July 2010 | Natural Health with Merrilyn Hope

Side Effects of Calcium Supplements

Are Calcium Supplements Safe?

Today is the 1st of August 2010. We were warned on our news last night in New Zealand about the possible side effects of calcium supplements. It is possible that taking calcium supplements can lead to heart disease, we were told. But we need calcium for a healthy heart, for healthy nerves, good sleep and a calm brain, and to prevent colon cancer. So now what?

Calcium build-ups can occur in the veins and arteries in people who have never touched a calcium supplement in their life. This doesn’t mean that they are eating too much calcium, but rather that they are not getting enough Vitamin C and Magnesium in the diet. We need Vitamin C and Magnesium, found in most fruit and vegetables, to assimilate calcium properly.

I hope this rather absurd revelation about calcium isn’t a lead up to drug companies persuading our governments that vitamin and mineral supplements should be banned because ‘they are dangerous to the health of the public when mis-used’. Dolomite powder is a natural calcium supplement: do the powers that be intend to remove this, too, from our list of available supplements?

Perhaps this latest calcium debate is a back-lash from the chemical companies which make things like deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and cosmetics with petrochemicals, aluminium, dioxin, and other dangerous chemicals in them: we have had a run of documentaries recently on these cosmetic products and the dangers their chemicals pose to health. But they are all still for sale, and probably not much will change about the ingredients which are used in their making in the near future.

It is possible that calcium supplements taken too often, or in too large a dose, and without enough magnesium and vitamin C to accompany it, do have a depository effect in the arteries and veins. If you take magnesium and zinc, vitamin C, and you eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, you should absorb some of the calcium in a tablet. However, much of the calcium in a tablet will actually go straight through you, unabsorbed, and should not pose a problem to your arteries at all. No more than……….

Calcium in Dairy Products: I wonder whether these research scientist took into account the quantity of dairy products these people on their trials were consuming? it is known that the calcium from dairy products can also build up into calcium deposits in the arteries.

Or did these research scientists give only calcium foods, without magnesium and vitamin C, with no fresh fruit and vegetables, to their research test-subjects? A little like giving pigs a steady diet of comfrey over a three month long trial, so that you can tell the world that comfrey causes liver cancer? And then get comfrey banned in all the countries where pharmaceuticals are sold, with a commercially made preparation, which now you have to buy, to take its place?

How dangerous, really, are calcium supplements to the health? Not really dangerous, in my opinion. My guess is that most people who get heart attacks have never touched a calcium supplement in their life. They are more than likely to be on some other medication from their doctor, and the side effects of these drugs are generally not divulged to the general public. The doctor is instructed by the drug companies what drug should be given to people. These remedies are not tried and tested by the doctor personally. He accepts what the drug companies tell him about the medications. He has no idea, really, except by watching his patients, what a drug is going to do. This drug-taking, drug-making culture of ours accepts newly invented drugs without much question as to their side-effects.

This is just such a different scenario to traditional herbal medicine, or acupuncture, or ayurvedic medicine: in these modalities, the remedies do not change by the week, and so the outcome of using the well-tried remedies is fairly well established.

The practice of orthodox medicine is such a contrast. It lacks history. The giving out of new medications, and sometimes many different combinatons of medications are taken at a time, goes on willy-nilly, unsupervised, undocumented and uncontested in the public arena.

So – even the well known Ayurvedic doctor Vasant Lad mentions in his book’Ayurvedic Home Remedies’ that dairy products can cause a build-up of calcium in the arteries. But do the research scientists make a comprehensive, intelligent study of this fact and put it on the national news?

No, they do not, because the milk-producing companies do not want their sales to be affected. They are powerful, wealthy companies which can influence topics of research. They can also influence our media into not publishing negative stuff about the effects of lots of milk drinking. We had a very good article about two years ago on research into milk which told us quite a bit about the effects of milk-drinking, but nothing has followed it up, and, certainly, the type of milk which was thought to be more harmful was not taken off the market, nor were any warnings put on that milk as to its negative effects on health.

The manufacturers of vitamin and mineral supplements, however, are easier to target, because they are not multi-million dollar enterprises compared to the multi-national drug companies, or even the milk producing companies. It does not take much to put a small competitor out of business, and announcing on national TV news that a product really is potentially that harmful is a pretty effective way to go about it.

