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As suggested throughout most of this blog, preventive measures form the most effective strategies for getting rid of about 70% of our ever-increasing list of diseases. It is ironic that, despite our current high levels of scientific advancement, maladies are getting worse in variety and volume and need increasingly more potent medical procedures. Under these circumstances, prevention will always be better than cure, especially as most allopathic medicine (the types that most people get in our hospitals) are "cures" that basically hide or suppress symptoms. Indeed, some of the "cures" occasionally create "solutions" that are worse than the target diseases. This blog is all about preventive measures that you can apply to yourself, to your loved ones and, for those who are in the medical and paramedical professions, to your patients. For some strange reason, our faith in cures tends to be stronger when the remedy looks mysterious or comes from the most dist

Charcoal is what remains, after cooking with firewood. Not all the charcoal that is sold in many local African markets is 100% pure. The uncharred wood element in any charcoal is what usually sends out some smoke during the first few minutes after it has been set alight. Therefore, this type of charcoal must first be fired or used in cooking, so as to make it pure. Put off the fire and wash off the ash. Dry it thoroughly. Then, coarsely grind the charcoal to roughly about 1 cm. Apart from taking too much space, large lumps or pieces of charcoal cannot be compact enough. MEDICINAL USES OF CHARCOAL 1 .  First-aid - Every family should have ample amounts of finely ground charcoal as a permanent item in its first-aid kit for situations of : poisoning (including food poisoning and overdose in taking medicines), diarrhea (e,g., caused by amoebae, cholera or contaminated food), indigestion, flatulence or excess gas in the intestines, nausea, vomiting, venomous bites and stings (by snakes,

There is a popular belief with no scientific proof that it is healthy for the water we drink or use for cooking to have some minerals in it. Meanwhile, loose statements of this nature usually never give us answers to questions similar to the following: 1. Of the several dozens of minerals that science has identified, what set or subset of them should we have in the water that we use for drinking and cooking? 2. What is the total amount of each of the selected minerals that we should take daily, assuming that we are ever told or even know the total that is coming into us from each of the following sources? a. Water piped into our homes b. Water that comes naturally in the meat, vegetables, fruits and other foods that we buy from the market. c. Water in products of the packaged water, alcoholic and nonalcoholic industries. We normally take it for granted that the firms in these industries would do the right thing. However, an occasional scandal about some fatal chemical in the mark

Each chemical or allopathic medication is for a set of average conditions of ill health. But, as we have already noted in this blog, each of us is so unique that there are no two individuals who can ever be the same. Therefore, a prescription for all the patients who have one set of average symptoms can have different results. Indeed, some patients may get worse by taking a prescribed medication. This can happen from allergic or other adverse reactions of their bodies. As we have also noted, the pharmaceutical industry keeps churning out ever more powerful medications. This means that a person can expect direct toxic effects from either these substances or less directly from their side effects. Nonetheless, whether administered through the mouth, by injection directly into any part of the body or through some other channels, no allopathic medication should be taken while the stomach is empty. An empty stomach can typically react violently to the presence of these  substances in the b

When your body loses more water than it needs to keep, it develops a mild crisis that we call thirst. The several causes of this emergency include the following: 1. Not having ample daily intakes of water. 2. The adverse effects of dehydrating items - Regardless of whatever your palate or taste buds may consider fit for you to take, your body is the final judge of what it desires. The body normally considers various pharmaceutical products, highly spiced foods, slow poisons such as tea (Thea senensis), coffee, sugar, synthetic sugars, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages (i.e., sodas or soft drinks), dishes biased towards meat products and several other modern foods as irritants or toxic. That is the reason why the amount of urine that results from taking any of these items would usually be higher than the volume consumed of them. Similar reactions happen when you develop diarrhea of any type resulting from whatever irritating material you may have sent into your stomach. Under a

Your unique set of genes (nature), your culture (nurture) and your physical environment determine your own unique body rhythms such as your moods, when you feel sleepy or awake, when you get hungry or angry and just about every other aspect of your life. With reference to sleep, we need this form of rest for several reasons that include the following: 1. Our brains and various batteries in our bodies get recharged. 2. Members of the body's housecleaning team (liver, kidneys, bowels, etc.) have an opportunity to filter out waste material without being distracted and burdened by more food intake and various activities that are part of our normal wake state. 3. Our bodies have the opportunity to heal injuries and illnesses. This includes the replacement of lost cells or for growth, as happens with children, or in weight and size for adults who eat more than they should. Some individuals require more sleep than others. For example, shortly after birth a baby needs more sleep to he

Human beings have been around for thousands of years. It can can safely be assumed that we spent most of this period, as animals in the wild do, walking about in search of food or shelter. Occasionally, we would sprint very fast either to escape from being preyed upon and eaten by some predator or to hunt game. This is type of environment in which we evolved the nature and structure of our bones, muscles, reflexes and other aspects of our present bodies. Then suddenly, during a period of one hundred years or even less up to the present, a split second second in evolutionary time, the nature and content of our work and leisure activities have drastically changed. The most privileged of us now have lifestyles that afford us the luxury or even the disguised curse of being physically sedentary. Indeed, in many aspects of our lives, we have become no different from industrially raised chicken. After sitting for most of their brief lives, they can no longer walk. Similarly, except on sand

The different food items that we eat take their own unique periods to be digested in the stomach . A few examples of average periods of digestion are shown below: Fruit meal            about 30 minutes Starchy meal       about 2 hours Meat meal           between 4-6 hours Your stomach needs your help to do its work properly. In this regard take all the water you need long before each meal. Whatever quantities that you take, wait for about 30 minutes or even longer before a meal. The idea here is that water should never meet food in your throat or stomach and likewise, food should never meet water in the same channels . If you drink some water shortly before your meal or while you are eating or while the stomach is still digesting your food, this is most unhealthy due to the following reasons: 1. You would be diluting and therefore, weakening the chemical concentration of your saliva, various enzymes and other substances that help in changing the items you have eaten into a liquid