Innholdsfortegnelse for February/March 2021 i What Doctors Don't Tell You Australia/NZ

After all the emphasis on sickness, pandemics and deaths in 2020, we could do with some positive health news. And one of the most positive stories at the moment concerns how potentially easy it may be to eliminate mental illness—without drugs, without electroshock, without the entire coterie of hopelessness and addiction created by our current medical model for psychiatric conditions. And the most extraordinary idea of all is that it doesn’t require pills, supplements or medicine of any kind—just a different sort of diet. Increasingly, doctors such as Sarah Myhill in the UK and Joseph Mercola in the US have become staunch advocates of the ketogenic diet. A keto diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet in which the body is in a state of ketosis, burning fat instead of carbs…

Meditation and yoga can ease chronic pain and depression as effectively as the most powerful drugs. Nearly 90 percent of chronic sufferers say their pain or depression was eased after doing a form of mindfulness meditation that focused on stress reduction. Some reported their depression decreased by 12 percent according to a standard medical scale, a result that is similar to that achieved by antidepressants. Researchers from Samaritan Health Services in Oregon tested the effects of an eight-week course of yoga and mindfulness meditation on a group of people who suffered from chronic pain and depression, two conditions that often go hand-in-hand. Most sufferers have lost hope because nothing seems to work, said lead researcher Cynthia Marske. But after completing the course, 89 percent reported that they now had techniques…

Health authorities downgraded the severity of Covid-19 just days before governments put their countries into lockdown. In the UK, Public Health England announced that Covid-19 was “no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID)” on March 19—just a week before the national government imposed a lockdown that devastated the economy along with the health and mental wellbeing of millions of Britons. No major country in the world still classifies Covid-19 as an HCID; the US lists only the plague in that category. The downgrade was made after new data revealed the virus had a low mortality rate and laboratory tests had given experts more insight into the virus; it had been classified as an HCID in January. The decision was supported by the UK’s Advisory Committee on…

Sixty mayors and officials around France are the latest to push back against the roll-out of 5G, the new superfast mobile network. They have signed a petition to prime minister Jean Castex that calls for a moratorium on building the network until its safety has been established. They join a growing group of city officials around the world—including Rome and Florence in Italy, Portland, Oregon, and some Californian cities in the US, Bermuda, Geneva and Brussels—who are already blocking the network. Citing the precautionary principle (see main story), they say they want absolute proof of the safety of EMF radiation before the new network is rolled out in their cities.…

Matt, a 63-year-old businessman, came to me because of deteriorating balance that was compromising his ability to participate fully in life. A simple task like walking from his car to a nearby restaurant was challenging. He had no known diagnosis. When he walked, Matt moved as if years older than his age and had hardly any movement in his pelvis and lower back. They did not move to counterbalance the weight of his moving legs, thus risking him toppling down. It was as if Matt’s brain didn’t know he had a back and pelvis. I had Matt lie down and guided him through a series of gentle movements with his pelvis and lower back. As his brain sensed these areas, the movements became lighter and larger. I then moved one…

“Certain mental illnesses like psychosis show a type of insulin resistance in the brain so that the brain cells aren’t getting enough fuel,” says Palmer. This deficiency may be what underlies their disturbed memories and cognition. One 2019 study even found that both psychotic patients and their siblings had high levels of insulin resistance in their brains compared to controls.1 “Something else has to happen, a stressful life event, marijuana use, for example, to push them over the edge,” Palmer adds, but the metabolic problem is there beforehand. Very different environmental factors may set off a cascade of disease-causing events in metabolism. Nonetheless, brain researcher Nicholas Norwitz says that the same metabolic problems underlie most chronic inflammatory diseases as well as brain disorders. Some studies suggest that the ketogenic diet…

