Tag: herbs

MANY Nigerians now know of MORINGA, more than 10 years after Ghanaians began to export it to this slumbering country and discovered the herbs market here to be a huge gold mine. But not many people know much about another gold mine as huge as, if not bigger, than Moringa’s. I am talking about Spirulina, one of the three super foods of the 21st Century.

I knew about Moringa at a 2002 Accra Conference on agriculture business in sustainable products sponsored by some agencies of the United States government, Rutgers University and South Africans. That was two years after Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and other member countries of the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed a treaty to upgrade Traditional Medicine TM to the status of Orthodox or Western Medicine. They were to find research into product development, set up collges of Traditional Medicine, register TM practitioners, set up TM Hospitals and regulate TM practice, among other things.

By 2002, Ghana had set up a TM products development centre, which till this day receives recipes from the public, checks them for toxicity and efficacy, and recommends them to doctors and hospitals if the resource persons found them effective and non-toxic. The centre does not steal the intellectual property of its resource persons. Rather, they are paid royalties from the proceeds of products the centre helps them to develop and market. And that was how Ghanaian TM products began to swamp the Nigerian Market.

The 2002 Accra conference featured star TM products from many African countries. Nigeria walked tall with Jobelyn, a blood restorative formula which has since matured into an antioxidant product with huge benefits in HIV and cancer therapies. Ghana’s leading product was Phytolaria, a herbal anti-malarial developed by a Ghanaian doctor. The East Africans came with a mosquito repellant candle made from the leaves of Dogoyaro leaf powder which keeps mosquitoes, cockroaches, ants and rats at bay. The South Africans brought Roibos tea, an anti-oxidant tea which now sells worldwide. It was at that conference I learned that tea drinking is big business world-wide and that it is more profitable to health to drink anti-oxidant teas, beverages and wines. It is doubtful if any popular Nigerian tea or beverage today has anti-oxidant properties.

Spirulina, named a super food for this century as the last millennium was winding up, surfaced at the Accra conference. It was brought by some Americans who cultivated it commercially in Cote d’voire. The Americans invited me to visit their farm, but civil war soon broke out in that country, and I forgot about it.

Meanwhile, Spirulina was trickling into Nigeria from all sorts of sources, particularly Europe and Asia. I remember it was at that time I nicknamed one of my sons Spirulina Boy. He hated the bland taste of Spirulina when I introduced it to the dining table. He hated vegetable. If he sighted as little as a green leaf or a pod of okro in the stew or sauce, that was the end of that meal.

Yet, he wasn’t growing well, in my view. Then, one day, an idea struck me. I downloaded a beautiful report of Spirulina from the internet and gave it to him to read to us all at table one weekend evening. The report showed how well loaded with protein, iron, vitamins, minerals etc Spirulina is, and how it was helping children to grow and keeping aging people from shrinking in body size and staying fresh, robust and healthy. To my surprise, this boy accused me afterwards of not telling him everything the literature taught him. I realised I may have been lording Spirulina over him, and he may simply have been resisting me. Since then, I advise parents to the latter approach. To elevate the taste, maybe a teaspoonful of Blackstrap Molasses may be added to their Spirulina drink.

I witnessed another dimension of Spirulina business at a 2006 conference in Senegal. The wife of President Wede, a French, was making anti-malarial syrup from Dogoyaro seeds for children, and cultivating large farms of Spirulina for sale in their country. Senegal had no petrodollar to fool around with, and had to be mindful about how to spend foreign reserve. As much as was feasible, everything had to come from within the country. This woman did not allow young Senegalese women abuse their bodies and souls in prostitution once they left school and had no jobs. She got the government to set up large farm-settlement type plantations on which she engaged them in vegetable and herbs growing, to take care of the stomach and the health of the populace. I had thought she would jump at the idea of exporting Spirulina to Nigeria. How wrong I was! She said what she was producing was not enough for Senegal and Senegal had to come first. I returned to Nigeria, determined to encourage cultivation of Spirulina in this country. I spoke to Agriculture graduates and Microbiology graduates who were unemployed, believing that they were intellectually equipped. But none of them was interested. All they wanted were jobs!

