Introduction:

A total of 1,444,920 new cancer cases and 559,650 deaths for cancers are projected to occur in the United States in 2007.  Cancer still accounts for more deaths than heart disease in persons under age 85 years.  From a total of 58 million deaths worldwide in 2005, cancer accounts for 7.6 million (or 13%) of all deaths. The main types of cancer leading to overall cancer mortality are:

• Lung (1.3 million deaths/year);
• Stomach (almost 1 million deaths/year);
• Liver (662,000 deaths/year);
• Colon (655,000 deaths/year) and
• Breast (502,000 deaths/year).

Deaths from cancer in the world are projected to continue rising, with an estimated 9 million people dying from cancer in 2015 and 11.4 million dying in 2030.

QUICK CANCER FACTS:

• 40% of cancer can be prevented (by a healthy diet, physical activity and not using tobacco).
• Tobacco use is the single largest preventable cause of cancer in the world. Tobacco use causes cancer of the lung, throat, mouth, pancreas, bladder, stomach, liver, kidney and other types; Environmental tobacco smoke (passive smoking) causes lung cancer.
• One-fifth of cancers worldwide are due to chronic infections, mainly from hepatitis B viruses, causing liver cancer. The human papilloma viruses HPV cause cervical cancer. Helicobacter pylori are implicated in Stomach cancer. Parasites like schistosomes can cause bladder cancer and the liver fluke bile duct cancer.

A celebrity who conquered cancer:

Melissa Etheridge, one of the most recognizable and popular was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2004 at age 43.  She underwent chemotherapy and a lumpectomy and is on the road to recovery. Melissa actually attended a Grammy award ceremony with her beautiful baldhead.   Melissa said in Organic Style magazine, “People said I was courageous because I went on the Grammy’s with no hair. For me, it was just the best decision…I didn’t see it as an act of courage.”

Since the cancer diagnosis Melissa Etheridge has made some major changes in her life. She was quoted in Organic Style as saying, “When I was told I had breast cancer last October at 43, I began to change from the very second I got the diagnosis. I started listening to my body, and I became more aware of everything. With cancer, you start looking at your whole life and cutting the dark things out of it. I often say that cancer is a gift in that way.”

Melissa also reports that she loves yoga now and does it every day. And she watches what she eats, but she doesn’t use food to reward or deny herself anymore.

Conclusion:

Having cancer does not necessarily mean that it is a death sentence. Although the incidence of cancer has been increasing, it is possible to prevent cancer and even fight it off successfully. 40% of the all cancers can be prevented by a healthy diet, which could be more vegetarian or vegan. The studies also highlight the importance of exercise in our lives and avoidance of tobacco in all its forms.

SELENIUM.

This remedy is derived from Selenium.

This remedy is useful when subjects are extremely sad, with abject despair and uncompromising melancholy.

This remedy is useful when subjects complain of intense debility, great exhaustion, both mental and physical in old age. It is useful in debility in hot weather, after typhoid, sexual excesses and other exhausting diseases.

 It is a very useful remedy when there is a lot of hair fall.

This remedy suits subjects who have pain in the left eye, which becomes worse while walking in the sun.  This remedy suits subjects who are worse from strong odors and tea.

This remedy suits subjects who get headache from tea drinking.

This remedy is useful in subjects with incipient tuberculous laryngitis.

This remedy is useful in hoarseness in singers.

This remedy is useful in chronic liver affections where the liver is painful and enlarged, with a fine rash over the liver region.

This remedy suits subjects who are constipated and the stools are large and accumulated in the rectum.

This remedy suits subjects who have lascivious thoughts with impotency.    This remedy suits male subjects who have a sensation in the tip of the urethra, as if a biting drip were forcing its way out. This remedy is useful involuntary dribbling of the urine.  This remedy affects the genitourinary organs.  It is specially indicated in elderly male subjects who suffer from prostatitis and sexual debility.  This remedy is also useful for male subjects, who have dribbling of the semen during sleep and who have a dribbling of the prostatic fluid, with irritability in the urethra after coitus.  This remedy suits male subjects, who complain of loss of sexual power with lascivious dreams.  This remedy suits male subjects whose penis relaxes immediately on attempting coitus.  This remedy is also said to be useful in subjects, who have an increased sexual desire with a tendency to impotency. It is also said to suit individuals, who have impotency after masturbation.

This remedy suits subjects who have itching about the ankles and folds of skin between the fingers. This remedy is useful in male subjects, when the hair falls out of the brows, beard and the genital region.

This remedy is useful in vesicular eruptions between the fingers and in acne with comedones with an oily surface of the skin.

This remedy is useful when the sleep is prevented with feeling of pulsation in all the vessels of the body.

This remedy suits subjects who are worse after sleep, in hot weather, after a draught of air and after coitus.  This remedy suits persons who get headache after tea.

 TIPS FROM THE MASTERS…

Overstrain of students, forgetting what they have read; SELENIUM.

Dr. Eli. G. Jones, M.D.

