Being the third part in the serialisation of the paper presented by Femi Kusa at the training seminar of the National Integrative Medine Association (NIMPA) held on October 8, 2014 at the Water Parks Hotel, Toyin Street, Ikeja, Lagos.
I spoke with a group of health seeking women sometimes last week. For me, it was a re-enactment of the tribute which this column paid to women, especially mothers, for all the health challenges their bodies undergo in the process of bringing us human beings to this earth. That was a MOTHERS’ DAY tribute, which examined some female reproductive system failings or challenges which may cause anguish of soul or physical impairment or damage to the sufferer. Many readers of that column were surprised to learn that some women could become pregnant without menstruating. I had read of such cases in Susannah and Leslie Kenton’s RAW ENERGY in the late 1970s, but it was in the mid 1980s I learned of a Nigerian case somewhere in northern Nigeria.
It came up at a Gothe Institute Alternative Medicine seminar in Lagos. Of course, the young mother of three was banished from her village. But as the Kenton sisters explained in their book, such women have more beta carotene, an antioxidant Vitamin A precursor, than the average women who, probably, on account of a deficiency, must menstruate. The book mentions research work on animals which found some female animals do not menstruate but are, nevertheless, fertile, like these human females. The researchers concluded, says the book, that menstruation may actually be a disease caused by Beta Carotene deficiency, and this ailment has probably been accepted as normal simply because a majority of women have been menstruating for as long as anyone can remember. Indeed, it should be serious food for thought if some female animals with “abnormally” high levels of Beta carotene do not menstruate on the basis of this “abnormality” but are fertile and have babies and human females with “abnormally” high levels of beta carotene in their blood exhibit the same phenomenon.
Susannah and Leslie underscore this point as follows in their Raw energy: “Uncooked food have enormous potential for improving the quality of a woman’s life. They are one of the reasons why the world’s exclusive and expensive health farms stay in business. Two weeks on a raw diet makes a woman 10 years younger – flesh is firmer, lines are softer and skin, eyes and hair glow with health. And two years on a high raw diet can completely transform the shape and texture and functioning of a woman’s body. Even typically female problems such as stubborn cellulite, excessive menstrual flow, premenstrual tension and menopausal hot flashes can be eliminated on a raw diet.
“Many studies carried out in Britain and the United States point to the fact that an astonishing number of women suffer from nutritional deficiencies. One three-year research project i.e in America referred to in connection with mesohealth in Chapter one found that calcium and iron deficiency were widespread in women; one in two women lacked calcium and nine out of 10 were deficient in iron. And that is probably a very conservative estimate since the levels of these and other nutrients used to define health in that study were nowhere near those that a good nutritionist would recommend to anyone wanting to look and feel their best.
“Many women eating the standard Western diet also suffer from Zinc deficiency, particularly if they are on the pill; Zinc helps to prevent stretch marks after pregnancy or weight loss, and prevents skin from ugly wrinkling. Vitamin deficiencies are also common”.
What I think would be of interest to women who do not menstruate but, long to, is a section of this book titled: “A shorter time of the month”. It says “Women on all raw or high-raw diet often report that menstrual problems such as bloating, premenstrual tension and fatigue improve greatly after two or three months. For some of them, the improvement is so dramatic that they are not aware of their periods until they arrive. This is something we discovered ourselves and at first we thought we were unique. Then we spoke to numerous other women who said they had had a similar experience. Every period becomes lighter…. A period that ordinarily lasts for six or seven days can be reduced to as few as one or two. In some women, particularly those who do not eat meat, dairy products or large quantities of nuts, periods can even cease altogether. What, we wondered, does this mean?
“British gyneacologist C. Allam B. Clemetson, now practising in the United States, first became interested in the possibility of regulating menstrual flow with substances that occur in foods when a young Italian patient told him that she could easily cure her excessive menstrual bleeding by sucking lemons. It was the standard remedy in her home village, she said. Surprised and disbelieving, Clemetson could not quite squelch his curiosity”.
