” in which the nerves and muscles are deprived of thiamine, Vitamin B1, through dietary deficiency. People whose diet is almost exclusively refined rice suffer most from it. People who live on divretics, such as hypertensives, may always have their thiamine stocks washed away in the urine. Nerves may begin to deteriorate when they do not have enough thiamine and this may affect muscles. Realising that Lions Mane Mushroom  is one of the rare herbs which supports the regeneration of mangled or damaged nerves and, in addition, increase nerve flow or energy flow in the nervous system, among new discoveries about its other contributions to health in other parts of the body, I suggested Vitamin B1 and this mushroom to this woman. As set to write this column, I called the woman who introduced her to me to ask about the health of the older woman. To my joy, the younger woman reported that she was now as fit as fiddle. Such was the status of a young man who was falling on staircases and was, also, beset with slurry tongue. To understand what a slurry tongue may imply, push forward your tongue and try to speak!

    To Vitamin B1 and Lions Mane Mushroom may be added Magnesium. There are many brands of magnesium in the market, but many of them are not easily bio-available and are, therefore, good waste of money. The brands most often considered good are Magnesium Orotate and Magnesium Citrate, in that order. In a state of magnesium deficiency, the body is like “frozen” because the status suggest calcium dominance. Calcium contracts, but magnesium relaxes. It is this situation of contraction and relaxation which keeps the body in equilibrium. What has been suggested above does not rule out the use of bio-chemic tissue of cell salts which improves nerve and muscle constitution and tone.

     

    Urge incontinence

     

    When nature calls and you head for the rest-room but urine begins to drip before you arrive there, or it cannot wait for you to undo the zip or buttons, that’s urge incontinence. An infection may be at work, which may be easily cleared up with such natural anti-microbials are corn silk, cranberry, Aloe vera, Garlic, Golden seal root, Mango seed Extract, Collodal Silver, Black walnut Hull, Apple cider Vinegar, Maria Trebens Swedish Bitters, and proprietary blends such as Virus Viral, Bladder and yeast infections, Amazon A-F, Amazon A-V, Grand Aloberrynectar and the likes of them. But, sometimes, urge incontinence may have neurological foundations, or even diabetes. In the case of diabetes, prompt action should be taken to avoid such degeneration as may affect the eye, kidneys and nerves. Chromium or chromium-containing formulas such as BLOOD SUGAR, BLOOD SUGAR BALANCE may be called up. Herbs, such as FENUGREEK and CINAMON, are good. My current pets are ORANGE PEEL POWDER, which have been out of the market for some time, and RED KIDNEY BEAN POD POWDER. The latter not only cuts blood sugar well, but it also, helps many kidney conditions and supports weight management.

     

    Overflow incontinence

     

    Here, urine is not flowing reasonably out of the urinary bladder. That means the bladder does not empty completely despite intense urge, causing frequent or constant urine dribbling, such as experienced by when beset with inflamed, enlarged or cancerous prostate gland. Many men are now aware this symptom is better not treated with kid gloves, having witness the discomfeitures of many friends who either have to go about their activities of with a cathether and a urine bag on their bodies, or who have had to undergo expensive n50-50 chance of survival surgeries, with many dying in the process. Now, such men know they have to be on a daily zinc supplement, in addition to other vital food supplements. About 80 percent of the zinc in a mans body is behaved to be resident in his prostate gland where, combined with prostatic fluid, it makes the sperm fertile and provides it an excellent alkaline environment for its survival in the acidic vagina environment. Many cases of a couples infertility may be caused by an overly acidic vagina and a semen not alkaline enough to survive this atmosphere. Men themselves may be responsible for this by being sexually over-exposed without responsibly restoring, dietarily, the zinc they lose with every ejaculation. This brings them nearer their prostatic waterloo because of another vital function that zinc performs inside the prostate gland. Inside the gland is an enzyme named 5-ALPHA REDUCTASE. In the presence of adequate amounts of zinc in this gland, 5-alpha reductase behaves normally. It cuts the picture of a rat in the colony of cats. When zinc is indefficient status in the prostate gland, 5-alpha reductase goes to town as it were, converting the male hormone Testosterone to Di-hydro testosterone (DHT), which encourages or stimulates prostate gland cells to overgrow or enlarge. As any man of my age should care for his prostate gland in an environment where men about 20 years younger are stumbling, I do not wait for warning signals before I take the bull by the horn. I even encourage my son who is under 30 to get on zinc culture. Every morning I make him make a tea pot of Stinging Nettle Root Powder Tea for both of us. This is reported by Maria Treben, the Austrian author of  HEALTH THROUGH GOD’S PHARMACY, to be one of the best blood builders and cleansers on the face of the earth. I go for it more for its ability to make urine flow naturally through a check on prostate gland enlargement. Some people prefer the leaf, but I think I do much better on the root powder as tea or sprinkled on food or wisped into juice. For me, it increases the force of urine voiding, frees the pelvic of that pressure often associated with urine retention after voiding. Besides, it increases the quantum of urine voided, thereby eliminating the question of and need for frequent voiding. Of all the other remedies I would have liked to mention, I would be able to talk about only ROBUST ROOT and AFRICAN BLACK ANT. Robust Root is indicated primarily for low male libido and, erectile dysfunction, turgidity and all that. It works for these immediately and long term. One of the side effects often reported by the users is that, suddenly, they begin, again, to experience early morning turgidity which is a hallmark of a virile man. Even children experience it. Something must be going wrong urogenically for the mature man who no longer experiences it. As an icing on the cake, perhaps, experiencing it helps to overcome some, if not all, of the challenges of overflow incontinence. As for African Black Ant, which works gradually, it is reported to help out in prostate gland enlargement in addition to its libido and erectile dysfunction healing activities.

     

    Functional incontinence

    This occurs when a mental or physical ailment delays arrival in the rest-room, or, while there, one cannot immediately get into the act.

     

    Mixed incontinence

     

    Sometimes, combinations of these problems or all are the root of the challenge. For women only using the United States model where about 25 million people experience urinary incontinence and about 80 percent of them are female, it can be assumed that more women than men suffer from this condition in many countries. After all, they are the ones who suffer more from yeast and candida infections in the urinary tract where the equally dangerous or more virulent ailments abound. For this reason, many women turn up at the doctor’s. But, increasingly, they are becoming frustrated by anti-cholinergic drugs they are given to normalise events in their bladders. Some of these drugs leave the users with unpalatable side effects such as blurry vision, faster heart beat, dry mouth, an indication of constipation, memory loss and even convulsion. In the search for safer options, some have had bladder or vaginal surgeries to shore up muscles and ligaments which hold the urinary bladder in place. Women do not give up in the search for health. Pressing their doctors for better and safer and more convenient options, women who are Challenged have obtain a number of natural reliefs or cures from the natural medicine industry, about five of which I will sickly mention here.