The usual treatment is pharmaceuticals, but these carry risks such as sexual dysfunction, breast enlargement, fatigue, decreased libido and headaches. Fortunately, many natural approaches, such as diet, lifestyle changes and herbal or nutritional supplements, can be very effective, both for preventing and treating symptoms. If you’ve been diagnosed with BPH, here are my top diet and supplement recommendations. DIET An increasing number of studies demonstrate a link between diet and BPH.1 The following are associated with higher risk of BPH:2 • high protein intake from animal sources (but not vegetable sources) • high intake of unsaturated fatty acids, which contribute to damaged cell membranes and increased 5-alpha-reductase activity (the conversion of testosterone to DHT, which may fuel prostate growth) • high intake of foods rich in saturated fat and high…

1 Curr Opin Urol, 2014; 24: 10–4 2 Clin Nutr ESPEN, 2019; 33: 5–11 3 Eur Urol, 2014; 65: 887–94 4 “A Practical Guide to the Mediterranean Diet,” Harvard Health Blog, March 21, 2019. www.health.harvard.edu/blog 5 Medicine, 2019; 98: e14023 6 “Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia,” in Textbook of Natural Medicine, eds. Michael T. Murray and Joseph E. Pizzorno, 4th ed. reprint (St. Louis, MO: Churchill Livingston, 2013), 1266 7 Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 2000; (2): CD001043; Lancet, 1995; 345: 1529–32; BJU Int, 1997; 80: 427–32 8 Phytother Res, 2019; 33: 2457–64 9 Clin Ther, 1995; 17: 82–7 10 N Engl J Med, 2006; 354: 557–66 11 “Serenoa repens (Saw Palmetto),” in Textbook of Natural Medicine, eds. Michael T. Murray and Joseph E. Pizzorno, 4th ed. reprint (St. Louis, MO: Churchill Livingston,…

Not sure you even believe in qi? Here’s a little sensitivity-building exercise you can do to help develop the ability to sense energy in your body. Exercise: Place your palms facing each other and relax your shoulders. Take a breath and let it go. As you inhale, slowly move the palms away from each other. As you exhale, bring them back toward each other without touching. Inhale as the hands separate, exhale back. Inhale apart, exhale together. Inhale and exhale. Now inhale as they separate, and as you exhale, this time slowly bring the hands closer and closer together. Notice any sensations you might feel in your hands. Can you feel any sensations such as tingling, pressure, a magnetic feeling, or vibration? About 50 percent of people can feel something…

Here’s a simple exercise for strengthening your lungs that you can do in minutes: • Sit on the edge of a chair or your bed with feet flat on the floor, knees at a 90° angle. •Place your palms facing up on your lap, elbows out slightly and away from your body. Keep your back straight and relaxed and your chin tucked in slightly. You can have your eyes closed or opened slightly. • Begin the form by raising your hands up in front of you, palms facing up. As your hands rise up, slowly turn them toward your body, then down. When the hands get to a level above your head, turn the palms up to face the ceiling. • The tips of the fingers of each hand should…

Women with endometriosis tend to have lower intake of antioxidants (vitamins A, C and E, zinc and copper), so getting more of these nutrients through diet and supplements may help.13 In fact, studies show that certain antioxidant supplements can have a beneficial effect on the condition. Vitamins C and E. A study of women with pelvic pain and endometriosis found that two months of treatment with vitamins C and E led to a reduction in chronic pain in more than 40 percent of the women.14 Suggested dosages: 1,200 IU/day vitamin E and 1g/day vitamin C Pycnogenol. This standardized extract of French maritime pine bark, rich in flavonoids, slowly but steadily reduced symptoms of endometriosis in one preliminary study.15 Suggested dosage: 60 mg/day N-acetylcysteine (NAC). Taking this antioxidant for three months…

Kassie, a three-year-old, suffered brain damage at birth, which left her with severe spastic cerebral palsy. She received intense therapies for two and a half of these three years. There was little she could do on her own. When trying to move, her whole body tightened even more, and her attempts failed. After I’d worked with Kassie for several months, she was able to use her arms and hands, sit comfortably without toppling, and made great gains in her speech and cognition. But one thing stayed the same, no matter what I did. The moment Kassie moved, her legs instantly became extremely spastic and she couldn’t use them. However, if I moved Kassie’s legs very slowly and gently they became completely free. Why was Kassie gaining freedom and movement control…