Dr. Clemetson was to study the relationship between citrus bioflavonoid, found in orange, lime, lemon etc, in a woman’s body, and menorrhagia, very heavy and sometimes painful periods. As the Kentons report:
“His research established three things. First, the capillaries in a woman’s body weaken briefly just after ovulation every month and again, and again, more markedly, for a few days before menstruation. Second, women who have heavy periods have weaker capillaries than women whose flow is normal. Third, doses of citrus bioflavonoid and vitamin C over a period of three or four months significantly reduced excessive bleeding in the majority of women he tested. After his study was completed, he suggested to his patients that they eat three oranges a day, with plenty of pith, because it is the pith which contains the bioflavonoids. Many of them found this was enough to maintain their lighter period.
eavy bleeders are luckier today. Three oranges a day will give no more than 100mg of Vitamin C., but today, they can take alkaline Vitamin C supplement at 1,000mg per capsule dosage daily. Such Vitamin C usually comes with a bioflavonoid complex and buffered with alkalinising minerals such as calcium, magnesium, Manganese, Iron, Zinc and probably potassium. In addition to these, I suggest Yarrow, a healer of many female troubles, Grape Seed Extract, Bragg’s Organic and unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar (rich in potassium and bioflavonoids) Nettle (for its silica) at Horsetail, one of the richest plant sources of silica, or my new-found love Diatomaceous, also called Edible earth, which is 96 percent silica. I will return to Diatomaceous when I come to cleansing of the body before pregnancy. Its silica content is fascinating. Silica is a hardener of bones, teeth and nails. It makes skin supple and hair to grow and glow. It helps digestion, kill parasites in the intestine, and strengthen the collagen matrix. Since a weakness of the collagen matrix leads to easy brusing and bleeding, a silica hardening of this matrix stops bleeding, in much the same way as Shepherd’s Purse does.
The Kenton’s add: “It seems that several of the bioflavonoids are estrogenic, that is, they mimick some of the effects of the female sex hormone- estrogen, including estrogen’s ability to strengthen fragile capillary wall. When estrogens levels are highest, as they are at ovulation (approximately 10 days after bleeding ceases) and again seven days later, estrogen appears to replace the bioflavonoids in the capillary walls of uterus. When estrogen levels drop markedly, as they do in the three days after ovulation and again just before and during menstruation, the bioflavonoids re-enter the capillary walls giving them some of the protection withdrawn by dropping estrogen levels. It is because the bioflavonoids partly compensate for the fall in estrogen that they help to reduce menstrual flow. If estrogen levels never vary, but are always high or always low, menstruation would not occur. It is only a sustained fall in estrogen that brings on breakdown of the uterine wall and bleeding.
“Vitamin C powerfully complements the action of the bioflavonoids, but just in case you are tempted to rush to your nearest health food store for supplements instead of increasing your intake of fresh raw foods, you should know that several studies show that pure ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is not as effective in treating capillary fragility and permeability as are fruits and vegetables containing the Vitamin C. These bioflavonoids in food greatly strengthen many of the health protecting qualities of Vitamin C. Their presence also improves the storage of Vitamin C in the system.”
Finally, what do the Kenton’s say about beta Carotene and the cessation of periods? “Amenorrhea (absence of periods) in women who follow unusual dietary habits has often been attributed to high levels of carotene in the diet. Carotene is a precursor to Vitamin A; it turns into the vitamin during the digestive process. Carrots, spinach and other green vegetables contain large quantities of carotene.
“Medicine has long remarked that people who take in exceptionally large quantities of carotene exhibit a change in skin tone, a golden tinge rather like a gentle tan. This phenomenon, known as carotenemia, was first recorded in the British Medical Journal in 1904. It appears to have no consequences for health, apart from a general strengthening of the body’s immune system. Indeed so innocuous is carotenemia that, in some countries, canteen tablets are sold over the counter as artificial tanners.
“Recently, a team of researchers from the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Rutgers University in new Jersey studied a group of women who exhibited both carotenemia and amenorrhoea. They wanted to find out if there was a direct casual relationship between carotene intake and the cessation of periods. The normal diet of these women consisted mainly of raw vegetable, including lots of carrots. None of them ate red meat although a few ate fish and chicken. The researchers were careful to emphasise the fact that all of these women were in excellent health; amenorrhoea did not appear to affect them adversely in any way. What happened when carotene was excluded from their diet? Those women who did manage to exclude carotene-rich foods and substitute foods with little or no carotene in them resumed menstrual bleeding. Those who choose to revert to their high-carotene diet became amenorrhoeic again.