Personally, I prefer to take calcium naturally. But I would hate to see herbal, vitamin, or mineral supplements made unavailable to the general public. I do not believe that a calcium supplement such as dolomite powder could really pose a serious threat to people’s health.

You don’t need to worry at all about over-doing calcium if you take it via your food. The best calcium and magnesium supplement is a home made calcium tonic – one which you make yourself out of egg shells and cider vinegar. This is entirely safe, though not for people being treated for chronic candida. See my post for Best Calcium Supplement.

Vegetarians, even those which do not use milk, are not generally deficient in calcium, because they eat a lot of fruit and vegetables which provide calcium. One good handful of sesame seeds provides you with about 1200mg of calcium and magnesium which won’t have a build up effect in the arteries. One handful of sesame seeds with 1200mg of calcium is about almost as much calcium as you need for a day. Sunflower seeds, soy beans, and the brassica family which includes broccoli, are other good sources of calcium.

Fermentation of Garlic

How to Ferment Garlic and Enhance its Health Giving Properties.

Recipe for Fermented Garlic. This is a recipe from my book which came out in the 1980’s, entitled ‘The No Cancer Notebook’. I was given this recipe by Walter Last when I began a detoxifying programme with his guidance in about 1977. My health had been very bad, as was that of my elder child, since being aerial sprayed with the chemical 245T, or Agent Orange, in 1975. My unborn child suffered because of this spraying episode which had contaminated our drinking water, our house, and our whole environment. She died three months after birth.

Walter Last’s detox methods and strict diet, which included this fermented garlic, helped me to restore our health again over time.

Fermented garlic is supposed to be easier to digest than fresh garlic. The nutrients are made more potent by the fermenting process: enzymes are created during fermentation which assist the digestive function.

Fermentation of garlic provides your digestive system with plenty of healthy acidophilus bacteria, which benefit the functioning of the digestive system, and help to keep the unhealthy bacteria like candida albicans and other nasties from proliferating in your intestines.

Here is what the eating of Fermented Garlic might do for you:

Garlic helps to lower ‘bad’ cholesterol in the blood.
It helps to lower blood pressure.
It helps to dissolve calcium deposits in the blood.
It strengthens your immune system.
Garlic helps to prevent against cancer.
Garlic also helps to prevent other disease, like arthritis, gout, and rheumatism.
It can help prevent diseases like epidemic encephelomyelitis
It provides you with important zinc.
It helps to heal wounds. The fermented garlic mixture can be applied as a poultice to wounds. The poultice needs to be replaced every 4-5 hours with a fresh application.
It has been used to counteract snake venom and other poisonous bites. (But best to head for a hospital unless you are in the wilderness)
Fermented garlic gives you increased B vitamins, Vitamin C, magnesium, potassium, phosporous, and sulphur.
Fermented garlic gives you digestive enzymes which help you process your food better.
Fermented garlic gives you acidophilus.

Note: If you have a chronic candida infection, then it is best to wait until you have cleared this a little before you begin to take your fermented garlic.

This recipe makes garlic palatable even to the most sensitive of tastes. The added honey enhances the vitamin and mineral content, and also sweetens the garlic so that children are not averse to taking it.

Recipe for Fermented Garlic

In your blender put 1-2 cups of garlic.
Add half to one cup of apple cider vinegar depending on how much garlic you are using.
Add half to one cup of good honey.
Add some sea salt.

Blend all ingredients together. Put the garlic-honey mixture into a screw top jar with the lid loosely screwed on to let any gas out. Put the jar in the sun for a couple of weeks. After that, store the jar in a cool dry place with the lid screwed down firmly.

Use some fermented garlic every day. This is more beneficial to the health than eating raw garlic.

Does the Olive Oil Treatment Work for Lice

Olive Oil Treatment for Head Lice.

‘Does the Olive Oil Treatment Work for Head Lice?’ you may ask, and with good reason.

Head lice are certainly difficult to eradicate: even with the use of harmful commercial insecticide preparations, head lice can be pesky, determined little creatures.

Olive Oil Treatment for Head Lice is a perfectly natural way in which you can get rid of head lice. It takes a little more effort than using a commercial poison, but the effort in protecting your child from harmful potentially carcenogenic poisons is certainly well worth it.

