Strengthening Your Natural Defenses

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Strengthening Your Natural Defenses

JoAnn Guest

Feb 20, 2006 18:50 PST

 

Strengthening Your Natural Defenses

 

Every day, your respiratory system draws in approximately 9,500

quarts of air and mixes it with up to 10,600 quarts of blood pumped

by the heart into the lungs. Your lungs send oxygen through arterial

highways to support the rest of the body and to provide an exhaust

system for gaseous metabolic garbage such as carbon dioxide.

 

Since your lungs are internal organs that draw in the microorganisms

of the outside world with every breath, the strength of their natural

defense system is particularly important in maintaining oxygen flow

to and from the rest of your body.

 

More than 14 million men and women suffer from chronic obstructive

pulmonary disease. And in one year alone, 7 to 8 million men and

women had asthma, 4 million had pneumonia, and practically every one

of us had some kind of virus.

 

Pneumonia, which is generally characterized by coughing, phlegm,

fever, chills and chest pain,can be caused by a variety of

infectious agents, including viruses, mycoplasma parasites and

bacteria.

 

It occurs in 80 percent of those who have AIDS. Called Pneumocystis

carinii pneumonia, it is triggered by a parasite and is seen only

rarely in people without AIDS.

 

Fortunately, both flu and common types of pneumonia can frequently

be prevented or successfully be treated without permanently damaging

your lungs. Here's how.

 

A review of what 9,000 adults eat every day revealed that higher

vitamin C and niacin intakes were associated with fewer cases of

wheezing. Good sources of vitamin C include black currants, guava

and red bell peppers. Good sources of niacin include free

range/organic chicken breast, water-packed sardines and alaskan

salmon.

 

Eat five-alarm chili and curry. Hot peppers and spices such as curry

and chili powder cause mucous membrane secretions. The extra fluid

can thin

out thick phlegm in your nasal passages and lubricate a sore,

itchy hroat.

 

Steam and sip.

 

Sip chicken soup or linger in a steamy shower, suggests Thomas A.

Gossel, Ph.D., dean of the College of Pharmacy and professor of

pharmacology and toxicology at Ohio Northern University in Ada.

The fluids you drink or inhale dilute the mucus in your nose and

upperthroat to help make breathing easier.

 

Suck on zinc.

 

Zinc's ability to zap a virus has been suspected for years. And at

least one study, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire,

indicates that zinc tablets can cut the duration of a virus by 42

percent.

 

But not any zinc tablet will do. You need those marked " zinc

gluconate wth glycine. " They're fairly new on the market, so you may

need to

askyour health food store owner for help in tracking them down.

 

 

Echinacea (Echinacea, various species).

 

Antibiotics may be indicated in bacterial pneumonia, but in any type

ofinfectious pneumonia--bacterial, viral or fungal--I'd recommend

herbsthat enhance the immune system.

Echinacea is one of the best. A wealth of scientific studies shows

that it helps the body fight off all sorts of bacteria, viruses and

fungi.Echinacea preparations--teas and tinctures--have become very

popularhealth food store products for treating pneumonia. If I had

pneumonia,I'd take a teaspoon or two of tincture in juice or tea

several timesaday.

www.enzy.com

 

Elderberry and Elder flowers: (Sambucus nigra):

 

Key actions: Flowers: expectorant, reduces phlegm,

circulatory stimulant, promote sweating, diuretic, topically

anti-inflammatory;

Berries: promote sweating, diuretic

Bark: purgative, promotes vomiting, diuretic;topically--emollient.

 

The berries help coughs, sore throats, asthma and flu viruses. A

pinchof cinnamon makes the tea more warming. The berries have also

beentaken for rheumatism. They are mildly laxative and also help

diarrhea.

 

The flowers are infused for fevers, eruptive skin conditions such as

measles and severe lung problems.

The infusion is relaxing and produces a mild perspiration that helps

to reduce fever. The flowering tops tone the mucous linings of the

nose and throat, increasing their resistance to infection.

 

They are prescribed for chronic congestion, allergies, ear

infectionsand candidiasis.

Infusions of the flowering tops and other herbs can reduce the

severity of hay fever attacks if taken for some months before the

onsetof the hay fever season.

 

A classic flu remedy is a mixture of elderflower, yarrow and

peppermint teas. By encouraging sweating and urine production, elder

flowering tops promote the removal of waste products from the body

andare of value in arthritic conditions.