“The casual relationship between high-carotene intake and amenorrhoer is fairly clear, then. But what is one to make of it? Does carotene counteract the effect of estrogen? We know that when estrogen levels are always low or always high, menstruation ceases whatever the mechanism by which carotene exerts its amenorrhoic effect, the lessening and eventual disappearance of menstrual flow in some women who eat a high-raw diet appears to have no adverse consequences as far as fetility and conception are concerned, the picture that emerges, then, is that new food generally, and some foods in particular, namely those high in the bioflavonoids, Vitamin C and carotene, reduce menstrual flow and other discomforts connected with the menstrual cycle.”
The Kentons, whose best-selling Raw energy and the new raw energy I recommend for the library of every health seeker who believes food will heal disease(s) when injections and drugs fail, put an “evolutionary footnote” on these observations.
“One of the quite extraordinary claims made by women who live on an entirely raw diet… and it probably earns them the reputation of crank faster than anything else… is that menstruation is not the natural phenonenom we take it to be. Primate researchers have pointed out that the old world monkeys do not menstruate, but that their higher relatives, the baboons do; nevertheless, when fed with a vegetable-only diet, female baboons cease to menstruate. Does that mean that in homo sapiens¸ the highest primate of all, menstruation is one of the consequences of omnivorous rather than vegetarian eating habit? It is an intriguing question. If it ever proved that menstruation is consequence of diet, many women liberationists who regard menstruation as one of the many obstacles to women’s freedom would rejoice. It would also turn an entire view of the female sexual-reproductive cycle on its head.
“In the meantime, the relief that a high raw diet can offer women who suffer from any of the typical female agonies seems too important not to investigate further.”
Many thanks Sussanah and Leslie. I hope many of my female friends now know where I come from when I advise them against eating the standard Nigerian diet, all week, month or year round. Again, I say no bread, milk, no sugar, margarine, poultry egg etc. for breakfast. No fast foods. Very little carbohydrate. Plenty of vegetable and fruits. Plenty of salads. Lots of proprietary green drinks such as Spectragreen, Wheatgrass, Spirulina, Chorella, Barleygrass, Alfalfa etc.
efore I proceed to the second part of some causes of female infertility and some natural solutions of these problem, I would like to return to the subject of detoxification. The suggestions about detoxification made earlier as a solution of male infertility apply to women as well. Men, too, should profit immensely from the following suggestions for women.
All too often, men and women jump thoughtlessly into baby making. I say they jump thoughtlessly because hardly does anyone imagine that, like farming or any other project, some preparations must be made in respect of the work of bodies are going to be asked to perform, “the man, to produce healthy, well-delivered sperm in sufficient quantum”, the woman, to receive the ‘guest’, offer the prospect of one of them fertilising her eggs(s) and healthy nurturing of the offspring to term.
Incidentally, the bodies of many women are toxic. The average woman suffers intermittently from vaginal infections especially candidiasis. The tongues of many are coated with oral thrush an indication that candida may have overgrown its bounds in the bowels. The breath is nauseating. Even what oozes from the skin is appauling. Sometimes, I wonder which men will ever wish to touch them. When I think like this, I tend to forget the place of The law of attraction of Homogenous species in our lives. By this Natural Law, birds of a feather flock together. A couple asked me for advice recently on their conception problems. The man had genital herpes. The woman itched in the vagina and had discharges. One of her tubes was blocked. In this condition, they desired to have a baby, thinking less of their infections.
Well, some couples scale over the fence. But what will be the quality of the body of such a child. I ask this question because some researchers now link autism, for example, to candida manifestation in the brain of an autistic child. No fewer than two women I advised on healthy diet for their autistic children told me that before they became pregnant, they tried to rid themselves of stubborn candida. In retrospect, they must be wishing they became pregnant on a clean slate, because the problem of an autistic child may be a life-long experience for a parent.
So, we should see getting pregnant as cultivating or preparing land for farming. No farmer jumps into a land starts planting without prior preparations. He clears the land, applies manure where necessary and makes heaps or ridges to loosen the soil.
Similarly, we must clean up all the organs involved with reproductive work before copulation.