Browsing Tag Alternative medicine

Many foods contain proteins called lectins that can bind to sugars (including blood type antigens) and thus agglutinate the cells of certain blood types but not others, meaning that a food may be harmful to the cells of one blood type, but beneficial to the cells of another.

When you eat a food containing protein lectins that are incompatible with your blood type antigen, the lectins target an organ and cause the cells in that area to stick together and agglutinate. In effect, lectins interfere with digestion, insulin production, food metabolism, and hormonal balance .The key is to avoid the lectins that target your blood type. For example, chicken, which is fine for Type O and Type A, contains a lectin in its muscle tissue that agglutinates the cells of Type B and Type AB.

Why eating right is important
About 60% of our immune system is expressed in our digestive system. It serves as a protective agent, recognizing and targeting foreign antigens that could damage the body. When you eat a food containing lectins incompatible with your blood type, the incompatible lectins target an organ/s and cause cellular agglutination.

Detrimental effects of lectins include ;

· Interfering with the immune system and creating reactions often mistaken for allergies
· Blocking digestive enzymes, interfering with protein digestion and impairing absorption of crucial nutrients.
· Activating auto-antibodies in inflammatory and autoimmune disease
· Damaging the intestinal lining and influencing gut permeability.

Food Groups and Weight Gain
For each of the blood groups there are certain foods that are “no nos”. If a particular blood type were to indulge in that food group, they are highly likely to put on weight or fall sick.

Group O
For Blood Group O, they thrive on chemical free meats, poultry and fish. They function best when their system is slightly more acidic. They also produce more stomach acid to digest protein. This is generally not true for other blood types. They also tend to have a slightly low thyroid function. Wheat has the effect of clogging the function of their system (corn to a lesser extent). Certain legumes like kidney beans, navy bean, lentils, cabbage contain lectins that deposit in the muscle tissue making them more alkaline and less primed for the explosive activity that is suitable for Type O. Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, mustard greens are items that tend to lower Type O’s thyroid function further. On the other hand kelp, iodised salt and seafood contain iodine that would increase thyroid hormone production. Liver is an efficient source of B vitamins that would boost metabolism. Red meat, kale, spinach and broccoli all aid efficient metabolism.

Group A
For blood group As they were descendants of farmers. As such they would flourish on vegetarian diets. On an incorrect diet they would be inclined to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Some type A’s experience fluid retention as their digestive system process the unwieldy food. While Type Os burn their meat as fuel, Type As store them primarily as fat. This is because while Type Os have high stomach acid which promotes easy digestion of meat, Type As have low stomach acid content, ideal for an agrarian diet. Dairy products inhibit nutrient metabolism. Both kidney bean and lima beans interfere with digestive enzymes and slow metabolic rate. Wheat in abundance inhibits insulin efficiency and impairs calorie restriction. Vegetable oils on the other hand aid efficient digestion and prevent fluid retention. Soy foods aid efficient digestion and are metabolised quickly. Vegetables aid in efficient metabolism and increase intestinal mobility. Pineapple increases calories utilization and increases intestinal mobility

Group B
Group Bs generally have strong systems. More likely to develop exotic immune system disorders such as multiple sclerosis, lupus and chronic fatigue syndrome.For Blood Group B their diet is balanced and wholesome and includes a wide variety of foods.Corn inhibits insulin efficiency, hampers metabolic rate and cause hypoglycemia. Lentils inhibit proper nutrient intake, hampers metabolic rate and cause hypoglycemia. Peanuts hampers metabolic efficiency and cause hypoglycemia and inhibit liver function. Sesame seeds hamper metabolic efficiency and cause hypoglycemia. Buckwheat inhibits digestion, hampers metabolic efficiency and causes hypoglycemia. Wheat slows the digestive and metabolic process, causes food to be stored as fat, not burned as energy and inhibits insulin efficiency.Green vegetables, meat (except chicken), eggs, low fat dairy products and liver all aid efficient metabolism. Licorice tea counters hypoglycemia (doctor’s supervision only)

Group AB
For Blood Group AB reflect the missed inheritance of both As and Bs. So although they are genetically programmed for red meat, they often lack enough stomach acid to fully digest it. Red meat is poorly digested ,stored as fat and makes the intestines toxic. Kidney beans, lima beans, inhibit insulin efficiency, cause hypoglycemia and slow the metabolic rate down. Seeds and buckwheat cause hypoglycemia. Corn inhibits insulin efficiency.
Wheat slows metabolic process, inefficient use of calories and inhibits insulin efficiency.