 

The compound sambuculin A and a mixture of alpha- and beta-amyrin

palmitate have been found to exhibit strong antihepatotoxic activity

against liver damage induced experimentally by carbon tetrachloride.

This herb has two compounds that are active against viruses.

It also prevents the virus from invading respiratory tract cells.

 

A patented Israeli drug (Sambucol) that contains elderberry is

activeagainst various strains of viruses. It also stimulated the

immunesystem and has shown some activity in preliminary trials

againstotherviruses, such as Epstein-Barr, herpes and even HIV.

 

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).

 

Numerous clinical trials have demonstrated dandelion's effectiveness

against pneumonia, bronchitis and upper respiratory infections,

according to pharmacognosist (natural product pharmacist) Albert

Leung,Ph.D. I suggest cooking the greens and roots. Remember to

drink thepotlikker, the juice that remains after the greens are

cooked.

AlthoughI can find dandelion 12 months of the year in Maryland, you

may nothave access to the fresh herb all year long where you live.

You can also drink tea made from the dried herb. Dandelion root

capsules are also very effective!

 

 

Garlic (Allium sativum).

 

Mary Bove, N.D., chair of the botanical medicine department at

BastyrUniversity in Seattle and one of the nation's most highly

trainedherbalists, developed pneumonia when she was eight months

pregnant.Herphysician, predictably, prescribed antibiotics, but she

rejectedthem

n favor of six to ten cloves of chopped garlic a day, along with

echinacea. She began feeling better after two days and was cured in

twoweeks.

 

Not surprisingly, Dr. Bove prescribes this treatment for pneumonia

inher own naturopathic practice. Other naturopaths do, too. Jill

Stansbury, N.D., a faculty member at the National College of

Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon, urges her students to use

garlic to treat respiratory and digestive tract infections.

 

In fact, garlic is about the closest thing we have to an herbal

wonderdrug for treating infections.

 

Onion (Allium cepa). Onions are closely related to garlic, with many

similar sulfur-containing compounds. Most herbalists consider garlic

more effective, but onions are certainly beneficial. I recommend

onionsoup for respiratory complaints, including pneumonia.

And if you prefer chicken soup for treating pneumonia, be sure to

addmany onions and garlic to the recipe.

 

Chicory (Cichorium intybus): :

 

Chicory has been an esteemed medical plant ever since the Roman

physician Galen called it " the friend of the liver " some 1,800 years

ago. A syrup of chicory, rhubarb and oats was given to patients with

liver ailments.

An infusion of the leaves was also used to reduce fever in children.

 

Chicory is an excellent bitter tonic for the liver and digestive

tract.

The root is therapeutically similar to dandelion root, supporting

theaction of the stomach and liver and cleansing the urinary tract.

 

Chicory is also taken for rheumatic conditions and gout, and as mild

laxative, one particularly appropriate for children.

 

It also has been found to significantly lower cholesterol and blood

sugar levels. The sesquiterpene lactones found in roasted root kill

bacteria.

 

Internally used for diabetes, dry coughs, abscesses, childbirth

(secondstage of labor); bronchial infections with thick

phlegm;constipation, and lung and breast tumors (fruits). Fruits are

traditionally prepared as a winter soup to ward off colds and

influenza.

 

Trichosanthin was isolated from the root tuber of a Chinese

medicinalherb Trichosanthes kirilowii Maximowicz and was identified

as theactive component of Tian Hua Fen, a Chinese medicine described

asearly

as the 16th century as a treatment for various kinds of ulcer.

 

Soon after the laboratory finding in 1989 by McGrath et al. that

trichosanthin appeared to inhibit the HIV-1 replication in both

acutely

infected T-lymphoblastoid cells and in chronically infected

macrophages, and selectively killed HIV-infected cells while leaving

uninfected cells unharmed, clinical trials of trichosanthin as a

potential treatment for HIV were carried out in USA.

 

Trichosanthin attacks the life cycle of the virus at an entirely

different point from AZT and related drugs, and in other words, it

has

a unique mechanism of action complementary to other drugs.

 

Present clinical reports showed that trichosanthin has some curing

effects on AIDS patients and suggested it to be a possible treatment

that may fill the gap in the treatment of HIV disease.