Since that time so much water has flown under the bridge. Almost all the food supplements network companies now sell Spirulina either in capsules or completed to cereals of all sorts. I prefer Spirulina powder. It has offered me a more creative way to drink “gari” (cassava grains) or “agidi” for breakfast. One juice from two or three oranges, add a teaspoonful of Aloe Lite, an FLP protein/mineral/vitamin complex, one teaspoonful of Blackstrap Molasses, and one teaspoonful of Spirulina provider. To the grill, I crush two weetabix. The meal often sustains me till early evening when I have a light meal with a drink of Moringa leaf tea or Spirulina drink.

Why I am bold to suggest Spirulina will make more waves in the Nigerian food supplements market next year is the news, still in wraps, that a governor of a Southwestern Nigeria state has serious plans to set up a state-owned firm which would grow and market Nigerian herbs, including Spirulina.

The Super Health Food

One of the richest eulogies of Spirulina in Nigeria this year may be found in the product. Manual or cataloque of NATURE’S GIFT 4 LIFE, one of the companies marketing it in Nigeria. Vetted by an orthodox medical doctor knowledgeable in food supplements and nutrition, the statements accord with the findings of research scientists worldwide on this plant.

We are reminded in this document that Spirulina earned the eulogy of researchers and nutritionists as THE SUPER Food of the 21st Century because it was found in the late 1970s to be the single plant source of the widest range of health – providing nutrients in much wider range than any other and in terms of the body’s capacity not only to digest them easily but also to use them.

In this regard, I would quickly like to mention one of my first experiences when I began to take Spirulina powder either as a drink or as a spread on food such as rice or beans or in stews or sauce. I had known since the 1980s that chlorophyll, the green coloured part of plants, is a detoxifier, cleanser, blood builder and immune system stimulant, among its many health benefits. But I always found the liquid chlorophyll in my stool green. This meant I wasn’t absorbing all of it for whatever reason(s). I had a different experience when I switched to Spirulina powder. No matter how much of it I took in one day, my stool colour actually got more natural, indicating that not only did I digest all properly, my liver must have been so stimulated to work better that it produced more bile, one of the remedies against high blood and cholesterol levels.

The Natures Gift 4 Life Document says of Spirulina:

“It is known as the super food of the 21st century because it contains the most remarkable highest quality protein available, higher in protein value than beef, chicken, turkey, eggs, soyabeans, rice, tofu or wheat (three times more than that in beef or fish, four times that of pork and five times that of soya beans) This protein is 95 per cent digestible and absorbable compared to 20 percent from meat protein. It contains 18 amino acids essential for human life (including all the essential amino acids that the body cannot produce- iron, calcium, sodium, potassium, copper,magnesium, manganese, iodine, chromium, phosphorus, selenium, germanium, boron, molybdenum, zinc, vitamins (A, C, D, E, K), Biotin, Inositol, B2, B3, B6, follate, B12, Panthothenic Acid (B5) Beta carotenes, phytonutrients like gama linolenic acid glycolipids, sulpholipids and polysaccharides, ribose, nugleic acids, cholimesterase, manitol (and) carotenoids.

It is richer in chlorophyll than Alfalfa and wheat grass and contains no fats or starch. Researchers at NASA (National Aeronautics Space Administration in the United States) found it to be an excellent, compact space food for astronauts (One kg of sprirulina is equivalent to 1, 000kg of assorted vegetables). International health organisation have ruled sprirulina as one of the greatest super food on earth. As an ideal food supplement, sprirulina provides the body with all essential nutrients required daily, leaving you fresh, active and energetic throughout the day.

Europeans and Americans paid little or no attention to spirulina as a food source until about 1970’s, although Mexicans and Asians had been consuming it for thousands of years. What sparked Euro-American research interest in this plant were African villagers in the Lake Chad region. They lived in a slighted environment and were too poor to afford beef or fish proteins which, by Euro-American standards, were necessary for robust health. These villagers lived, instead, on Spirulina which grew on Lake Chad and other lakes. They harvested and dried it in the sun and ate it every day. They did not fall ill from malnutrition or exhibit any symptoms of malnourishment. On the contrary, their life expectancy was high. Now, researchers theorise that spirulina may indeed be the first plant life on earth, and that it may have existed for about 3.5 billion years. Newer studies, as shown in the Natures Gift 4 life document/suggests that:

“Spirulina is the highest food source of Beta-Carotene. It contains 25 times more beta carotene than in carrots, Spirulina is the richest beta carotene food, with full spectrum often mixed carotenoids. About half are orange carotenes: alpha, beta and gama and half are yellow zantophilis. They work synergistically at different sites in our body to enhance antioxidant, anticancer protection. Beta-Carotene is Pro-Vitamin A and helps protect your eye sight.”