Green vegetables, tofu seafood all aid efficient metabolism. Dairy improves insulin production. Kelp improves insulin production. Pineapple aids digestion and stimulates intestinal mobility.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

Very few doctors inform parents about vaccine risks. But vaccine manufacturers place warnings in vaccine containers indicating who should not receive vaccinations. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) also make recommendations indicating who should not receive vaccinations. (The AAP publishes a Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases every four years; HHS has guidelines formulated by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which appear in the Morbidity and Mortality Report published by the CDC). This information is included below:

POLIO: Children younger than 6 weeks; people who are ill, or who have cancer of the lymph system.

MEASLES: Children younger than 15 months; pregnant women; people who are ill, or who are allergic to eggs, chicken, feathers, or who have cancer, blood disease, or deficiencies of the immune system.

RUBELLA: Pregnant women; people who are allergic to eggs, chicken, duck, or feathers, or who have cancer, blood disease, or deficiencies of the immune system.

DPT: Any child past the 7th birthday, or who has had a severe reaction to a previous dose, or who has a personal history of convulsions or neurological disease, or who is acutely sick with a fever or respiratory infection, or who is taking medication that may suppress the immune system.

The three vaccine policymakers in America, noted above, do not “officially” consider the following conditions contraindications to the DPT vaccine. However, scientific literature published by pertussis vaccine researchers throughout the world for the past 40 years indicates that such conditions may put a child at high risk:

1. The child is ill with anything, including a runny nose, cough, ear infection, diarrhea, or has recovered from an illness within one month prior to a scheduled DPT shot.

2. The child has a family member who had a severe reaction to a DPT shot.

3. Someone in the child’s immediate family has a history of convulsions or neurological disease.

4. The child was born prematurely or with low birth weight.

5. The child has a personal or family history of severe allergies (i.e., cow’s milk, asthma, eczema).

Vaccines may also be contraindicated for certain people with special conditions not listed above. If you suspect that you or your child may be at high risk, Get The Facts!

In 1986, Congress in USA officially acknowledged the reality of vaccine-caused injuries and death by creating and passing The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (Public Law 99-660). The safety reform portion of this law requires doctors to provide parents with information about the benefits and risks of childhood vaccines prior to vaccination, and to report vaccine reactions to federal health officials.
Doctors are required by law to report suspected cases of vaccine damage. To simplify and centralize this legal requisite, federal health officials established the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).(40)

Ideally, doctors would abide by this federal law and report adverse events following the administration of a vaccine. However, the FDA recently acknowledged that 90 percent of doctors do not report vaccine reactions. They are choosing to subvert this law by claiming the adverse event was, in their opinion, not related to the shot. In fact, every year about 12,000 reports of adverse reactions to vaccines are made to the FDA (data accessible only through the Freedom of Information Act). These figures include hospitalizations, irreversible brain damage, and hundreds of deaths. Considering that these numbers represent just 10 percent, the true figures during this period could be as high as 120,000 adverse events annually.

Maybe it doesn’t matter that doctors won’t report vaccine reactions, because the federal government won’t investigate them. Government officials claim VAERS was designed to “document” suspected cases of vaccine damage. No attempt is being made to confirm or deny the reports. Parents are not being interviewed, and the vaccines that preceded the severe reactions are not being recalled. Instead, new waves of unsuspecting parents and innocent children are being subjected to the damaging shots.