Introduction:

The mineral zinc is present all over the body and helps with the healing of wounds and is a vital component of many enzyme reactions.  Zinc is particularly important for healthy skin and is essential for a healthy immune system and resistance to infection.

Functions of Zinc:

• It plays a crucial role in growth and cell division where it is required for protein and DNA synthesis,
• In insulin activity,
• In the metabolism of the ovaries and testes,
• In liver function, as a component of many enzymes,
• Zinc is involved in the metabolism of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and energy.

Zinc in our bodies:

• Our body contains about 2-3g of zinc.
• There are no specific storage sites known for zinc and so a regular supply in the diet is required.
• Zinc is found in all parts of our body, 60% is found in muscle, 30% in bone and about 5% in our skin.
• High concentrations are in the prostate gland and semen. Men need more zinc than women because male semen contains 100 times more zinc than is found in the blood.

What are the signs of Zinc deficiency?

• The first signs of zinc deficiency are impairment of taste,
• A poor immune response
• Hair loss,
• Diarrhea,
• Fatigue,
• Delayed wound healing
• Decreased growth rate and mental development in infants.
• Zinc supplementation helps skin conditions such as acne and eczema, prostate problems, anorexia nervosa, alcoholics and those suffering from trauma or post-surgery.
• Studies have shown that the use of zinc for prevents and shortens the duration of common cold or viral upper respiratory infection.

Vegetarian Dietary Sources of Zinc:

A vegetarian diet often contains less zinc than a meat based diet.

Good sources for vegetarians include dairy products, beans and lentils, yeast, nuts, seeds and wholegrain cereals. Pumpkin seeds provide one of the most concentrated vegetarian food sources of zinc.

Only 20% of the zinc present in the diet is actually absorbed by the body. Dietary fiber and phytic acid, found in bran, wholegrain cereals, pulses and nuts, inhibit zinc absorption. Cooking processes can reduce the adverse effects of both phytic acid and dietary fiber on zinc absorption. Baking can destroy over half the phytic acid in whole meal bread.  Zinc deficiency occurs where a large part of the diet consists of unleavened bread. High levels of the toxic mineral cadmium can also prevent zinc absorption because these two minerals compete for absorption.  Zinc is lost via the faeces, urine, hair, skin, sweat, semen and also menstruation.

Conclusion:

Zinc is a micro mineral needed in the diet on a daily basis, but only in very small amounts (50 milligrams or less). The other micro minerals that all humans must get from food are arsenic, boron, cobalt, copper, chromium, fluorine, iodine, iron manganese, molybdenum, nickel, silicon and vanadium.

Zinc is a very important micro-mineral that the body requires and deficiency leads to impairment of bodily and sexual growth.

SECALE CORNUTUM.

 This remedy is derived from the Ergot of Rye.

It is a useful remedy in old subject, who have a shriveled skin and also suits thin scrawny women, who were thin, feeble and cachetic.

This remedy suits subjects whose body is pervaded with great heat within and icy cold from the outside.

This remedy suits contraction of the un-striped muscles fibers and hence it gives rise to a feeling of coldness, numbness and gangrene.

This remedy is suitable, whenever there is hemorrhage, which is thin fetid, black and watery.

This remedy is suitable in subjects with congestive headaches in the back of the head (occiput).

It suits subjects who have falling hair, which is dry and gray.

This remedy is suitable in subjects with nasal bleeding, which is dark and oozing.

This remedy suits subjects, whose eyes are sunken with a blue margin and the face is pale and sunken.

This remedy suits subjects who have an unnatural nervous appetite with unquenchable thirst.

This remedy suits subjects who have coffee ground vomiting with burning in the stomach (as in gastric hemorrhage or in a bleeding peptic ulcer).

This remedy suits subjects with involuntary stools with no sensation of passing stools.

This remedy is suitable in subjects with a paralyzed bladder with retention and unsuccessful urging of urine with a discharge of black blood from the bladder.

This remedy is useful in post-partum hemorrhage.  This remedy is suitable for female subjects with menstrual colic with intolerance to heat.  This remedy is also useful in females with offensive brownish leucorrhoea. This remedy also suits female subjects who have a watery dark and offensive discharge from the uterus after delivering a baby (this discharge is called as lochia).  This remedy suits female subjects who have Puerperal fever (fever after labor) with putrid discharges from the uterus.  This remedy is useful for prolonged ineffectual labor pains.

This remedy is also suitable in Angina Pectoris, with dyspnoea and oppression and boring pain in the chest.

This remedy is useful in the STAGGERING GAIT IN LOCOMOTOR ATAXIA.

This remedy is useful when the fingers and the feet become blue, shriveled and icy cold.  This remedy is extremely useful to combat the violent pain in the fingertips due to Raynaud’s disease.  This remedy is useful to stop the progression of slow gangrene, due to bad and slow circulation in the extremities.

This remedy suits subjects who feel worse from the heat, warm covering and who are better from the cold, uncovering, rubbing and stretching out of the limbs.