“Spirulina is the highest source of Vitamin B12. It contains 250 per cent more vitamin B12 than cow liver which is the richest animal source of vitamin B12. The vitamin calms your nerves and helps fight stress.”

“Spirulina is the highest plant source of iron, which is easier to absorb than in supplement tablets (contains 58 times more iron than in raw spinach and 27 times more than raw liver).”

“Spirulina is one of the world’s richest sources of GLA (Gama Linoleic Acid). This is a rare essential fatty acid. GAMA in mother’s milk helps develop healthy babies, studies show nutritional deficiency can block GLA in your body, so a good dietary source of GLA can be important. Spirulina is the only other whole food with GLA. It helps to reduce cholesterol, benefits the heart and PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) and keeps skin healthy and beautiful. A food source of GLA is important, especially for women. Known GLA foods are mother’s milk and oil extracts of evening primrose, black currants and borage seed. The product literature shows how Spirulina improves immune system activity, which makes it good in HIV and Cancer therapy in particular; how it helps to prevent leukoplakia, a condition in the mouth which may develop in to mouth cancer; how it curbs the growth of candida albicans, a major problem to many people signaled in some cases by oral thrush or gray tongue; how it combats hypoglycemia; how it alkalises and cleans the body and lots more.”

It is a remarkable goldmine which can be explored by unemployed university graduates roaming the streets in Nigeria for jobs that do not exist. Sometimes, I wonder if Nigerians would forgive their thieving leaders who plunder the public purse, should these thieves invest generously in Spirulina ponds which provide jobs and cheap health-providing food for the poor.

A Spirulina farm is a challenge I have given Spirulina boy after a degree in Agriculture and Genetics, Is he listening?

A NEW YEAR (2014) is beckoning, winking although it is still about 48 days away. It is, therefore, not too early in my view to carry out the yearly ritual of presenting herbs, food supplements and Alternative Medicine services and ideas which rooted in the Nigerian market this year and should sprout, flower and fruit in 2014. Some of my unforge tables this year have been Eyemaxplus, Lion’s Mane, Calamus root and Algavera AV Vigor. Of course, I cannot forget Wheatgrass, Barley grass, Spirulina, Horsetail and the likes of them. Guardian Angel, of which Sola Sowemimo wrote from Mexico should join them soon. Algavera International has added two more products to AV-Vigor, which is designed for brain health in conditions such as failing memory, brain stress or fag, or stroke. One of the constituents, Lion’s Mane, the subject of a Nobel Prize Award, stimulates the brain to produce Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) which improves nerve flow and function and supports the repair and regeneration of damaged nerves. The new stablemates of AV-Vigor are (1) AV-VIBRANCE, an immune system support formula, and (2) AV-SILVER. In the course of this series, I will discuss this product in relation to EARTHING. For now, let me quickly say that “earthling” is now widely practiced in some countries. It grew out of earthling protection for houses, such as the “thunder catcher”, or electrical appliances. Motor vehicle owners know their vehicle must be earthed, otherwise there may be a blow out. Similarly, the human body may blow up in all sorts of diseases, such as insomnia, diabetes, high blood pressure, prostate enlargement or even cancer if it becomes electro polluted beyond its tensile strength. Just imagine this scenario. You are lying in bed at night. Through your walls, billions of text message data are passing through your body to their destinations. Television pictures and radio broadcasts are doing the same. When the barber cuts your hair with electric clipper, you also absorb some electricity. So do women who dry their hair in electric driers in the salon.Your status of electro pollution may be worse if you are addicted to Visual Display Units (VDUs) such as the computer, cell phones, if you cook with microwave, live near overhead electricity cables or GSM masts. Even women who operate photocopying machines are known to be at risk as the rays they discharge are at the level of the reproductive organs and, as such, may cause infertility. Our bodies produce electricity and is run on it. That is why, for example, a pacemaker battery is surgically placed in an electrically weak heart. The body wears down if the voltage of the current it is exposed to is bigger than its own. We live in an electro polluted world and this has engaged the attention of many researchers for some years. The solution they have now come up with is earthling.