In order to pay for vaccine injuries and deaths, a surtax is levied on mandated vaccines. When parents elect to have their children vaccinated, a portion of the money they spend on each vaccine goes into a congressional fund to compensate them if their child is hurt or killed by the shot. This insurance fee ranges from several dollars per dose (for the DPT and MMR vaccines) to several cents per dose for some of the others.

The compensation portion of the law awards up to $250,000 if the individual dies, or millions of dollars to cover lifelong medical bills, pain, and suffering in the case of a living (but brain damaged) child. By August 31, 1997, more than $802 million had already been paid out for hundreds of injuries and deaths caused by mandated vaccines. Thousands of cases are still pending.

If vaccines are so safe, why do you have to pay a surtax to pay for legal costs?

Be well

Dr Sundardas

For most of us, genetic inheritance plays a limited role in determining our health. More important is where and how we live, work, and play — the quality of what we drink, eat, and breathe. From the time of conception, throughout development, and into early and late adulthood, environmental factors either directly impact biological tissues or influence gene expression and shape subsequent disease risks.

Although links between exposures to environmental contaminants and health impacts have been known for centuries, recent research documents an expanding list of previously unrecognized effects occur after fetal or infant exposures. The developing fetus and child are particularly vulnerable to toxic insults. During this time cells are rapidly dividing, and growth is dramatic. Various events, including development of the brain and endocrine, reproductive, and immune systems, are uniquely susceptible to
disruption that is often permanent. To compound the problem, pound for pound, children are often disproportionately exposed to toxic environmental agents because of the way they breathe, eat, drink, and play. Moreover, immature detoxification pathways in children frequently result in increased impacts of toxic exposures when compared to adults.

To the limited degree that health care providers address environmental factors at all, most focus nearly all of their attention on personal behaviors, like smoking, substance abuse, or use of sunscreens. These are more easily addressed by individuals than more complex problems like air and water pollution, hazardous waste sites, agricultural systems that inevitably result in farmworker pesticide exposures, and mercury contamination of dietary fish. Global environmental conditions, however, are changing, along with the changing pattern of disease and disability, and our increasing understanding of the importance of environmental factors in determining the health of individuals and populations places a new and special responsibility on the medical profession.

Consider that

** The release of ozone-depleting chemicals used for industrial and agricultural purposes has depleted the stratospheric ozone layer and is likely a major contributor to the increased incidence of malignant melanoma.

** Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 30 percent in the last 150 years. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Hazardous air pollution, in general, is the norm in most parts of the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.

** Humans are responsible for more atmospheric nitrogen fixation than all other sources combined. Nitrates contaminate groundwater, surface water, and air at toxic concentrations.

** Humans are responsible for most of the mercury deposition on the surface of the earth. Mercury makes its way into the food chain, where it bioconcentrates. In most states, freshwater and marine fish are sufficiently contaminated with mercury to require warnings to women of reproductive age to limit consumption because of risks to fetal brain development.

** In addition to naturally occurring products like lead and mercury that are mined from the earth, novel synthetic industrial chemicals contaminate the world’s ecosystems, its human and non-human inhabitants, their breast milk and egg yolk, ovarian follicles, amniotic fluid, and meconium. The toxicity of most is little known.

** Of the approximately 85,000 chemicals on the federal inventory, nearly 3,000 are produced in excess of 1 million pounds annually. For these high-production volume (HPV) chemicals, toxicity data are surprisingly sparse. Even basic toxicity testing results are not publicly available for 75 percent of them.In the U.S., according to the 2000 Toxics Release Inventory, over 6.2 billion pounds of the listed toxic chemicals, including 2 billion pounds of known or suspected neurotoxicants, were released into the environment by major emitters required by federal law to file reports. Emissions from
small industries and neighborhood shops are unquantified. The extent of exposure from these releases and from the use of various consumer products that contain them is also largely unknown, but population-based surveys give an indication of the ubiquity of exposures.