TIPS FROM THE MASTERS…

 With bleeding in a duodenal ulcer, evidenced by tarry stools more than by bloody vomiting; HAMAMELIS, ERIGERON, TRILLIUM is valuable when hemorrhage is so severe that collapse and heart weakness threatens. SECALE: Bleeding which does not cease.

Dr. Schwarzspt.

 During labor or uterine hemorrhage, SECALE CORNUTUM should be used with great discretion: it is extremely dangerous when there is Albuminuria, for it is liable to bring on convulsions; if used too freely during labor, it is extremely apt to cause puerperal metritis.

Dr. H.C. Allen, M.D.

 My big  ‘5’ in obstetrical hemorrhage are MILLEFOLIUM, PHOSPHORUS, NITRIC ACID, SECALE CORNUTUM and SABINA.

Dr. Krischbaum.

 SECALE CORNUTUM is frequently indicated in Post-partum hemorrhage, but more so IPAECAC.

Dr. Nash, M.D.

The following remedies are useful for high blood pressure: BARYTA CARB, CONIUM, DIGITALIS, OPIUM, SECALE CORNUTUM, TABACUM and URANIUM NITRICUM.

Dr. F.C. Askenstedt.

In arteriosclerotic heart disease, when the pathology is angina pectoris and right heart disease, with cold and blue extremities, intermittent claudication and endarteritis: SECALE CORNUTUM.

Dr. C. C. Boericke, M.D.

Pain in the chest going down both arms; my first thought in angina pectoris cases is SECALE CORNUTUM 12x.  You will find it very satisfactory.

Dr. Garth. W. Boericke, M.D.

A brief history of Holistic Medicine:

 Holistic medicine is not a new system of medicine. It is as old as man’s foray into the world. A fact that is strangely lesser known is that India is the cradle that fostered Holistic medicine. More that 10,000 years ago, we had great physicians like Lord Dhanvantri, Rishis who brought forth the treatises on Ayurveda. Foremost among these great rishis were Sage Charaka and Sage Sushrutha.

The earliest western records credit Hippocrates as being the father of modern medicine, although he did his work more than 400 years before Lord Jesus was born.  But, Hippocrates was a visionary beyond comprehension. He wrote more than sixty books on Medicine. He was truly the father of modern medicine as well as the father or Holistic medicine.

Through the eons, mystics, spiritual persons and passionate men carried on their relentless quest for health. In the 12^th century A.D. there was a great Arabian physician called as Rhazes, who emphasized on diet as a mode of treatment.

In the Renaissance period, Europe saw great strides in our understanding of Anatomy. Unfortunately, there was also ignorance. People thought that illness was as a result of demons. Debilitating therapies were in vogue like applying leaches to human beings to take away the “so called bad blood”.

Around two hundred years ago, Franz Anton Mesmer came into the scene and created a new system of cure, which was popularly called as Mesmerism.  Unfortunately, Mesmer had to flee his own country of birth.  About one hundred and fifty years ago, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann came into the scene and he revolutionized medical therapy by introducing Homeopathy, where the dictum of cure was Similia similibus Curentur –which simply means that like cures like.

World war II saw the advent of Penicillin and then man never seemed to look back. The war on the microbes seemed to have been won and a plethora of new antibiotics came onto the scene. Surgical techniques became refined in the seventies, eighties and the nineties and everybody thought that Holistic medicine should be confined to history textbooks. Everywhere it was Allopathy, allopathy and only allopathic.

Holistic Medicine makes a come back:

 With the advent of gross urbanization, mindless industrialization and gross destruction of the environment, a new set of diseases came up and they were Stress related disorders. Then sprang up the viruses like AIDS, SARS and BIRD FLU, just to name a few. In the nineties doctors discovered to their utter horror that existing bugs were becoming resistant to antibiotics and newer super bugs evolved – the MRSA’s, the ESBL’ s, the MDR tuberculosis.  Finally, we have come back one full circle and patients who became fed up of the allopathic system started seeking solace to their ailments through Yoga, Ayurveda, massage, nutritional therapy and Homeopathy. Thus, Holistic medicine has  made a comeback in the latter part of the 20^th century and in the early 21^st century.

What is Holistic Medicine?

The Canadian Holistic Medical Association defines holistic Medicine as follows.

Holistic medicine is a system of health care, which fosters a cooperative relationship among all those involved, leading towards optimal attainment of the physical, mental emotional, social and spiritual aspects of health.

It emphasizes the need to look at the whole person, including analysis of physical, nutritional, environmental, emotional, social, spiritual and lifestyle values. Holistic medicine focuses on education and responsibility for personal health.

The other terms associated with Holistic Medicine are:

• Alternative Medicine.
• Complementary Medicine
• Natural Healing.

Conclusion:

 Society is undergoing a rapid transition and values are changing. The world needs a spiritual revolution and Holistic medicine will give the world the spin of total health, it needs.