That means, as we earth electrical appliances and houses, to protect them against damage by electricity, lightening and thunder, so should our bodies be protected. This idea has led the way back to “primitive” or cave man’s medicine. When the feet touch the earth, particularly dew covered grass, radiations from the earth (in this case, electrons) surge into the body as antioxidants to counterbalance or neutralise the oxidizing protons or positive charges from electro pollutions. This brings about a state of balance and health in the body. With this knowledge at the back of my mind, I watch my gardener at work. He is in his fifties. He works bare foot,, connected to the healing rays of the earth. He can lift a 50 kilogramme bag of cement, wanted. I cannot. A moslem, he would work all day at construction sites on empty stomach during the Ramadan, mixing granite, sand and cement motar, into head pans which he would convey on his head to bricklayers. I enjoyed barefoot walk on the granite filled grounds of 34 Ajanaku Street, Opebi, Ikeja, Lagos, where I lived for about 10 years from the mid 1980s. Now, worldwide, earthing gadgets are making the waves. Algavera International has brought what, arguably, may be the first of such gadgets to the Nigerian health market. Called AG Silver, it comes in the form of a bed liren which is wired and is plugged to a socket to earth radiations bombarding the electro-polluted room and bed area.

TODAY, I wish to return to NATURE’S GIFTS FOR LIFE, which I mentioned in passing a few weeks ago in the column ALGAVERA, WELLOME, EYEMAX PLUS. A Cameroonian petroleum engineer resident in Nigeria, Mr. Kame is behind this organisation. His wife, Kate an orthodox medical doctor, is not only the managing director, she wrote all product literature in the products’ guide for all the herbal medicines in the stable. I hope I will be able to address two of the promising products today. These are (1) CRUDE BLACKSTRIP MOLASSES and (2)CATARACT CLEAR.

Blackstraop Molasses

For many years until I read CYRIL SCOTT’S booklet on it this was a sugarcane refining bypredict I kept a distance from in the 1980s, because of its sweetness. Mrs… Adu, of Abeokuta, later fired my interest in it. She practically combed the whole of Nigeria for it at that time. Not even the Bacita Sugar Industry in the time of Mrs. Titi Adeleke as managing Director could furnish some. I do not remember what Mrs. Adu wanted blackstrap molasses for. But I recall she did some work as a natural healthcare provider, making plantain root juice for people challenged with prostate gland enlargement, and I may have shared with her Cyril Scotts suggestions that Blackstrap molasses was used in bygone years to break tumours of all kinds, some of them cancerous.

Constituents’

Going by Cyril Scott, the unsulphured crude blackstrap molasses contains

• Sucrose, a simple sugar, 39.5 per cent

• Inert sugar 11.5 per cent

• Ash 9.0 per cent

• Organic matter 17.5 per cent

Most of the constituents are soluble and, therefore, available for the body’s use. The ash content is largely potassium and calcium salts. This makes the product an alkalising agent. This alkalizing potential is boosted by the presence, also, of minerals such as iron, copper, and magnesium. The B Vitamins family is well represented, with the exception of Vitamin B1. Diet expert of his time Gaylord Hauser, said there was a large presence of Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid) and Vitamin B6. Vitamin B5 is a growth, anti-stress, cholesterol lowering, skin, nail and hair vitamin, among several popular uses to which it is put Vitamin B6 helps in the elimination of excess fluid in the body, for which many doctors prescribe it for premenstrual syndrome conditions which involve bloating. It is also well used in situations of carpal tunnel syndrome, a wrist and palm condition involving, inflammation or sweating, pain, especially in the wrist and some fingers. So important does Hauser consider blackstrap molasses that he said it should be given the same priority as the salt shake on the dining table.