There are, of course, some commercially made herbal or homeopathic preparations which are safe to use, but many of the standard hair lice treatments contain very harmful toxic substances which get absorbed into the scalp, then into the blood stream, then into the liver, where they get stored and wreak their damage to the immune system.

Olive oil is actually very beneficial to the skin, and to the hair and scalp, so by using the olive oil treatment for head lice, you get to condition your hair too, and encourage hair regrowth.

The best procedure for using the olive oil treatment for head lice is:

Wash the hair in the evening with a good plain soap. Try to avoid shampoo, unless it is one which does not have any petrochemicals in it, or other harmful substances.
After rubbing the hair dry with a towel, massage about a half a cup of olive oil straight into the hair, a tablespoon or so at a time. Rub it well in. You may need more, or less, oil, depending on the length and the thickness of the hair. The scalp, and all the hair should have a covering of olive oil now.
The next step is to wrap it up in a towel, or a cap which will protect your pillow slip and your sheets while you sleep with the left on overnight.
In the morning, wash out the oil with plenty of soap and warm water. Make sure all the soap is washed out thoroughly.
Comb out with a fine toothed comb.
Put two or three dabs only of liquid iodine onto the scalp and massage it in. The children won’t mind this, as it does not smell: Tea tree oil is great too, but children really hate to go to school with this on their scalp, as it is a tell-tale sign of head lice.
Send the children off to school, and get ready for the next thing:
You must now wash all the bedding and towels in hot water. Sheets and pillow cases for all the beds in the house must be ironed before use. If you can’t get to wash the linen that day, then do iron the sheets and pillow cases on the beds. This is important. Ironing the sheets must be done each day until you have eradicated the lice, as the eggs are continually hatching out. The idea is to destroy the eggs before they hatch into lice.
As well, all clothing, especially shirts and collars where the eggs might lie, must be ironed before wear.
Avoiding recontamination is the important thing. Ironing is the way to avoid recontamination.

This olive oil treatment must be continued each night for a week. After that, you can reduce the applications to twice a week for several weeks. After that, you can use the olive oil treatment once a week, just to make sure, and to keep the hair in good condition.

Ironing is an integral part of this procedure for eradicating head lice. The lice get the message, actually. Very soon they get the idea that all their efforts are being thwarted, and that their eggs are perishing. They just hate that heat.

You do not need to apply the iodine every single day. Put a dab or two of iodine onto the scalp about twice a week until the lice have gone, then apply iodine to the scalp once a week as a deterrent to the lice.

So – Does the olive oil treatment work for lice? The answer is yes, but there is a method to it, which requires persistence.

Cinnamon Side Effects

For most people, there are no noticeable Cinnamon Side Effects: Cinnamon as a Medicine has been used for thousands of years in the east and in parts of South America. Its use as a herbal medicine are recorded in ancient, 4000 year-old Chinese texts. Its botanical name is Cinnamomum zeylanicum, and it is grown in Brazil, the Caribbean, India, China, and Madagascar.

The health benefits of Cinnamomum zeylanicum are now widely extolled, in the West as well as the East :

as a vermifuge, to rid the body of parsites; as an antibacterial and antifungal agent
in treating infections such as oral candida, coughs, colds and flu.
as an addition to detoxification programmes for cleansing the colon.
in enhancing the function of the sugar metabolism.
and as a treatment for diarrhea, rheumatism, gout and some types of arthritis.

Cinnamon Side Effects: However, some people do suffer allergic reaction to cinnamon, so it must be used with care.

The German Commission E monograph recommends that expectant mothers do not take cinnamon. The logical conclusion drawn from this recommendation would be that lactating mothers should avoid it too.

Some people experience allergic reactions to the active compounds in the volatile oils of cinnamon. These oils are: eugenol and cinnamaldehyde. Some symptoms of allergy which may be experienced are: bronchial constriction, (but on the other hand, it can be used to treat bronchial constriction in people who are NOT sensitive to cinnamon), tightness in the chest, a sudden uncomfortable rise in temperature fairly soon after ingesting cinnamon, anxiety, heart palpitations, and skin rash.

