Cancer, Allergies and Colds, Homeopathy, Avandia dangers

Watercress Prevents Cancer

New research out of the Cancer Research Centre at Southampton General Hospital's School of Medicine in the U.K. has found that watercress, a superfood vegetable, works to reduce levels of the key growth factor that causes tumor growth. According to researchers, regular consumption of watercress works the same as -- if not better than -- conventional anti-cancer drug treatments, except without all the harmful side effects.

"Watercress has the ability to turn off HIF1, a signal sent out by cells calling for blood supply," explains Dr. Nicholas Perricone, an anti-aging specialist, concerning the study. "Scientists have been looking for anti-angiogenesis agents for years because if we can turn off the blood supply, we can kill the cancer. And it looks like watercress can do that."

According to Perricone, when HIF1 levels become irregular and out of sync, precancerous cells that are otherwise harmless begin to get the blood supply they need to thrive and grow. But anti-cancer agents naturally present in watercress protect the body from these malignant cells and ensure that blood only goes to healthy cells.

A previous study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2007 found that regular consumption of watercress helps to significantly reduce free radical damage to white blood cell DNA as well, effectively improving the body's ability to guard against disease and maintain good health.

Watercress has been used for centuries to treat other ailments like migraine headaches, eczema, anemia, tuberculosis and kidney and liver disease. It contains a wide variety of healing nutrients and, since it is a food and not a drug, it can be safely consumed in large quantities to obtain therapeutic benefit.

Watercress can be added to salads, soups, sandwiches, stir-frys, stews and many other things. It can also be juiced along with other fruits and vegetables in daily juice beverages.


Allergy and Cold Prevention

If you have a child in your home, spend time with the kids in your family, or work around lots of people, you're constantly exposed to their big, wide, not-so-wonderful world of germs.

Want to minimize that exposure?

Just squirt a little powdered plant extract up the nose. That should do the trick.

Eight years ago a product called Nasaleze came on the scene. It’s an organic powdered plant extract that creates a mucus-like gel when it's sniffed into the nasal passage. For those with allergies, the gel provides protection from pollen, ragweed, and pet dander. In other words, the gel does what their nasal passages should do naturally.

Recently, the Wall St. Journal finally caught up, featuring Nasaleze in an article about "pollen blockers." The idea is simple and brilliant: Block the antagonists that cause allergy symptoms and you won't need drugs to treat the symptoms.

Over the years there have been several Nasaleze studies. One of them, highlighted in the Wall St. Journal piece, followed 50 children with seasonal allergies. For six weeks, half the group used Nasaleze and half used conventional treatments. Overall, the Nasaleze group reported a steady decrease of allergy symptoms compared to the control group.

Side effects? Zero. The cellulose powder in Nasaleze is inert, so it's never absorbed by the body, which makes it safe for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and even very young children.

Which brings us to the newest Nasaleze study. In this one, Moscow Medical Academy researchers tested Nasaleze Travel, which is formulated for extra defense against airborne germs.

Nasaleze Travel contains wild garlic extract, which has biologically active components that are naturally antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial. To test Nasaleze Travel as a preventive against upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), the Moscow team recruited more than 60 children (aged three to 14) who experienced acute URTI at least six to 12 times each year.

For six weeks, one group used Nasaleze Travel twice daily, while the other group received conventional treatments as needed.

Results: Coughing, sneezing, daytime nasal congestion, and nighttime nasal congestion were all improved in the Nasaleze group, but not the control group.

In the control group, each child became ill with URTI at least once during the study period, and nearly half became ill twice. In the Nasaleze group, 80 percent of the kids were healthy and illness-free throughout the study. Among those who did become ill, URTI duration was decreased by 2.5 days compared to the amount of time they were ill the year before.

You can find more information about Nasaleze and Nasaleze Travel at nasaleze.com .


Homeopathy is Redeemed

At a time when the British Medical Association is calling for an end to national funding for homeopathy and detractors are describing it as "nonsense on stilts", a Nobel prize-winning scientist has made a discovery that suggests that homeopathy does have a scientific basis after all. In July, Nobel Prize winning French virologist Professor Luc Montagnier shocked fellow Nobel prize-winners and the medical establishment by telling them that he had discovered that water has a memory that continues even after many dilutions.

Until Montagnier's research, the bulk of mainstream doctors and scientist had maintained that there was no scientific way that multiple dilutions used in homeopathy could possibly work. In part, such views stemmed from lack of understanding. In larger part, such views likely stemmed from a desire to stem the rising popularity of homeopathy and eliminate it as a competition to mainstream medicine - much the same as happened in the United States a century ago.

One of the foundations of homeopathy maintains that the potency of a substance is increased with its dilution. Montagnier discovered that solutions containing the DNA of viruses and bacteria "could emit low frequency radio waves" and that such waves influence molecules around them, turning them into organized structures. The molecules in turn emit waves and Montagnier found that the waves remain in the water even after it has been diluted many times. To a lay person, that may not mean much, but to a scientist it highly suggests that homeopathy may have a scientific basis.