Dr Damien Downing, a specialist in allergy, environment and nutrition, is current president of the British Society for Ecological Medicine, on the editorial board of Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Chief Medical Advisor of cancer charity Yes to Life (www.yestolife.org.uk), and author of numerous books including The Vitamin Cure for Allergies. Dr Harald Gaier is a UK-registered osteopath, homeopath, acupuncturist, naturopath and medical herbalist. Former director of medical research at The Hale Clinic and a committee member of the Prince of Wales’ Foundation for Integrated Health, Dr Gaier has authored numerous scientific papers and The Encyclopedia of Homeopathy. Dr Michel Odent, a French-trained surgeon and obstetrician, is a pioneer of the natural birth movement, emphasizing home and water birth. Founder of the Primal Health Research Centre in the UK, he has…

A healthy gut can counter even cholera, one of the world’s deadliest diseases that kills within hours of infection if left untreated. One bacterium in the gut’s microbiome—its universe of bacteria—deactivates the cholera bacteria, Vibrio cholerae, and stops it from spreading to the intestines. The bacterium, Blautia obeum, produces an enzyme that degrades salts in bile and interferes with the signaling system that triggers the cholera bacteria into action. Researchers from the University of California at Riverside discovered that the levels of B. obeum in the gut determined the virulence of cholera amongst villagers in Bangladesh or whether they contracted it at all, even if they had drunk the same contaminated water. The researchers are now investigating the environmental and dietary factors that can increase the amount of B. obeum…

Fructose—the sweetener used in soft drinks and processed food—triggers major stomach problems, from a leaky gut to liver cancer. The sweetener, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is a major cause of gut problems collectively known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which affects one in three American adults. The sweetener has been added to processed foods and drinks since the 1970s, and although it’s been found to be a cause of the obesity epidemic, it’s enjoyed light-touch regulation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has treated it like other sweeteners, such as sucrose or honey, and advises moderate use. But it’s time to take a tougher stance, say researchers from the University of California at San Diego who have discovered HFCS causes serious stomach problems. NAFLD is the…

Major surgery is risky—but it could be even more dangerous than doctors believe, with 20 percent of patients suffering serious heart problems within a year. Of the 300 million people who undergo serious surgery every year around the world, 60 million suffer a major cardiac event such as a heart attack or acute heart failure as a direct result of the procedure, say researchers from the University of Basel in Switzerland. These do not include cardiac procedures, where the risk of heart problems is naturally higher. Despite the extent of the problem, it’s still unrecognized. Around 75 percent of patients who die after surgery are never admitted to critical care, and some who suffer a heart attack after surgery don’t seem to suffer pains, usually because of the pain medication…

Vaping with a special type of e-cigarette can cause serious lung damage after just a few hours. E-cigarettes with nickel-chromium alloy heating elements are far more dangerous than the type that uses stainless steel. The damage the nickel-chromium e-cigarettes cause is so severe and sudden that researchers decided to release their findings early to warn of the dangers. After just an hour’s use, smokers started to suffer severe respiratory distress, including labored breathing, wheezing and panting, said researchers from the University of California at Irvine. Their lungs showed lesions, red blood cell congestion and early signs of pneumonia. The smokers had used stainless-steel e-cigarettes for a year without suffering from breathing problems. The damage seems to be done by the heating element, as similar reactions were seen in everyone using…

I’m fascinated, as I’m sure many are, about how the persuasion vs. coercion tug-of-war concerning Covid vaccines will end up in the coming months and years. As Covid-19 merges into the general miasma of respiratory diseases that infect people during the winter months, there won’t be the same sense of urgency that’s driven emergency use authorizations, the same desire to have something—albeit with a few question marks around safety and long-term effectiveness—that cuts the reins of government-mandated restrictions that turned our lives upside down in 2020. These restrictions seemingly came out of the blue for many, yet were stage-managed by a globalized, inter-governmental system that assumed control of the pandemic from the day it was declared. It will likely be the courts, not the politicians, that will have the last…