    The first is the party liner which, as reported in this column a few months ago, is now becoming popular in Nigeria. It is much lighter and smaller than the typical menstrual pad menstruating women are familiar with. It is not used by only women who suffer from vaginal infection and do not want discharges to soil or ruin their panties, or who wish to avoid embarrassment of the repulsive odour which these discharges may spew around them.

    Panty (or panties) liners are now worn by women who suffer from any form of urinary incontinence. Such women keep a few panty liners in their bags and wear one over their panties. When urine drops (or those vaginal discharges) soil the one they wear, they simply walk irrelevant to the rest – room, change it, throw it into the trash and walk away, free again. The second option is a behavioral change.  It is timed voiding. That means, tying to empty the bladder at regular intervals. My friend are surprised to learn that I void the bladder every four hours, full or not, except at night, when I may be pressed once. This, along with thiamine, lions mane mushroom and magnesium helped me to curb urinary incontinence. Timed voiding also helps to prevent microbial build- up and overgrowth which may cause urinary tract infection.

     

    Kegel’s exercise

     

    Developed by Dr. Kegel is a third option. Please search the internet for this. It is being employed to day by millions of men and women world-wide to solve pelvic flour challenges such as urinary and incontinence, premature ejaculation of flabby vaginal wall muscles arising from birthing or other challenges. Magnesium constitutes the fourth option. This is a mineral that is becoming more well used as a food supplement these days because of its importance in normalising nerve and muscle function in blood pressure mechanisms, sleep disorder, joint immobility, constipation, mental adroitness and other situation. In the troublesome bladder, there may be more calcium than magnesium in the calcium / magnesium mix. This may lead to contraction of nerves and muscle spasms which cause irregular dropping. Just this scenario may be playing out in premature ejaculation which leaves many sexual partners exasperated and fusions. Magnesium in the bladder tissue helps to calm tremulous nerve and muscles and, thereby, helps to resolve urinary incontinence. One study at Tel Aviv University involving 40 women is deported to have confirmed this hypothesis.

    Finally, women wound need to get out more in the early morning sun, which is same to help the body absorb Vitamin D, which in turn, is known to help the absorption of calcium into the bones. Too much calcium outside the bones may cause deposition of this minerals on soft tissues, hardening them, as in Arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) which may cause high blood pressure. According to a 2010 study published in OBSTETRITS and GYNEOCOLOGY reported that women who presented higher levels of Vitamin D exhibited lower risks of pelvic flour disorder, compared with women with a lower levels of this sunshine Vitamin. These pelvic flour disorders included urinary incontinence. There would no doubt, be more safer option available to women and men beset with incontinence. We may talk about thesew another day.

  • The blood, albinism, leaking urinary bladder (2)

    JUNE 2018 was a memorial month for many people. In Nigeria, June 12 was anointed the new DEMOCRACY DAY. June 13 was celebrated worldwide as BLOOD DAY (see the first part of these series). June 14, worldwide, was the ALBINISM DAY, during which the albino,that man or woman in any race who has no pigment in his or her skin, eyes and hair is presented to the rest of humanity as a normal human being, irrespective of genetic differences. And June 17?it was FATHERS DAY! I did not hear much said of fathers, though, except that, as we say in Yoruba Land, omo okunrin ti o ba gun esin obinrin maa kan li ese (the male child who rides on a woman horse would have a broken leg). By this saying, the Yoruba’s tend to consign the upbringing of girls to their mothers, and boys to their fathers. The reminder of this is that a boy brought up by a woman cannot be a man (i.e. the broken leg, on which, of course, he cannot walk smartly through hazards of earth-life). In other words, it is implied, however successful such man may be, he would remain emotionally imbalanced! It was believed then, and probably even now still, that such men would think and feel like women, almost denatured. And that informed why women were allowed to nurture their sons for only seven years, after which the boys were weaned off them to join their fathers on the farms or in whatever occupation they engage in. Today, I would like to give the floor to the albino.

     

    The Albino

     

    Unless the albino is an inwardly stable person; his or her life is most likely to be a tortuous, even devastating one. It takes more than guts for a woman to marry an albino for man as it is for a man to settle for one. Even among albinos, albino-albino marriages are rare. One albino who was interviewed in a Lagos radio programme on albinism day said he outclassed other candidates in a pre-employment test, but he was not given the job because it was thought the sight of him may jeopardise the corporate interest. In my early days in journalism that is in the 1970s, two of the contributors of the newspaper on which I worked, the Daily Times, were albinos. They were prolific writers. One of them died of skin cancer. I lost contact with the other in the 1980s. But, by the mid-seventies, I met another one in the university. He was an intelligent Catholic Reverend Father. He had a cleaner skin than the ones I met before then. This was probably because he had money to take care of his special skin challenges. In the course of my public advocacy to popularise alternative medicine and nutritional approach to health and wellness, I have met more albinos, and I have known joy when they incorporate suggestions I offer into their lifestyles, and these work wonders for them.

     

    Albino Myths

     