It is often used by AIDS sufferers to treat candida in the mouth. However, over-use of cinnamon oil to treat candida, or thrush in the mouth, can lead to inflammation of the mouth and throat tissues, with anxiety and breathing constriction.

It is wise to use small amounts of cinnamon in your cooking, and in your teas, until you establish that you are not sensitive. Begin with a 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon in a cup of boiling water as a tea. This can be increased slowly to a half teaspoon or slightly more.

Some herbals indicate using a teaspoon at a time, with lemon juice and honey, to beat certain infections and viruses, and even to help lose weight, however, this is not recommended for most people, unless they are working closely with a naturopath or another health professional.

So, whilst some people display allergic reactions to the volatile oils in Cinnamon, this should be no reason for drug companies to convince governments to ban cinnamon, so that they may patent cinnamon as a medicine and reap the benefits and profits for themselves: more people suffer such similar reactions to eating gluten, or just plain wheat, or to sugar, if they have chronic diabetes.

For details into actual research of cinnamon, look at the book: The Natural Pharmacy , revised and updated 3rd version, edited by Alan R. Gaby, M.D., published by Healthnotes, Inc., 2006, New York.

Alternative Cancer Treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatment

This post is meant for information only. It is not a complete account of alternative cancer treatment, nor is it necessarily accurate. It is not advised that you begin a treatment for cancer or anything else on the basis of what is written here.

Alternative Cancer Treatment is not promoted by many doctors, though there are some intelligent and intuitive doctors about, for sure, who would not dismiss the idea of alternative cancer treatment.

Many doctors in the medical profession are true ‘healers’, because they really do understand why and how cancer exists, and understand something of the detoxification and nutrition factors which are involved in bringing sick people back to health.

In New Zealand, we had our own Dr Eva Hill in the early part of the 19th century. Dr Hill was a true healer who cured many people, in New Zealand and abroad, of serious diseases like cancer through natural medicine. She used herbs, nutrition, detoxification and meditation techniques.

Walter Last, an Austrian physicist who worked many years in New Zealand before moving to Australia, also has cured many people of cancer and other degenerative disease. Dr Ann Wigmore, an American, is another famous doctor who learned how to treat cancer naturally: she had had cancer herself, and recovered, adapting her own version of therapy from the ideas of Dr Max Gerson. Dr Max Gerson, another American, was another such brilliant doctor: His life’s work was devoted to helping people with cancer and other degenerative disease. Dr Gerson’s book on cancer has helped many people, including myself, to recover from disease. More on Dr Gerson and his book later in this post. Now:

Why haven’t we got a ‘cure’ for cancer? For a start, the drug companies, which really are the influencing force behind most practising doctors, and most medical schools, do not wish to promote natural cures of any kind, as these will only interfere with the sale of their drugs, and their profits, unless they can take charge of the ‘natural cure’. In most cases, that is nigh impossible, as ‘nature cures’ are very hard work, and require an exceptional determination and perseverance on the part of the patient, which means that ‘the cure’ cannot really be bought.

The other reason is that people are very lazy, and do not want to put the hard yards in to get their health back. They believe that they have been targeted unfairly in that they have ‘got’ cancer. They, in most cases, want to believe that the physician has all the answers with his drugs, chemotherapy, and radiation for cancer. They don’t want to hear about the environment, how it has become polluted through our own stupid fault, and that we should ALL be changing our lifestyles for clean, more fairly run, honest and healthy agricultural communities. No – most of us don’t want to think about the extent of it, or make radical changes when we get cancer. All most people want to do is carry right on doing what they are doing, succumb to the advice and the treatment by the physician, take their medicine, and hope for the best.

So we must take some of the responsibility for this stupidity ourselves. It is not just the drug companies who are at fault here. They simply are profitting from people’s laziness: they fit into the scheme of things because people want to take the easy way out: by using weedkiller to kill the weeds instead of pulling them out; and by taking drugs when they get sick, even if they don’t do the trick.

Dr Samuel Epstein, in ‘The Politics of Cancer’, gives many instances of drug companies controlling and monopolizing the ‘healing’ world, and healers themselves, by putting people out of business, and banning certain products and activities, because they pose a threat to their dragnet of wealth gained from the sale of pharmaceuticals all over the world.