In theory, there are several mechanisms that can explain why a ketogenic diet could be a valid therapy for mental illness. A 2020 review outlines four major issues in brain metabolism that using fat as an alternative fuel to the brain could help correct: • glucose hypometabolism • neurotransmitter imbalances • oxidative stress • inflammation.1 “These four foundational metabolic diseases warrant a metabolic approach to therapy,” writes lead author Nicholas Norwitz, an Oxford-trained physiologist and Harvard University medical student whose research focuses on the ketogenic diet for neurological diseases. “This shift from a glucose-dependent brain metabolism to a fat- and ketone-based metabolism allows for the circumvention of glucose hypometabolism, it rebalances neurotransmitters, it reduces oxidation and it reduces inflammation,” explains Norwitz. REFERENCES 1 Curr Opin Endocrinol Diabetes Obes, 2020; 27:…

In their landmark 2017 study, researchers from McMaster University in Canada transplanted stool from patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and anxiety, a common co-occurrence of the condition, into “germ-free” mice lacking their own microbiota. Remarkably, the mice not only developed quicker bowel transit time, indicating they had developed irritable bowels, but they also showed clear signs of becoming anxious too. The experiment demonstrated how bacteria or bacterial products from the microbiome may not only affect gastrointestinal function but also mediate gut-brain interactions and alter behavior. “It showed you could ‘catch’ mental illness,” says Valerie Taylor, chief of psychiatry at the University of Calgary in Canada. “Now we’re trying to see if we can do the reverse.” Taylor’s research group has been conducting fecal transplant experiments at Women’s College Hospital…

•Incomplete emptying: bladder feels full even after voiding urine •Increased frequency: need to urinate often, every hour or two •Intermittency: the need to stop and start several times while urinating •Urgency: sensation of needing to urinate right away •Weak stream: a weak or feeble urinary stream •Straining: need to push or strain to start urine flow •Nocturia: the need to wake up more than twice per night to urinate Men with severe cases of BPH end up with urinary retention, leading to hospitalization or surgery.1 REFERENCES 1 Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) Patient Guide, e-book reprint (Urology Care Foundation, 2020), www.urologyhealth.org)…

“Micro-immunotherapy is to the immune system what psychotherapy is to the brain,” says Dr Sarah Myhill, a naturopathic physician in the UK. “So many inflammatory conditions are driven by allergy, autoimmunity or chronic infection, and conventional medicine only has blunt tools to deal with these—steroids, antibiotics, NSAIDs—all with the potential for long-term harm. Micro-immunotherapy is a subtle tool to ‘re-educate’ the immune system to direct its inflammatory fire at the causative agent. And the potential for harm is negligible.” Micro-immunotherapy (MI) is a treatment designed to coordinate the body’s own immune system communication and actions, stimulating its regulation and regenerative functions without impacting the natural homeostasis or balance of the body. MI was developed in the 1970s by Maurice Jenaer, a Belgian allopathic doctor and surgeon and homeopathic physician. Disturbed by…

Q I’ve been getting a lot of mouth ulcers over the past year or so. Can you recommend any natural remedies to prevent them or heal them quickly when they do occur? T.M., via email Mouth ulcers, also known as canker sores or aphthous ulcers, are painful, shallow lesions that develop in the mouth. They usually go away on their own in a week or two, but for some two-thirds of the population, mouth ulcers are a problem that keeps coming back. Although they sometimes have an obvious trigger like overzealous teeth brushing, a jagged tooth or certain prescription drugs, often there’s no obvious cause. But here’s a batch of effective natural remedies to help with both healing and prevention. OPT FOR OZONE Ozonated oil—oil, usually olive oil, that’s been…