    The albino is enveloped by many myths in south-western Nigeria. One is that albino health is damaged by the consumption of table salt, and so, albinos avoid it. The impression this myths convey is the picture of an earthworm sprinkled with table salt. But this isn’t true; albinos are not that vegetable. Many of them consume table salt than many non-albinos. We cannot discountenance abstention, though, in conditions of hypertension and other disease-situations which demand that non-albino as well limit their dietary sodium intake. Another scientifically disproven myth is that albino babies are made when a man cohabits with a woman during her menstruation. There are transcendental imputations which are beyond the province of science. One of these is that albinism is punishment for theft from the court or temple of a deity in a previous earth-life. I have heard such suggested, as well, in the cases of “incurable disease” of karmaic origins. One of such concerns the priests of the sun god in the days of sun worship in Egypt. The priests were said to force stubborn unbelievers to look into the sun with their eyes wide open till they became blind. What do we expect, it is asked, if justice reigns in the universe and such perpetrators of such misdeeds are sent back to the earth after their passage, to reap the harvest of seed they once sowed. Another quick reminder of such karmaic friend, we are advised, is the execution modes in the courts of  Yoruba obas (Kings) of the days of yore, when the oba was a supreme ruler; next only to the deity. The Oba pronounced death sentence with the instruction that a spear be plunged into the eye of the condemned person until the spear emerge at the back of the head! If we have no faith in these assertions known, at least for now, to be beyond the capacity of science to verify, why are we not reminded easily, we are asked, by what befalls the Ogbanje or the Abiku, who traumatised their parent? The Ogbanje and Abiku may or may not be mere mythological conceptions. They may or may not be mere sickled cell diseased persons who died at their appointed tenures but are misconstrued to bekill-joy members of a principality or power centre in the cosmos who enjoy themselves by tormenting parents who have made children breeding their earth – project. The Igbos call them Ogbanjes,  the Yorubas, Abiku. And Abiku may recycle himself in a family about three or fourtimes before anyone suspects what is going on. He or she incarnates in a family. But first when the parents begin to know joy of parenthood through him or her, he or she defects, through death, to the principality, where resounding joy rings out over a mission accomplished. In yorubaland, the elders teach such souls a lesson by mutilating the bodies of Abikus or burning it. People given to astral life know it is possible for a departing soul still attached to the body to feel the paininflicted on that body. Such mutilation hardens the criminal soul for more devastating exploits next time. But when he or she re-incarnates, what do we find? The marks of these mutilations or burning appear on the corresponding parts of the body of the new baby.At this time, all efforts are made to disconnect that soul from the power centre or its earthly legion.

    This automatically leads us to the possibility of how an albino came by his or her body, like the rest of us. We know about the sperm from the man fertilising the egg in the woman, and often marvel at howthese resultant zygote grows into a humane body. We will never stop bowing before the majesty of the wisdom of the Almighty Creator. Everything which exists has an astral prototype.

    KillianSemyom has demonstrated that scientifically with his Kirhan photography. We have seen it demonstrated, also, in Psychic or astral surgery. When we scream in dreams and simultaneously scream in the physical, there are two dimensions to that event. So, when a man and a woman engage in the pro-creative act and, thereby, set off vibrations which form into a channel to souls wishing to incarnate, many event at the astral level begin to take shape. A baby may be set off to grow in the womb. A human soul to inhabit that growing body someday may be appointed to it to the exclusion of others under rightful conditions. At a certain time in the course of these event, the coming human soul connects with the would-be-mother and the baby forming in her womb with threads of radiations. These radiations present an astral prototype of that coming soul to the growing body. In that astral prototype are all the features that human souls would bear on earth this time around. They are the resultants of its previous earth-life and experiences outside the realm of the earth. It is after the astral prototype that the growing body develops. Even there are genetic semblances with the parent or great, great grand parents, it would be because they are all homogeneous souls or linked by Karma. Who knows if they were all one Sun god priests?

     

    Signs of Albinism

     

    The Albino is known by many signs, especially lack of pigmentation in the skin, eyes and hair. The pigmentation is given by melanin. This means albinos have no melanin or do not have enough of it. In the physical sense, Albinismis thus a congenital disorder.There are many types of albinism in humans, but these are not our concern. For the purpose of this column, it is sufficient to know that, in the skin, pigmentation may be totally or slightly absent or absent in patches. The loss of pigmentation expose the skin to oxidation by cosmic rays, as there is no filter for them, and this may cause cancer. The skin may be crumpled, burned or “cooked ” in the eyes, albinism may cause redness, poor vision day and night. Eye colour may also be violet, but it is generally blue. Vision is low or poor because of abnormal formation of the retina, and the connections of the eye and the brain which eye glasses cannot correct. Many of them have a vision acuity of 20/200 or less. The hair may present colours ranging from cream and yellow to reddish tinge, blonde, yellow or orange or even light brown. There are more signals coming from the albino eye. They may be crossed eyes, rapid eye movement, lazy eyes, photophobias, sensitivity to bright eyes and glares, short sightedness or astymatism. Poor development of the retina, the light sensitive part of the eye, misrouting of the optic nerve to the brain.

    In Nigeria, some of us make a mistake when we assume albinos exist among only Africans. No race, Asian, European or American is spared this congenital disorder. While among some it occurs in between one to 18,000 and one to 20,000 of the population, it may present in one to 3,000 of others. In some albinos, the skin is not completely “bleached”. Some African albinos have reddish skin. The impact on vision also varies from mild to worse.

     

    Help For Albinos

     

    In Nigeria, some albinos are too poor to help themselves cope well with their conditions. Some are ignorant, that is they do not have information on what to do. But, now, they are forming associations and linking in social media. The public relations officer of one of these associations told Radio Lagos that he always sought to help to cross the roads, wore protective eye glasses, used binoculars to view distant objects and magnifying glass to read. I would like to begin with photophobia, that is sensitivity to light. This is in varying degrees. It may be caused by nutritional deficiencies such as Vitamin A, Vitamin B-complex, carotenoids, especially, lutein and zeazanthin, zinc and essential fatty acids. Photophobia may be aggravated by migraine. This type responds to Riboflavine (Vitamin B2), which is best taken along with a good dosage of Vitamin B-complex. The albino has to watch out for such as Tetracyclin, anti-diabetic and anti-malarial medications. They sometimes cause photophobia. So are eye drops which dialate the pupil, such as in glaucoma. People who naturally have large pupils have a predisposition to photophobia as their eyes let into much light. As dry eyes also cause photophobia, Vitamin A supplements may help. It is better to take solublelised (water soluble) Vitamin A as this is tolerated by the body, the liver in particular, in large amounts. When supplementing with lutein and zeazanthin, it is advisable to include broad spectrum carotenoids as well. Lutein and zeazanthin are, like Beta carotene, members of the 600 or so plus carotenoid family.

    The carotenoids may be found plenty in marigold flowers which are now available commercially in powder form. Lutein and zeazanthinare commercially extracted from them from all sorts of eye care medicines.

    Zinc is ideal because, without it, Vitamin A may not be well absorbed or used by the eye. Alpha Lupoic Acid is important. It is an antioxidant  active in fat and fluid media, both of which are present in the eye. This brings us to the need for other anti-oxidants helpful to the eye such as grape seed extract, Vitamin E and Bilbery, which protected British pilots against the glare of bombs during the Second World War. Zinc is an anti-oxidant to consider for the skin, either as an ingredient in body creams. We should remember that zinc is a chief ingredient in calamine lotion which clears the mess of measles in the skin. Albino skin needs it, too. I will seriously also recommend Orange Peel Powder in the body and hair cream of albinos. It clears scars in some people and protects the skin against the sun’s ray, apart from thickening the hair, making it grow long and sturdy andpreventing dandruff.