A terrific nutrient in molasses, says Scott, and I agree, is Phosphoric acid. He reminds us that a combined deficiency of phosphoric acid and potassium causes a breakdown of cells, especially those of the brain and nerves. This is an interesting observation because in cell or tissue salt medicine, which is not well known in the country, the five phosphate cell salts are employed to combat this degenerative condition. Scott, who was in his nineties when he wrote the booklet on Blackstrap molasses, said that his eyes were opened to the curative and prophylactic powers of this sugar cane extract by a gentleman named James Persson, “provision merchant of Palmester N., New Zealand. Cyril Scott said of Mr. Persson:

“Some years ago, Mr. Persson was broken in health and unable to do even the lightest work. He was suffering from a growth in the bowels, hardening values of the heart, blocked bronclual tubes, constipation, indigestion, pyorhoea, sinus trouble and weak nerves. In addition to his array of symptoms, he was losing weight and his liar had turned white. Despite consulting doctors and specialists, his condition was getting steadily worse, then, one day, he heard of Mr S., who happened to be a neighbor of the postman from whom he got the details I will now mention.

“Mr S. had suffered from an inoperable growth in the bowels; in other words, he had been opened up by the surgeons, and then stitched up again, his condition being regarded as so hopeless that even the idea of surgical interference was abandoned. Thus, he was discharged from hospital and given seven weeks to live”.

Mr S. was told by a friend of molasses, he tried it and his bowel growths and other symptoms disappeared to the amazement of his doctors. When Mr. Persson heard of Mr. S, he, too, took molasses and his bowel growths and other symptoms vanished likewise. These cases brought molasses into limelight in New Zealand.

Cyril Scott speaks of many cases of growths, including those of the uterus, cured solely by molasses therapy that I wonder if it shouldn’t be included in uterine fibroids protocols. He says one man with a malignant growth on his tongue which made him unable to speak recovered his health and speech.

Cyril Scott reports one of the many cases of uterine fibroid recoveries:

“The sufferer visited Mr. Persson in very distressed frame of mind. She had been told by the doctors that she was suffering from cancer and could not be expected to live for more than about six weeks. The diagnosis may have been incorrect, but in any case her doctors took a very serious view of her condition, for she had lost much weight and suffered from severe haemorrages. Having heard of molasses for growths, she subsequently applied to Mr. Persson for a quantity, which she proceeded to take via mouth and also to use in blood-warm water as a douche. Some months after she had started the treatment, she called to see Mr. Persson again, and he reports that she was so changed for the better in every way that he could hardly believe it was the same woman. The bleeding had ceased; she had regained her normal weight, her colour was healthy, and she confessed to feeling ‘wonderful’.

There are many case histories mentioned. One was about a breast growth which disappeared without recurrence. Mr. Persson observed some people cough up “rotten growth” from the throat, varicose veins are reported cured as were cases of arthritis, ulcers, elevated blood pressure, to mention a few conditions molasses is reported to have helped. Its impact on nerve problems is said to be most appreciated by the wives of soldiers who returned from World War II with neurosis and other nerve troubles. Perhaps because of the high iron content (one tablespoonful is said to provide 40 per cent of an adults daily need of iron), molasses is recommended for pregnant women and children since iron helps growth. Diabetics should take it with caution. Although the sugar of molasses is said to be low on the Glycemic Index, that is it doesn’t rush into the blood, burns slowly and doesn’t create blood sugar capsules problems, it may be taken with a sugar burner such as Fenugreek, Natures Way Blood Sugar, with gymnester, Bitter Melon Cinnamon, Horsetail (anti-arthritis, blood alkalizer, sugar burner and tumour breaker) and a high dosage B-complex vitamin. For extra potassium, I add lemon, lime or orange juice. And for more minerals, I add two crushed tablets of FLP’s Nature Min. sometimes one tablespoonful of liquid chlorophyll helps to add greens.

Blackstrap molasses exposes the harm man has inflicted upon himself. For it is nothing but the waste product of the industrial process by which sugar cane is stripped of all its natural nutrients to produce lifeless cube or granulated white sugar. That means that, to make sugar, all the nutrients of sugar care are removed and thrown away as waste.