Small exposures to substances like lead, mercury, or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have no discernible impact on adults, can permanently damage the developing brain of a child, if the exposure occurs during a window of vulnerability. Early exposures to dioxin or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chemicals from industrial activities that bioaccumulate in dietary fat, damage the developing immune system, making the child more prone to infections, risks of asthma and high blood pressure are increased by early environmental exposures. Recent research from Sweden concludes not only that environmental factors play a more important role than genetic inheritance in the origin of most cancers, but also that cancer risk is largely established during the first 20 years of life.

Some birth defects, including disorders of the male reproductive system and some forms of congenital heart disease, are increasingly common. Sperm counts and fertility are in decline in some areas of the U.S. and other parts of the world. Asthma is more common and more severe than ever before. Genetic factors explain far less than half of the population variance for most of these conditions. Although smoking and sun exposure are well-recognized risk factors for some conditions, improved understanding of development of the brain and the immune, reproductive, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems leads to the conclusion that other environmental factors play a major role in determining current patterns of disease.

Be well
Dr Sundardas

For many years, Natural Medicine has always been touted as being the safer of the two medical systems. After all herbs and vitamins rarely if ever give you side-effects. They are also often non-toxic and rarely habit forming.

However this view is often rebutted by critics on the pro Western Medicine side who will talk about the incidences of herbal products being toxic or dangerous. One of the most recent incidents being skullcap (about 3 4 years ago). The difference is that when herbal products are considered unsafe, very often the person has been using a product for months if not years. Very often you have liver enzyme inflammation or a side effect like that. In contrast when Western Medicine drugs are considered to be unsafe, the death count would have often reached thousands and than someone blows the whistle and its yanked of the market or it comes back on the market with new disclaimers.

Doctors in the UK have linked 103 deaths to patients taking the drug Vioxx, which was mainly used to treat the pain associated with arthritis.

Dr David Graham said he had felt pressured to water down findings from a study linking the drug to greater chances of heart attacks. An FDA scientist told a Senate inquiry in November that the regulator had been guilty of a “profound regulatory failure”. According to Dr Graham’s calculations, Vioxx may be linked to as many as to 56,000 American deaths.

Research published by The Lancet medical journal, also in November, highlighted a study by the University of Berne in Switzerland which found serious question marks over the safety of the drug dating back to 2000. The Lancet concluded that the drug should have been taken off the market years before it was finally withdrawn. Editor Dr Richard Horton said: “The licensing of Vioxx and its continued use in the face of unambiguous evidence of harm have been public health catastrophes.”

So at this point we can say Natural Medicine is safer. However let me offer you a third scenario. If Western Medicine is guilty of sins of commission, Natural Medicine is guilty of sins of omission. Western drugs can kill. A Natural Medicine practitioner or therapist can by holding out false hope mislead a patient into foregoing the appropriate treatment.

A case in point. I saw this young lady who said she had a lump in her breast. She refused to have it X-rayed or scanned. I felt that I could not responsibly treat someone without appropriate testing. She opted to work with someone else who promised that her condition would clear up. This someone kept selling her health products for two years giving her the impression that her cancer would improve.

Two years later, she came back to see me. She was still alive. However her breast was ulcerated. She had been using hydrogen peroxide on an open wound because she has heard or read somewhere that this was a good way to clean it up. Eventually I persuaded her to work with a medical doctor as well.

Eventually she had the ulcerated (cancerous complication) breast removed. Eventually the tumours spread and she had to do chemotherapy. What should have been an open and shut case has become a precarious one. If she had done the X-rays and the scan, done surgery to reduce the tumour burden than gone on to do nutrition and diet, the whole situation would have been very different. Simply because someone with the best of intentions and the poorest of knowledge, information and training had held out to the cancer patient that these Natural Methods and products would cure her cancer.

In my opinion this is really sad. Of course the practitioner would maintain, “I was only giving her advice. She had made the choice.” The issue is more like, was there a gross misrepresentation? So what would you my dear reader do? Be safe when you work with Natural Medicine. Ask for training, expertise and life experience in your wellness practitioner.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

We all know our health is influenced by what we eat, drink and other well-known lifestyle choices that we make. The latest scientific research now shows that for each of us these choices can have greatly differing effects on our health.