    Back to the eyes. In a study, Stringham and                Hammond report to the journal of food science that visual performance improved and light sensitivity decreased in subjects who took Carotenoids (10 mg lutein and 2 mg zeazanthin) everyday. Lutein is found more in leafy, green vegetables, including, as often mentioned in this column, Kalie, spinach, Spirulina and carrots. Magnesium relaxes blood vessels in the eyes to, like Bilbery and Ginkgo biloba among their other benefits, improve blood circulation.

    As for the skin of the albino, we may add to the recipes already mentioned for it dietary supplements such as Silica, which is good for the skin, nail and hair for everyone.

    Broad-rimmed hats, not just face caps, are recommended. Dark clothing is good, as black repels light, thus preventing the skin from absorbing Ultraviolet (IUV) light.Skin screen massage oils are helpful. Many people talk about Red Raspberry oil this may be scarce in Nigeria. Coconut oil has tingesof vitamin E and plenty of Lauric acid which kills parasitic micro – organisms as proven in oral use for diarrhea in HIV/ AIDS . I have seen skin condition helped by peanut oil fortified with vitamin A. Super – oxide dismutase (SOD) oil is no push over. The same goes for neem (dogonyaro) oil. Flat seed oil may be smelly but may be a good ally dietarily. So is Udo’soil. When Awocado is in season, it may be used as skin and facial scrub 30 minutes before a bath. The oil is a friend of the skin. Do not throw banana peel away it can produce a good skin and serve as a face scrub as well. There must be a place for cam wood. Ditto Shea butter. My cream is made of Shea butter, coconut oil and orange peel powder. Another recipe is sesame oil, lavender oil (20 drop) and one teaspoonful of vitamin E oil Albinos should hot indulge in foodless foods. Those to avoid like a plague are refined carbohydrates, white sugar in all forms, fried foods, hydrogenated fat, trans fatty acids, processed food, preservatives, while flour food of all kind. Fruit and vegetables, especially those with high anti-oxidant content, are their best friends.

  • Blood in our streets  

    Twentieth century Chilean poet and 1971 Nobel literature prize laureate, the late Pablo Neruda, struck an intensely emotional pitch in a poem he wrote on the Spanish Civil War titled ‘I’m Explaining a Few Things.’ In that famous work, you couldn’t miss the poet’s deep pathos. And he could as well have foretold Nigeria’s current blight of communal bloodletting, of which the recent rampage in three local governments of Plateau State that left scores of persons dead is only the latest.

    Neruda, in the poem, recalled the peace in his corner of Madrid before the fighting broke out: ‘I lived in a suburb / a suburb of Madrid, with bells / and clocks, and trees…My house was called / the house of flowers, because in every cranny / geraniums burst: it was / a good-looking house / with its dogs and children.’

    Then, the war came and that idyllic landscape became like sheer illusion induced by a drugged sleep, as the poet wrote:  ‘And one morning all that was burning / one morning the bonfires / leapt out of the earth / devouring human beings — / and from then on fire / gunpowder from then on / and from then on blood…Bandits with black friars spattering blessings / came through the sky to kill children / and the blood of children ran through the streets / without fuss, like children’s blood.’

    Neruda did have a mean view of the assailants. He said they were ‘Jackals that the jackals would despise / stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out / vipers that the vipers would abominate!’ But he nonetheless noted that the consequences of their exploits were damning at the instant and into the future: ‘From every house burning metal flows / instead of flowers / from every socket of Spain / Spain emerges / and from every dead child a rifle with eyes / and from every crime bullets are born / which will one day find / the bull’s eye of your hearts.’

    The poet climaxed his narrative with a moving portrait of the new landscape, calling: ‘Come and see the blood in the streets / Come and see / The blood in the streets / Come and see the blood / In the streets!’

    Nigeria isn’t exactly at war like Neruda’s Spain, but there are floods of blood running in our streets. That is the effect of random killings in communal conflicts and lone wolf insurgency strikes recurring across this country, especially in some northern and middle belt states, which the Buhari presidency just doesn’t seem to yet have a firm handle on.

    On the latest score, some 100 residents were killed in a siege by suspected herdsmen on communities in Riyom, Barkin Ladi and Jos South council areas of Plateau State. It was after some spell of peace that deadly animosity flared again penultimate weekend between the native Berom and Fulani herdsmen, leaving a toll of human casualty that was so utterly benumbing, before security operatives stepped in to restore order. The carnage was a consequence, apparently, of mutual intolerance between native farmers and nomadic herders, and the people taking the laws into their own hands to avenge wrongs by either side. It was initially reported that the herders’ umbrella association owned up to the killings as being in retaliation for the loss of some 300 cows by its members at the hands of members of the affected the communities, but thankfully that has now been debunked.

    Many people have argued that killer herdsmen rampage so doggedly in the recent times only because the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari appears to condone their exploits, and the government has repeatedly denied that claim. But by the standards of this modern age, killing scores of humans in sheer retaliation for cows would be brazenly licentious and should on no account be accepted as a norm.

    Besides, it hasn’t been very helpful in my view that the Presidency, following the Plateau killings, code switched somewhat in a manner that beclouded its determination to firmly tackle the security challenge.

    For instance, an initial statement by the Presidency bemoaned how increasingly cheap human life was becoming in Nigeria and accused politicians of fuelling the farmers-herders crisis with intent to gain advantage of some sort towards the 2019 general election. “We know that a number of geographical and economic factors are contributing to the longstanding herdsmen-farmers clashes. But we also know that politicians are taking advantage of the situation,” presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said.

    But that same statement, in another breath, appeared to rationalise the bloodletting by saying the Presidency had information that prior to the Plateau rage, about one hundred cattle were rustled by a community in the state, with some herdsmen killed in the process. “The state Governor Simon Lalong had invited the aggrieved groups and pleaded against further action while the law enforcement agents looked into the matter. Less than 24 hours later, violence broke out,” the statement added.

    It was reassuring that the President later declared that the government would spare no effort to ensure that culprits of the Plateau killings on no account escape justice. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo also echoed that line during a visit to the Plateau capital, saying: “The President has said whatever it takes, those that committed this heinous crime will not only be arrested but made to publicly face justice.”