According to herbalist Meilyr James, owner of the Herbal Clinic in Swansea, Wales (www.herbalclinic-swansea.co.uk), endometriosis is often linked to overactivity of the adrenals, and this must be addressed for the body to heal. He recommends nervines—herbs that work on the nervous system of the body— to calm the overactive response, as well as herbs that work more directly on the uterus and female reproductive system. Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera). This is a very grounding nerve tonic that helps the body deal with stress and anxiety, says James. How to take: Take as a powder; mix one rounded teaspoon with a little warm plant milk and drink in the evening. Like most tonic herbs, it can take a few weeks for a noticeable effect, but can be used safely over a longer duration.…

Developed by US pediatrician Sidney Haas in 1951 and later popularized by biochemist Elaine Gottschall in her book Breaking the Vicious Cycle (The Kirkton Press, 1994), the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), intended for people with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and other inflammatory bowel disorders, is based on the concept that complex, difficult-to-digest carbohydrates feed harmful bacteria in the gut, causing them to overgrow and trigger inflammation. The diet is said to work by “starving out these bacteria” and restoring the balance of bacteria in the gut (www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info). Here’s a list of some of the foods that are allowed (legal) and not allowed (illegal) with the SCD, detailed in Breaking the Vicious Cycle.…

Q Our 10-year-old female spaniel, Magi, has a couple of fatty tumors on her body just under the skin. Our vet called them lipomas. We are not keen on surgery, but one of them is quite large. Can you suggest any holistic alternatives? J.H., via email ALipomas, benign tumors of mature fat cells or adipocytes, are extremely common in older dogs. Most fatty tumors are subcutaneous—just under the skin—but there are some that can grow in between muscle layers or in the chest or abdominal cavities. Some lipomas are called infiltrative as they keep invading into surrounding tissue. Very rarely do vets come across cancerous fatty tumors known as liposarcomas. What causes lipomas? Older obese female dogs are more likely to develop lipomas, especially on their trunk and legs, which…

Here are some simple steps you can take to minimize potential asthma triggers in your pet’s environment. Make a safe space. Ensure that your cat has a safe refuge to hide away and recover from any stress or alteration in routines. Just an empty cardboard box with soft bedding placed under a bed or in any secluded space will help them calm down and de-stress. Smoke outside. If you smoke, make sure you don’t do it inside your home. Cigarette smoke has been documented to trigger asthma attacks in house cats. Get an air filter. These filter out airborne particles that can irritate your cat’s lungs. Avoid toxic chemicals in the home. Ditch synthetic cleaning products, air fresheners, insect repellants and cosmetics like hair sprays, deodorants and perfume. Choose natural…

For most of her childhood, teens and early twenties, Rebecca Bonneteau was covered head to toe in eczema—red, inflamed, itchy skin that would crack open with the slightest touch or movement. The itching was intense and constant, sending her into a state where she couldn’t stop scratching, leaving a trail of skin flakes behind. The countless creams, ointments and emollients she was prescribed did little but turn all her white clothes and sheets yellow, yet she relied on them for much of her life, to the point where she’d become panicked if a pharmaceutical company decided to reformulate a product she was using. “Eczema very much defined who I was,” says Rebecca. This lifelong struggle with eczema—and witnessing her parents at a loss for how to help her—is the reason…

Sleep and tinnitus WDDTY has always supported new approaches to treatment, so it was a little disappointing to see the usual array of tinnitus remedies being presented in“The Natural Medicine Casebook”in your last issue. After my sudden-onset inner ear tinnitus first started in 2015, I gave serious consideration to most of the treatment options listed in your article, and subjected some of them to four-week trials. I wasn’t aware of EMDR, antioxidants or TMS in those days, so I cannot comment on those three options, but B vitamins, ginkgo, magnesium and zinc tablets had no effect whatever. The “let’s pretend we haven’t got it” options might work for some people, but I’m afraid they’re not for me. Sound therapy? To my way of thinking, it’s a bit like dealing with…

Exercise is good for us, especially as we get older—but we don’t have to “feel the burn” with intense workouts to have a healthy old age. People get the same health benefits with moderate exercise or general activity, such as walking and gardening; they live just as long and have a similar reduction in risk for cardiovascular disease. Researchers have tested the benefits of high-intensity exercise and moderate exercise on a group of 1,567 people with an average age of 73. They were split into three groups consisting of high-intensity exercise, moderate exercise and general activity. After five years, rates of heart disease and cancer were roughly similar in all the groups, as were the number of deaths. The average rate of heart disease was 15.6 percent among the three…