In Britain the market for homeopathy is estimated to be growing at around 20% a year. Over 30 million people in Europe use homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy is supported in Britain by Prince Charles and the physician to the Royal Family has been a homeopathic physician since the late 1800s.

While homeopathy is also experiencing a resurgence of popularity in the United States, it is far more popular in much of the rest of the world. In India, approximately 130 million people use homeopathy. In Brazil, homeopathy is a recognized medical specialty where 15,000 medical doctors are certified as homeopathic specialists

The latter half of the 19th century was homeopathy's heyday in the United States. Regular physicians could hardly compete. By 1902 homeopaths did seven times the business of allopaths and there were 15,000 practicing homeopathic physicians in the US. During the 1849 cholera epidemic, homeopaths from Cincinnati kept rigorous records showing that they lost only 3% of their patients, while allopathy (non-homeopathic) lost 16 to 20 times more.

Many highly accomplished individuals past and present have chosen homeopathy as their therapy of choice, including several U.S. Presidents. Many of America's literary greats advocated for and often wrote about homeopathy, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mark Twain - as did European greats such as Goethe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Alfred Tennyson, and George Bernard Shaw.

At the turn of the 20th century, the American Medical Association came right out and admitted that competition was destroying physicians' incomes. Thanks to funding from John D. Rockefeller and the Carnegie Foundation, the AMA was able to repress and ultimately eliminate homeopathy and other natural and alternative competition. The 22 homeopathic medical schools that flourished in 1900 dwindled to just 2 in 1923. By 1950 all schools teaching homeopathy were closed.

Ironically, John D. Rockefeller believed strongly in homeopathy. He referred to it as "a progressive and aggressive step in medicine." Rockefeller lived to the ripe old age of 99 using only homeopathy in the latter part of his life.

As an added note: it was my own experience with homeopathy that changed my view of conventional medicine almost 20 years ago. After my 5 year old daughter had a case of whooping cough that was cured with a single treatment from a Homeopathic doctor, I was convinced of the effectiveness of Homeopathic medicine. Every night when my daughter would go to bed she would start coughing a deep and terrible sounding cough. The doctors would only keep giving her stronger and stronger doses of cough syrup that had no effect on her cough.

After helplessly listening to her suffer for weeks, we decided to try a natural doctor and took her to a combination Naturopath-Homeopath doctor. After taking the time to find out as much detail as possible, a remedy was prescribed. This involved swallowing a small amount of powder that is slightly sweet. From that day on my daughter never had another bout of whooping cough, and I became a believer in alternative medicine.

A second health issue with my son a couple years later only confirmed my belief in alternative medicine. When my son started getting warts on his body that he contracted from his cousin who had a serious case of warts spreading on his face and upper body, we decided to avoid the normal treatment of having the warts removed by freezing them off. The cousin had his warts removed by the Medical Doctor, which left numerous scars on his face and body. I thought there had to be a better way so we again decided to try the Naturopath-Homeopath doctor for a better and safer treatment.

Again the doctor took the time to learn about my son, which is critical in homeopathic medicine, and prescribed a specific remedy. The doctor told us the warts would start falling off within one week. After one week most of the warts were gone and shortly thereafter all of the warts were gone without taking a single drug or any damaging treatment to the skin. No scars, no pain and no after effects. It was by far the biggest eye opening experience I have ever had in understanding our health and the options we have to drugs and damaging treatments of all kinds. I highly recommend that you try a natural or alternative medicine doctor first before subjecting yourself to drugs or surgery to treat your health issues if possible.


Banned in Europe for Causing 83,000 Heart Attacks - Are You Taking it?
A September 23, 2010 article in the New England Journal of Medicine announced that, finally, the FDA has stepped forward and decided on regulatory action for Avandia, a diabetes drug that last year claimed 1,354 lives as a result of cardiac-associated problems. The FDA is restricting access to Avandia by requiring GSK to submit a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS.

Under the ruling, the drug will be available to patients not already taking it only if they are unable to achieve glycemic control using other medications and, in consultation with their health care professional, decide not to take a different drug for medical reasons.

Current users of Avandia will be able to continue using the medication if they appear to be benefiting from it and they acknowledge that they understand these risks. Doctors will have to attest to and document their patients’ eligibility; patients will have to review statements describing the cardiovascular safety concerns.

But did the FDA go far enough – could it be too little, too late? Unlike the US FDA, British regulators have ruled that GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia could lead to heart attacks or strokes, and benefits no longer outweigh the risks.

And so last week, they told 90,000 British diabetes patients to stop taking it.

Evidence linking Avandia to an increased risk of a heart attack or stroke has been building since 2007, and GSK has agreed to pay $460 million in damages to settle about 10,000 lawsuits in America linking its use to patients suffering serious medical setbacks. But the US FDA has chosen only to monitor the drug, rather than ask for a recall. But that is not really a surprise, is it?

Until next time, stay healthy and happy,

JD Roma


The information on this blog is provided for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical care, and medical advice and services are not being offered. If you have, or suspect you have, a health problem you should consult your physician (preferably a Naturopath).