    My take is: killing by either side of the farmers-herders divide is a brute act, and I boldly hold that killers of harmless herdsmen just as well as killer herdsmen deserve to face stiff justice. But at the heart of this crisis everywhere across the country is access to land, and that is the core issue the Buhari presidency must address to resolve the security challenge.

    Our own Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, in a statement last week linked the killings by herdsmen to land grab. “What is the ultimate destination of these new imperators? The answer is unambiguous: Land. The seizure of land, either for seasonal grazing, for the lordly passage of cattle, or for permanent settlement. The rights of passage, no matter the cost,” he said inter alia. The icon, in effect, applauded an official pronouncement (apparently by the Plateau Governor) that land grab would be resisted.

    But then, the current tension over land wasn’t historically that way. Like in Neruda’s pre-war Spain, Soyinka in his statement recalled his personal experience of Barkin Ladi as “a serene, hospitable town (that) was one of the favourite way stops of my research days across the nation at the very time that the nation took her early faltering steps into independence – in the early sixties.” He added: “Distanced by time, Barkin Ladi nevertheless remains part of a personal, fond, formative family. Is it that same Barkin Ladi that has been put to the torch after the slaughter of her people? My people? If I visit Barkin Ladi tomorrow, will I recognise any landmark of my knowledge-seeking trajectory?”

    The Buhari presidency should muster the will to draw a firm line against grazers dispossessing communities of their historical right to landholding if it genuinely seeks to curb the menace of killer herdsmen and the killing of herdsmen. Fudging on this critical challenge would only leave blood longer on our streets, and political opportunists won’t be to blame.

    Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

  • When cows drink blood

    When cows drink blood

    THIS is, no doubt, the season of fire and fury. President Donald Trump is fighting desperately to defend his mental status. He says he is a genius. But, there are suggestions that the United States should draw from its rich directory of psychiatrists to settle the matter once and for all. Will that fly?

    In Nigeria, it is not an individual’s mental status that has become a subject of bitter acrimony. Some gunmen are on a bloody mission, killing and maiming. Are these herdsmen or madmen or herdsmen-madmen?

    Two governors are locked in a row over who is harbouring the gunmen. Benue State Governor Ortom, who was all tears the other day as he beheld the bodies of his compatriots felled by the bullets of the assailants, says the gunmen are camped in Nasarawa. Governor Tanko Al- Makura disagrees.

    When governors turn cry-babies and whine, we all know that the matter is, indeed, grievous. But who will console them? How will they be consoled?

    Cows have seized the beautiful countryside we all love to visit – clean, fresh air, the greenery and the sheer lushness of the grass; chirping birds and colourful insects perching on flowers – and threatening to march on towns and cities. Farmers are mourning their murdered loved ones and devastated farmlands. Crops that represent many months of sweating and toiling are being burnt. There are fears of food shortage.

    Flags are flying at half mast in Benue where workers will be on break today to undertake the grim but necessary task of burying the dead, including women and kids. They-73 in all- had dreams, big dreams – of a greater tomorrow, of bountiful harvests and good times, not of bullets, blows and blood.

    The government of Benue State is humbled and hobbled by the deadly paradox of a law that is expected to bring peace between herdsmen and farmers, but has brought misery on a scale beyond belief.

    The President has deployed police chief Ibrahim Idris to the trouble spot, even as two mobile policemen have just been killed. Isn’t this more than police work? Definitely, this is no rioting that requires batons, helmets and horsewhips. No. It is a war situation. Besides, are the police trained to operate in such a terrain?

    Ortom insists that the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore cattle dealers are the brains behind the savagery. The group rejects the allegation, but it agrees that the anti-open grazing law sparked the bloodletting. So, who are the killers? Are they from outer space? Are they foreigners looking for territories to conquer for their cattle as claimed in some circles? If so, where are they from?

    Many are asking, what kind of cows are these that drink human blood? Are their minders genuine herdsmen or savage criminals preying on defenceless people? Is this the Fulani herdsman – quiet, a stick on his hand, a wide hat protecting his head from the scorching sun, a dagger in a leather scabbard, a water bottle and a small leather purse dangling from his shoulder – that we used to know?

    When and how did he become a kidnapper, a gentleman of the highway and a heartless bandit powered by a blind ambition to conquer and occupy another man’s territory? Who are those beating the drum to which he is dancing? Who arms him? Who trained him to handle sophisticated weapons?

    Those who are blaming it on Ortom are unfair. They say he should have asked his people to defend themselves. What powers do governors have in a skewed Federal system that is screwed up by an avaricious centre with a ravenous appetite? Governors are called chief security officers for nothing. They lack the muscle to enforce laws. Even the Commissioner of Police takes orders from Abuja.

    The canvass of blood is wide. It spreads to Taraba where many have been killed – no fewer than 55 are said to have been murdered last weekend. There are other places where grazing has turned into razing. Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Chief Olu Falae was kidnapped on his farm. That was enough sign that we had a big problem on our hands. As usual, we just moved on after apprehending his abductors.

    What do we do? The problem requires quick, decisive action, which the government, unfortunately, has not taken or is slow in taking. The matter requires creativity, imagination and innovation. Who are our thinkers in government? Is it enough to just copy what is done overseas?

    Should every community begin to organise its own army?

    Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose was decked out in military fatigue yesterday. Surrounded by hunters bearing all manner of weapons – dane guns, cudgels, catapaults and all that – His Excellency asked everybody to get set for a likely herdsmen’s invasion.   Pray, what do we call this? Was that just another stunt? It is neither here nor there, but for sure this is more than hunting grasscutters and rabbits.

    Is the herdsman to blame? Agriculture Minister Audu Ogbeh says we are all to blame for neglecting him for so long. “I am sad to tell you that in the last 50 years, we may have done enough for the rice farmer… but we haven’t done much for the herdsman and that inability or omission on our part is resulting in the crises that we are witnessing today.

    “In Europe, every cow that is farmed gets a subsidy of six euros (N2,580) per day. We have done next to nothing for the cattle rarer here and as a result, their operations have become a threat to the existence of our farmers.”

    With due respect, this logic seems sickening. We are yet to recover the billions that went into the drain of nomadic education. Should the herdsman get special treatment to appease his cattle that drink blood?  What have we done for our doctors, soldiers, teachers, policemen, drivers, carpenters, engineers and other professionals? Should we now expect the day the almajiri will drop his begging bowl and pick up a rifle to deal with everybody for neglecting him? Who will carry the can of the army of thugs that politicians have always built?