Every mother knows that sugar affects the behavior of her children—but scientists have discovered the sugar in processed food and drink could also be triggering bipolar disorder. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) triggers ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), aggressive behavior and bipolar, the serious psychiatric condition once known as manic depression. Our sugar intake is in overdrive because of the high amounts in the typical Western diet and may well be behind the surge in ADHD cases in the past 20 years or so, say researchers from the University of Colorado. HFCS lowers energy in our cells, which triggers a “foraging response” usually seen when someone is starving; in turn, this encourages risk-taking, impulsivity, rapid decision-making and aggression. It’s a basic survival response that makes sense when we are actually starving…

Major research that proved radio waves, a form of electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation, could penetrate the skin, change biological processes and affect organs was kept classified by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for up to 50 years. Throughout the 1970s, scientists in the US and in the former Communist USSR were investigating the harmful effects of radiation, which, at the time, was mainly being generated by radio and TV broadcasting, but which would shortly be harnessed by mobile devices and Wi-Fi technologies. Most of the research evaluated the impact of the radiation on laboratory animals, and few of the studies, if any, were able to include people. Critics have argued that results on animals cannot be extrapolated to humans, whose skin is different and less absorbent, and whose organs…

Nothing quite piques your desire to help create a new healthcare system more than seeing it fail your loved ones. When the problem lands on your doorstep, you know it’s time for change, not in a decade or a year, but today or tomorrow. In my case, the problem landed on my doorstep when my mother, at age 89, was failed by the UK National Health Service (NHS). Failures in the system are everywhere; partial failure is actually the norm for most people. It’s certainly not unique to the UK; in the US, the fractured system of public and private insurers and care facilities makes the type of problems encountered by my mother all the more likely. An individual’s successes and positive experiences with healthcare, which often coexist alongside failures,…

The problem of glucose hypometabolism—the brain’s inability to efficiently burn glucose for fuel—has been noted in Alzheimer’s disease as well. Alzheimer’s brains show an altered glucose metabolism and impaired insulin regulation in tandem with the cognitive decline and deterioration of the brain size and structure that are the hallmarks of the disease.1 The discovery has led some researchers to call Alzheimer’s “type 3 diabetes” because blood sugar and the effects of insulin in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients are akin to those of a person with diabetes, but specific to the brain. The original diabetic diet before the discovery of insulin was the ketogenic diet. This is also the diet that is increasingly being used to curb type 2 diabetes and obesity.2 Likewise, the ketogenic diet is emerging as a…

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet in which the body is in a state of ‘ketosis,’ burning fat instead of carbs for fuel. There are many variations, but essentially the basis of it is the following: • Avoid all sugar, grains and processed foods that include grains • Eat good-quality plant or animal protein • Have substantial amounts of stable saturated ‘good’ fats: olive, hemp and rapeseed oils, animal fats (beef fat, butter, duck fat) and coconut oil • Eat copious amounts of green and rainbow vegetables • Keep starchy vegetables to a minimum. For a simple guide, consult Dr Sarah Myhill’s book, The PK Cookbook (Hammersmith Books, 2018). To find out if your body is in a state of ketosis, use urine strips or purchase a ketometer, which determines your state of…

Anti-Inflammatory Carrot-Apple Juice Makes 1 cup (serves 1) This sweet, orange-hued juice features ingredients that help combat prostate inflammation. Ingredients 1 cup diced sweet apple, such as Pink Lady (unpeeled) ½ cup thinly sliced carrot ¼ cup fresh orange juice 1 coin (about ¼ tsp) peeled fresh ginger root ¼ tsp salt Pinch of ground turmeric Method 1 Add all of the ingredients plus ¼ cup water to a high-speed blender. 2 Purée until smooth, for 1 to 2 minutes. Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Oregano Makes 6 cups (serves 3) Full of antioxidant-rich black beans, vegetables and citrus, this creamy vegan soup is satisfying and low in fat. Feel free to top with a dollop of plain, unsweetened plant-based yogurt, such as cashew yogurt. Ingredients 1 tablespoon extra-virgin…