Thanks, all over to the Creator, Who permitted us the knowledge that this so called waste is healing food. Welcome to Nigeria, Blackstrap molasses from Nature’s Gift for Life.

Cataract clear eye drop

For a long while, the only option available to cataract sufferers is the surgical removal of the congealed lens(es) of their eyes and its replacement with a plastic substitute for patients who can afford it. Where the money cannot be afforded, patients make do with thick eye glasses. Even for patients who can afford it, the plastic lens comes in varying qualities. Soon after, laser surgery came up. In the hands of the skillful eye surgeon, the laser beam dissolves the frozen impediment to light travel in the eye which causes the cloudiness in cataract. Soon after came wonderful drugs, including the pharmaceutical VISTULENT, a potassium iodide based product. It works by stimulating metabolism in surrounding tissue which, then extracts toxins from the lens CATARACT CLEAR is a natural product composed of Boric acid, Potassium, Bicarbonate and Acety-1- canosine . Boric acid is popular for its anti-candida and yeast actions. Potassium helps oxygenation and alkalinity and, when combined with phosphoric acid, helps to stabilize the cells.in a well oxygenated and alkalized environement, few, if any germs exist and cells are caution. Bicarbonate prevents acid build up in the body. Many people’s eyes, like their bodies, are acidic and toxic, thereby creating a favourable environment for germ growth and disturbance of the cells. If, as the Yoruba believe the eye is the light of the body, toxicity in the eye is a picture of the entire body. Toxins and acidosis invite candida, other fungi, yeast, bacteria and viruses. That’s why I suspect components of Cataract Clear will help cataract conditions. For Acelyl L-Carnosine is reserved the function of dissolving the cataract.

In a study of the Efficacy of N-acetyl carnosine in the treatment of cataracts, the Innovative Vision Products, Inc., Country of Newcastle, Deleware, USA,

(Markbabizhayev@yahoo.com) reports as follows:

“Purpose

“To evaluate the effects of 1 per cent N-acetylcarnosine (NAC) solution on lens clarity over six and 24 months in patients with cataracts.

“Trial Design:

“Randomised, placebo-controlled study.

“PARTICIPANTS:

“48 subjects (76 affected eyes) with an average age of 65.3 +/-7.0 years with a diagnosis of senile cataract with minimum to advanced opacification in various lens layers.

“METHODS:

26 patients (41 eyes) were allocated to topical NAC 1 per cent eyedrops twice daily. The control group consisted of 13 patients (21 eyes) who received placebo eyedrops and 10 patients (19 eyes) who did not receive eyedrops.

 Main outcome measures:

“All patients were evaluated at entry and followed up every two months for a six-month period (trial 1), or at six-month intervals for a two-year period (trial 2), for best-corrected visual acuity and glare testing. In addition, cataract was measured using stereo cinematographic slit-images and retro-illumination examination of the lens. Digital analysis of lens images displayed light scattering and absorbing centres in two and three dimensional scales.

 “Results:

“The overall intra-reader reproducibility of cataract measurements (image analysis) was 0.830, and glare testing 0.998. After six months, 90 per cent of NAC-treated eyes showed improvement in best corrected visual acuity (7 to 100%) and 88.9 per cent showed a 27 to 100 per cent improvement in glare sensitivity. Topographic studies indicated fewer areas of posterior sub capsular lens opacity and 41.5 per cent of treated eyes had improvement in image analysis characteristics. The overall ratio of image analysis characteristics at 6 months compared with baseline measures were 1.04 and 0.86 for the control and NAC-treated group, respectively (p<0.001). The apparent benefits of treatment were sustained after 24 months treatment. No treated eyes demonstrated worsening of vision. The overall visual outcome in the control group showed significant worsening after 24 months in comparison with both baseline and 6-month follow-up examination. The overall clinical results observed in the NAC-treated group by the 24-month period of examination differed significantly (p<0.001) from the control group in the eyes with cortical, posterior subcapsular, nuclear or combined lens opacities. Tolerability of NAC eyedrops was good in almost all patients, with no reports of ocular or systemic adverse effects”.

•Welcome to Nigeria, CATARACT CLEAR from NATURE’S GIFTS FOR LIFE.