    Ogbeh seems to have turned logic on its head. Isn’t this merely simplifying the problem? Escapism? Or can this so-called neglect be said to be a strong enough justification for the slaughter of innocents?

    Benue State has ordered every cattle farmer to have a ranch. The herdsmen do not like that. They want to keep roaming the land, destroying farms on which many communities lay their hope. Why are herdsmen against ranching?

    The Federal Government has proposed colonies. Is that the answer?

    We do not need to mend this problem; we should end it. Now.

    Some have suggested a beef boycott. This is also simplifying the knotty problem. A beef boycott will spark another problem. All manner of emergency nutritionists, gastroenterologists and pediatricians will spring up to pontificate on the negative effects of such an action on the health of adults and children not just in this generation but also the next– malnourishment, weakness, weight loss and all that. The effects will be couched in some esoteric jargons that will send panic all over the place.

    The government, ever quick to respond to emergencies of this nature, will organise seminars and workshops. Experts will be flown in to speak. Radio jingles and television adverts will follow, not forgetting the newspapers. Traditional rulers will be flown to Abuja to listen at such seminars. Village associations will be drafted in to join the campaign. We will be told that a nation without beef is doomed to fail. Thereafter, all will be quiet. We will return to beef. Then, the attackers, now better armed, will resume their fiendish campaign.

    Ah. What a country.

  • Church, hospital promote blood donation

    Church, hospital promote blood donation

    It is not often that churches hold blood donation campaigns. But the Catholic Church of the Annuciation, FESTAC, Lagos blazed the trail when its members came out to donate blood. Joseph Eshanokpe reports

    Catholic Church of the Annuciation, FESTAC Town, and Mother and Child Hospital, Amuwo-Odofin, Lagos have held a blood donation camp at the church’s premises.

    The Dean of FESTAC Deanry and Parish Priest, Rev Father Jerome Akinyemi, said the church embarked on the campaign to save lives. ”Blood is life,” he said, adding that Jesus saved lives and that it was imperative for Christians to do so by donating blood. He said he was glad that his church had keyed in to this teaching of Jesus. ”As we save lives, ours will not be lost,” he prayed.

    Catholic Men Organisation (CMO) Chairman Prof Nat Ofo, who was the first donor at the event, described the programme as a huge success, adding that it would be good for it to be held quarterly.

    He compared blood donation to alms giving, saying both are works of charity. ”It is not only when you give money that you are charitable. When you donate blood, you are also giving,” he said.

    The Medical Officer in charge of the camp, Dr Peter Aderz, said the camp was held to boost the government’s blood bank. He explained: ”When you go to the hospital,you will see many children and women in need of blood. That is why the church is partnering the government to provide blood for the ‘needy’ at a low price. ”It is the poorest that need blood.We would have advised the government to give out the blood free but for the cost it would incur in screening it,” he said.

    Aderza said this was the church’s first blood donation drive and hoped it would generate between 50 and 100 Spints. ”In Catholic Church we believe in blood donation. Anything that can give life, we support it,” he said.

    The medic also said not everyone could donate blood, no matter his interest. Before anybody could donate, he explained, he would be screened for diseases, weight, blood sugar level, among others, to know if he is qualified. He listed the merits of blood donation as removal of excess blood, free radicals and cholestrol from the body. He dismissed insinuations that blood donation could lead to sudden death, sickness or blood shortage.  ”Once one donates, within three weeks, he would regain his blood level,” he said.

    Miss Odunola Olaoke of Mother and Child Hospital described the response of the parishioners to the campaign as great. She said though the camp was open to the public, only the church members and their priest responded. She said the aim of the camp was to tackle the problem of blood shortage in the government hospitals, and that people should not be afraid to donate.  And as they do so, she said, their sicknesses would be cured.

    Ms Olaoke also said the blood would be handed over to the officials of the state Blood Transfusion Service (BTS), who were at the event, for screening and distribution.

    During the handing over, Rev Fr Akinyemi thanked the hospital management for the collaboration and for making the camp a success. ”Give our regards to the hospital’s management. We appreciate them. Step up the good work you are doing,” he added.

  • Kelwaran, Rotary promote blood donation

    Industrial giant Kelwaran Chanrai and Rotary Club of Lagos Island have rallied over 50 of their workers and members to donate huge pints of blood to the state blood bank.

    At the campaign, which held on the premises of Kelwaran on the Lagos-Apapa Expressway, Isolo, the company’s Group Managing Director (GMD) Mr Siva Subramanian said the event was aimed boosting the state government’s blood bank.

    “We have been doing it on December 7 in the last six years to commemorate our chairman who died in an accident in Yola, Maiduguri,” he said, adding that the response was getting better.

    He allayed fears over blood donation, saying various tests are carried before one is certified to donate and that there are no dangers or side effects.

    A Rotarian and medic Chief Anil Grover said he had been donating blood in the last 15 years and that it was good to donate. “I want to advise Nigerians to have a culture of blood donation. It’s safe, useful and good for every one,” he added.

    Lagos Rotary Club’s President Sanjeev Tandon said the event is held yearly as one of the association’s focal areas. He thanked Kelwaran for partnering the club, saying their aim was to generate at least 1,000 pints of blood out of the 7,000 needed by the government.

    An official of the state Blood Transfusion Services said the blood would be taken to its offices for screening and given to the public free. However they would pay N4,500 for what she called “crossmatching”. The money is not for the blood but the cost of compatibility, she said. She advised the public to ensure that the blood they buy carries their logo to avoid purchasing the wrong item.

  • Are your heart and blood vessels dying? (2)

    Going by responses to the first part of this series, POMEGRANATE should become one of the nutritional supplements many people challenged with heart ailments will look out for in 2018. Dr. Syed Zair Hussain, of Pakistan, aroused interest in Nigeria, with his experiments which showed how pomegranate helped many people in Pakistan to clear up heart diseases, some of which would have resulted in by-pass surgery. So confident has Dr. Hussain become about Pomegranate therapy that he has launched a campaign against by-pass surgery, claiming cardiologists were merely exploiting their patients by booking them for by-pass surgery to correct coronary heart blockage(s) and circulation dysfunction in the heart. In coronary heart by-pass surgery, an artery from another part of the body is sewn into a heart artery to by-pass the blockage and damaged artery, in order to bring oxygenated blood to dying heart tissue.