The immune system is a network of organs, tissues, cells and molecules designed to work together to protect the human body from toxic substances and infectious bacteria and viruses. There are two branches of the immune system: the innate immune system we’re born with that stands as a general defense against harmful materials and pathogens, and the adaptive immune system, which handles novel threats over the course of our lives. The adaptive immune system quite literally remembers all the pathogens (mainly viruses and bacteria) the body has come into contact with by building a library of proteins called antibodies that each recognize a unique protein sequence—called the antigen—from a particular pathogen. Then if the body is exposed to that antigen again, even decades later, it can quickly marshal a defense.…

Zhineng Qigong teacher and therapist Jeremy Colledge says he has so many stories of qigong healings that it’s hard to remember them all. But a few do stand out. •“I met an astonishing lady in Xi’an, China, who presented with two tumors on her thyroid,” he says. “They were so bad that she couldn’t look down to see the floor. One was 7 cm [2.5 in] on the left, and the other 3 cm [1 in] on the right. “She practiced the Zhineng Qigong self-healing method for three weeks and returned to normal. When I met her, she looked as ordinary as you or I. Her smaller tumor was gone, and the larger one measured 3 mm [0.1 in].” He saw all the medical scans to confirm it. • Not…

1 Chop the rosehips in half and place them in a saucepan with one small stick of cinnamon and 5 cloves. 2 Cover with water, about 2 inches above the level of the hips. 3 Bring to boil and simmer with a lid on for 30 minutes, checking that the water doesn’t get too low. Stir well and press down on the hips to release their juices. 4 Strain the fluid through a double layer of muslin, squeezing out as much juice as possible. Put this juice through a second strain with another piece of muslin, double layered (this ensures the fine, irritating hairs from the seeds are all removed). 5 Measure the quantity of juice and add an equal proportion of raw honey. 6 Mix well before using. Store…

I live in London and have to wear a face mask now to use public transport. Is there anything in particular I should look for in a face mask? The official advice about the general public wearing face masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19 is contradictory to say the least—and so is the science. A new report from Oxford University’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, published jointly by the British Academy and the Royal Society, concluded that cloth face coverings, even homemade masks, are effective at reducing transmission of the virus by both protecting the wearer and those around them, provided they are of optimal material and construction and fitted correctly.1 However, a recent review of randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) from University of Hong Kong researchers“did not support a…

Try the following massage technique weekly or even daily to improve circulation and help prevent lipomas from developing. 1 Start your session with an opening massage: Using your fingers, thumbs or the heel of your hand (whichever is easy for you), gently squeeze the muscles, provided your pet is fine with it. 2 Start at the base of the skull, with hands on either side of the head, then travel down the spine, working your way right down to the base of the tail. Do this twice. 3 The third time, start from the skull base as before, but stop where the ribs end and follow the ribs round until both your hands meet underneath the belly. 4 Finish with a closing massage, by repeating the same procedure as described…

Although Rebecca doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to eczema, here are some general remedies and recommendations she finds helpful. Herbs. To support detoxification, Rebecca recommends dandelion, cleavers and nettle, either picked fresh in the wild or in tincture form from a high-quality brand like Fushi (www.fushi.co.uk). “These herbs help to support the liver, kidneys, adrenal glands and lymphatic system,” says Rebecca, “which will help the body to eliminate waste.” For cases involving stress and trouble sleeping, she recommends ashwagandha, a well-known adaptogenic herb that helps the body to cope with all kinds of stress. Suggested dosage: one drop of the herbal tincture per 8 lb (6.5 kg) of body weight daily, or try Rebecca’s detox herbal tea remedy (see page 65) Dry skin brushing. This technique is great for detoxification…