Whenever a herb or some other remedy looks as if it might be effective in treating a condition, then drug companies are the first to step in to try and patent it, or get it prohibited so that the public do not have access to it anymore. Such an example is the case with turmeric, and comfrey, or ‘knit-bone’, both of which are powerful healers. Comfrey, unfortunately, is banned in most western countries now, but turmeric has had abetter fate, because, as it is an important food item in India, it has just managed to escape the hungry mouth of the drug companies turmeric tiger which wanted to patent it for their own profit.

Drug companies have been known to shut down the practices of doctors or naturopaths, or other healers who have been successful in treating cancer. Some famous practitioners have even been thrown in jail and their successes denied, through the actions of jealous drug companies.

I have just found a very important book on the subject of cancer. It is called ‘The Cancer Conspiracy’, written by Dr Toni Jeffreys PhD, published by Crows Nest Books, P.O. Box 607, Warkworth, New Zealand 1241. This edition is 2000, although there is an added note in the book which says a further edition will come out shortly.

This is such a great book. It is well researched, right on the mark, and written with great heart.

Dr Jeffreys has a similar view to Dr Epstein in that she does not have too much respect for modern day medicine, which seems to be linked so strongly, like glue, to the drug manufacturers.

Dr Jeffreys parallels the drug-making machinations to those of the tobacco industry. It has taken literally decades for the tobacco companies to finally come clean, when they knew all along that smoking caused lung disease, including cancer. The ‘research’ they did never targeted real issues of health, and were rigged to show favourable results for the tobacco industry.

It is the same scenario now with the problem of cancer: We are forever being led down wrong trails under the name of research, simply because the drug companies, who are the richest organizations in the world, do not want anyone to find a cure, or point out that the cause of cancer is actually inherent in our sick, industrialized society.

Cancer is a microscosmic symptom of the vast and wide macrocosmic sickness and disfunction which we ourselves have created.

So it goes on. Money is continually poured into ‘research’, which only serves the purposes of the drug companies, because they decide exactly what things they want to do their research on. Of course, they don’t choose to spend their research money on the obvious thing which really would help people and the enrvironment – the cause of sickness – as making people well would not bring them in their money. The whole medical and drug hierarchy relies on people being unwell, and being reliant on their drugs.

The big business of chemical production and sales begins with the very food we eat. It is sprayed many times with chemicals which are often made by the same chemical companies, or associated chemical companies, which produce the drugs further down the track, to ‘treat’ us once we have become ill from consuming their pesticides and herbicides.

Alternative Cancer Treatment which Has Worked in Many Cases:

I am really pleased and excited to see Doctor Jeffreys talk about the Gerson programme of alternative cancer therapy, and the Gerson history: Dr Max Gerson literally cured thousands of people of cancer and other disease during his working life. Of course, not everybody survived, but many did live to tell the tale.

Dr Max Gerson is one of those doctors who was literally hounded by the FDA, pushed on by the dug companies of his era. Dr Gerson was eventually forbidden to practice in America, and was chased away, out of the USA. He set up a clinic for treating cancer and other degenerative disease in Mexico, which is still being run, by his daughter, today.

You can contact the Gerson Institute in Bonita, Califormia, or the Gerson Research Institute in San Diego, California for more information regarding treatment at a Gerson clinic. Or you can buy the book to read about his amazing success rates, and gain an insight into just how his treatment works, basically, through detoxification methods and nutrition.

I have described elements of the therapy which I have found helpful in many posts on this site, but I do recommend that you read the entire book.

Read merrilyn’s other related posts entitled: Benefits of Castor Oil; Regrow Teeth; Regrow Hair; Detox Diets; Prevent Cancer; and Cancer/Post for Anthony for a little insight into just how detoxification and nutrition can benefit health.

Dr Max Gerson’s famous book entitled A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases, Station Hill Press, was reissued in 1997.

Dr Toni Jeffreys also talks about the natural treatments of John Hoxsey and his son Harry Hoxsey, who were famous for their health advice and herbs which they freely gave away. The Hoxseys were alternative healers who were also forced to give up the practice practice of healing naturally. They were brought to eventual ruin, and the elder Hoxsey was thrown in jail. A Hoxsey clinic still survives in Mexico, but this is the only place where you can take advantage of the Hoxsey healing herbs.