    In the United States, a heart by-pass surgery may cost a patient who is not covered by health insurance anything from 70,000  dollars to 200,000 dollars or more.

    This series was spurred by the celebration on September 29 of THE WORLD CARDIOVASCULAR DAY. It is a date every year when world health authorities encourage everyone to save a thought for his or her heart and blood vessels. Concern for the heart and its blood vessel system arose from the fact that more people worldwide are dying from diseases which torment them than are dying from cancer, HIV/AIDS and malaria put together. The internal environment of every human being is, indeed, an interesting one. Unfortunately, many people do not know much about it or take care of this WONDERFUL WORLD WITHIN, as Dr. Roger John Williams titled one of his books. Dr. Williams was an American biochemist who spent his academic career at the University of Texas at Austin where he isolated and named folic acid and helped to discover Pantothenic acid (Vitamin B5), Vitamin B6, Lipoic acid and Avidin. These are some of the chemical food substances which keep our organ healthy and active and prevent us from bowing to disease and dying needlessly. Many of us ignore or are ignorant of that “wonderful world within” and expend vast resources instead on cosmetics, jewelry, power dressing and such other external paraphernalia which add little or nothing to the health of that “wonderful world within” which requires our help to stay young, and disease-free.

    The heart and its blood vessels belong to that “wonderful world within”. The website https://skeptics.stackexchange.com gives us a hint of its magnitude when it says:

    “An adult human has been estimated to have some 60,000 miles (96, 560km) of capillaries with a total surface area of some 800 to 1000m2 (an area greater than three tennis courts).”

    These are only the blood capillaries, tiny branches from the major blood vessels. At interestingthings.info, we learn that, if the heart were to pump blood outside the blood vessels, each pumping can make the blood squirt up to nine meters high. “The length of your blood vessels is about 100,000 kilometers”, says the website. “To understand this distance – the circumference of earth is about 40,000 kilometers. The distance between the earth, the moon, is about 300,000 kilometers. So, if we take the blood vessels of three people, and connect them edge to edge – we could easily step where Neil Armstrong did.”

    This is a great picture many of us do nothing about until we suffer damage to it in one form or another. What we have just learned is that if the blood vessels of three people are stretched out and joined together, they would be long enough to reach the moon from the earth. Heart diseases were explored in the first part of this series. This section will explore the problems we may encounter in the blood vessels. As stated, Arteries take blood from the heart to all parts of the body. Capillaries take the blood from the arteries to nooks and crannies of the organs to give them oxygen and nutrients, and to remove carbon dioxide and other wastes which they pass on to the veins. The veins are smaller than arteries and take used blood back to the heart, from where this is pumped to the lungs to be re-oxygenated and ridden of the poisonous carbon dioxide waste through the breadth.

     

    Diseases of blood vessels

     

    Disturbances in blood vessels are often called pheripheral blood diseases or artery disease. The blood vessels become narrowed either in the arms, abdomen, legs or any other region of the body. The narrowing is caused by a buildup of plaque or fatty deposits. The narrowing means less blood will flow through them and, consequently, reduced blood flow will mean less oxygen delivery to the cells, tissue and organs. With poor oxygen deliveries over time, the cells begin to weaken, wilt, age and even die. Blood vessel disease presents some signs which may include muscle pain, cramps, aches here and there, pale skin, cold hands and feet, discoloration of the nails, long-term injuries such as diabetic ulcers. When some old wounds are scratched, and a blackened under surface is exposed, or the hairs on the legs, feet and toes begin to fall off, or if the pulse in the legs or feet becomes pale or dull or when exercise brings pain which subsides during a rest, it may be time to suspect that enough oxygen is not being delivered to these sites by blood vessels. This is a cause of the amputation of some limbs.

    Dr. Ann Wigmore experienced this when she suffered from gangrene in one limb. The limb was to be amputated on the advice of her doctors. But she was strong-willed and objected, preferring to die instead. Providentially one day, she asked to be wheeled in her wheel chair to her garden. There, she observed that sick cats were coming to eat a particular grass. She observed them for days and weeks and when she found they were getting healed. She, too, began to eat this healing grass. The healing grass turned out to be wheatgrass, the juice of which her grandfather used to heal the gunshot injuries of World War II soldiers in her country. Soon, blood began to flow better in the occluded limb of Ann Wigmore and the limb began to heal till the amputation once prescribed was no longer necessary. This shot up the reputation of wheatgrass as a healer.

     

    Retinal vascular occlusion

    The retina is the light-sensitive layer of the eye. It is populated with rod and cone-shaped structures which convert light signals to nerve messages. These are passed through the Optic nerve to the brain, where they are converted to vision. It is possible for blood vessels in the retina to become blocked by cholesterol plaque or blood clot. This will reduce oxygen flow to the retina and the eye and cause fluid buildup. The retina may be prevented from picking light efficiently. This may impair vision. Retinal vascular occlusion or blockage are of two types, and each type depends on which blood vessel is disabled. The blockage may be in the artery or in the vein. The blockage may be in the main eye artery or vein or in their branches. Occlusion in the main vessels are often more serious conditions than those in their branched vessels. Hardening of the vessels (arteriosclerosis) and blood clots are thought to be the culprits. A blockage or narrowing of the neck’s carotid arteries is also a risk factor. Other risk factors may be irregular heart beats, like diabetes and high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, free radicals, macular edema (fluid buildup), thickening of the central part of the retina and inflammation disorders. Whatever it is, vision may become blurry, temporary or permanent, and urgent medical attention may be required. Some complications may develop. This, as said, may include Macular edema in which blood builds up in the central part of the retina, or neo-vascularisation, in which a lack of adequate blood flow and oxygen supply a compensated by an abnormal blood vessels growth. In an article on age-related macular degeneration, Maureen A. Duffy edited a contribution by Lylas G. Mogk in visionaware.org which says:

    “In wet age-related macular degeneration, abnormal blood vessels under the retina begin to grow toward the macula. Because these new blood vessels are abnormal, they tend to break, bleed, and leak fluid, damaging the macula and causing it to lift up and pull away from its base. This can result in a rapid and severe loss of central vision.”

    Neo-vascular glaucoma may occur in which a fluid-buildup in the eye chambers may threaten vision. Seldom does retinal detachment occur.