Small differences in your genes can influence how well your body metabolizes foods, utilizes nutrients and excretes damaging toxins, all of which can affect your general state of health. By finding out if you have any of these small variations, you can modify your diet and lifestyle choices to achieve optimum nutrition and health.

After 40 years of the American Medical Association saying that three square meals a day could feed your nutritional needs, the statement below totally repudiates that stand. The AMA has been forced to revise its stand in view of the new evidence. They say it takes 25 years before a new idea takes hold in medicine. In 25 years every medical doctor will be studying nutrition thoroughly. Currently average medical education spends 7 to 12 hours out of a 7 year education on food, vitamins, minerals and health.

Vitamin deficiency syndromes such as scurvy and beriberi are uncommon in modern (Western) societies. However, suboptimal intake of some vitamins, above levels causing classic vitamin deficiency, is a risk factor for chronic diseases and common in the general population, especially the elderly. Suboptimal folic acid levels, along with suboptimal levels of vitamins B6 and B12, are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and colon and breast cancer; low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteopenia and fractures; and low levels of the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins A, E, and C) may increase risk for several chronic diseases……….
( JAMA. 2002;287:3127-3129)

The average naturopath spends 1.5 to 2 years of a four years diploma/degree program on herbs, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and nutrition and food. This is why naturopaths and natural health care providers excel at prevention and medical practitioners at pathology.

By the time you have a heart attack or a gastric ulcer or a lump in the breast, you may need medical intervention, drugs or surgery. These conditions do not happen overnight. They take anything from 5 to 15 years to develop. Meantime subtle changes occur. In fact people become so used to these changes, that they put it down to ageing. Once you put it down to ageing then you of course can’t do anything about it.

What will early interventions do for you? It will ensure that you will be healthy and well enough to make your next million or more between 45 to 65. For others it will mean that they can be healthy enough to run and play with their grandchildren instead of waving at them feebly from the bed of a hospital or nursing home.

While doing a health checkup is a good practice, conventional medical testing does not provide a full picture. Functional medicine testing will often identify hidden health conditions long before they show up on conventional medical tests.

Most medical doctors will look at the standard tests and be satisfied with its results most times, possibly dismissing nagging pains or discomfort that a patient has experienced over long periods of times. Only a small percentage of medical doctors will look at functional testing to get a truer picture of health. They will also check with the quality of life the patient has.

I was once talking about early Wellness Screening to one of my ex-wife’s very good friend. She heard me politely and said with a shudder, “I’d rather not know”. About a year later, she discovered a lump in her breast and had to see a surgeon to remove it and biopsy it. Fortunately for her, it was benign. It could easily have been otherwise.

If you think that a healthy lifestyle and eating fresh organic food protects you, think again. There are more than 100, 000 chemicals in the environment that our grandparents did not get exposed to. There was this sweet radio personality who used to interview me on radio some years ago. She was famous for her healthy and organic food lifestyle. She was diagnosed early this year with cancer. She came to see me for a visit. A few months later, there was a report about her death.

While I can’t say that I have prevented people from developing cancer, (because if the early method of detection that I use in my practice work so well, they will never develop cancer), I can say that I have found individuals who have come in with cancer markers. Those who clean up their lifestyle and diet do not develop cancer. Those who find out but did not make the necessary changes often do go on to develop cancer. These are general tendencies from a sample population of 10, 000.

I will round up with a positive case history. This lady flew in from Bangkok. She was incidentally an “A” blood type. She had a great diet, exercised reasonably well and was a little stressed. She had recently discovered that she had a breast lump. She had it excised.Biopsy revealed that it was malignant. When we examined her and tested her, we found that a mercury filling in one of her teeth was leaking. It also happened to be in the tooth on the left side that was involved with the stomach meridian. The left stomach meridian by the way also influences the left breast. Mystery solved. If she had come in earlier, she could have even bypassed the cancer. One month later, she came in for a second visit feeling wonderful.

So which would you rather choose? To say, “I’d rather not know” or “Lets nip it in the bud.”

Be well

Dr Sundardas