     

    Cerebral blood small vessel disease (SVD)

    This refers to small blood vessels in the brain. These vessels, too, are affected by arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and atherosclerosis (blockages) and micro bleeding. They, too, can be subject to inflammation. Normally, an MRI examination sees brain matter as white. When you read in a radiologists report that the MRI suggests “brain matter changes”, that may indicate a SVD…small vessel disease. It is possible a small vessel has been leaking or has leaked on some areas of the brain tissue. The symptoms may be mild, moderate or severe. Sometimes the SVD is “silent”, presenting no symptoms. SVD may affect cognition, walking gait, depression, dementia, stroke et.c. Many doctors say there are far too many possible causes of SVD that they do not wish to boil them down. But some mention risk factors in stroke, including hypertension, diabetes, high blood cholesterol, cerebral amyloid, angiopathy, aging, free radicals. Many doctors prevent or treat SVD by treating hypertension and other risk factors, with mixed results. In Alternative medicine, SVD treatment goes hand-in-hand not only with cardiovascular system health therapies but, also, with therapies specially adapted to the brain. As was stated in the first part of this series, addition of Magnesium supplement to the diet offsets the possibility of extra Calcium load causing arteriosclerosis. Dietary supplements such as Cayenne, Lecithin, Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs), Ginkgo biloba, Bilbery, Chromium, Grape Seed Extract, Pomegranate e.t.c keep the blood vessels free of atheroma and atherosclerosis. Grape Seed Extract is a unique food supplement in that it is one of those few food or medicinal factors which easily crosses the Brain-Blood-Barrier (BBB) not only to thin the blood and prevent an infringement of the Law of Motion (unhindered blood flow) but to also protect all brain contents against the damaging effects of free radicals. Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) will be found useful here, too, because it is one of those few antioxidants which are simultaneously active in fat and fluid media. Bleeding can be stopped with a number of supplements such as Pawpaw (papaya) leaf juice, Shepherd’s purse, Mimosa Pudica (especially in excessive menstrual bleeding and in leg or foot swellings), Yarrow et.c. If blood vessels break and leak because they are fragile, we must look at the fragility of connective tissue and deploy either Horsetail or Edible Earth (Diatomaceus or Diatom) or the appropriate cell or tissue salts. Horsetail is useful because it is rich in Silica. Diatom is about 96 percent Silica, a bonding agent. The cell salt silica (No 12 in the series) is about 100 percent Silica. Rutin, a member of the bioflavonoids family, tightens leakage areas to prevent blood leakages. Aluminium cookware should be avoided, as should aluminium tea pots and plates as they leach aluminium into food and this may be an ingredient in amyloid plague which damages blood vessels. The sing-song should be antioxidants, antioxidants and antioxidants.

     

    Small vessels disease of the hand

     

    On a radio programme last week, a listener called a presenter, a medical doctor, to know why three of his fingers in one hand appeared to be lifeless. The doctor replied that the condition may have to do with nerves, and that he may seek help from his doctor. Nerves may, indeed, be the cause of the numbness. But so may, also, be a condition in the wrist know as carpal tunnel syndrome, which response to Vitamin B6 therapy. If you turn your wrist up, you would notice what appears to be a “gutter” at the base. It is a condit or tunnel through which tendons and Median nerve go into the hand to the fingers. If the nerve is under pressure and inflamed, this may affect nerve energy flow to the thumb and the next three fingers which are controlled by this nerve.

    As for small vessel problems in the arm and fingers, there may be as many as five possible scenarios. Trauma is one of them. The vessels become compressed, that is…flattened. We are by now more familiar with blockage.  Growths or tumours may throw spanners in the works. Spasms (something akin to muscle pulls) may cause narrowing. Some of the signs may include pain, colour changes in the finger tips, sensitivity or hypersensitivity to cold and/or cold hands and arms, wounds that do not heal easily, numbness of the finger tips, swellings. Other presentations may be decreased or absence of pulse in the armpit, elbow, wrist or finger tips, wounds or gangrene. Sometimes, the arteries or veins may be tangled at birth or later in life, not to mention varicose veins which present like a spider web. Some people suffer from vasculitis or angiitis, other names for inflammation of vessels, which may cause those vessels to narrow and reduce blood flow to organs, thereby damaging them. When veins are inflamed, the condition is venulitis. Only the experts can advise us about the various forms of vasculitis and venulitis and their deep-seated causes. But it has been observed that they sometimes follow the patterns of some types of diseases such as immune dysfunction, infections, including Hepatitis B, cancers, exposure to some chemicals and some medications, rheumatoid arthritis and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). The mention of SLE seriously disturbs the peace of mind of one of my female acquaintances, a lawyer. It affects her scalp, not as SLE perse, but as Discoid Erythematosus (DE), which is not life threatening, although it breaks blood vessels here and there and is causing her alopecia. Vasculitis can be a terrible disease in the brain, it may cause headaches, seizure, stroke, paralysis, lightheadedness et.c. In the lungs, cough and shortness of breadth are common symptoms. Kidney failure may occur in the kidneys. Muscle pains are not left out. So are skin discoloration and ulcers if it presents in the skin. Congestive heart failure may arise in the heart. Weakness, fatigue and weight loss are members of this family as well.

    Treatment of many of these conditions are as already mentioned for coronary heart disease and other presentations. A few years ago, a nutritional network marketing company in Nigeria sold a product named CARDIOTONIC PILL. To demonstrate its capacity to create thoroughfare for blood circulation in blood vessels, the company carried out an experiment in which human hands were placed in a freezer to freeze circulation and induce chilblains. Then, Cardiotonic Pill was orally given to the guinea pigs. The conditions of the hands were examined with MRI before and after the therapy. The images showed a frozen hand and then a normal hand within about five minutes after Cardiotonic Pill was taken. The magic wand was said to be the presence at one percent of Camphor in the composition of Cardiotonic Pill. As for Vasculitis, we have many Alternative Medicine recipes today which work better than Ibuprofen the treatment of choice in conventional medicine. One of them is CUCURMIN 2000X. This is Cucurmin combined with Cayenne in such ratio as is said to make Curcumin 2000 times more active than in its natural state. Orange peel is anti-inflammatory. So are greens such as Barley grass, Wheatgrass, Kale and Spirulina, to mention a few. Their high Chlorophyll content cleans up the dross that may be causing irritation and inducing inflammation, their oxygen molecules burn out disease and they stimulate the immune system to normalise the system, among their many benefits.

    Small vessel disease occurs in other part of the body such as enlarged veins in the scrotum.