Archive for the ‘Immune System’ Category

Herbal Remedies Vs. Conventional Medicine

There are two main philosophies around the treatment of illnesses. The conventional approach looks at disease as the actual problem, whereas the holistic approach, which utilizes herbal remedies, sees the disease as an outcome of systems dysfunctioning within the body. In conventional medicine, the illness is treated as a series of symptoms seen as a result of the illness that unfortunately occurred within the body. Medicinal treatments function to soothe these symptoms and enable management of the disease. Unfortunately, these ?medicines? are wrought with negative and uncomfortable side effects. This is because treatment usually involves poisoning and killing the bad bacteria, cells, mold, or whatever that has been identified as bringing on the illness. However, this also means that the good cells, bacteria, and so on, which are the very components most needed during illness, are also killed, casualties of the treatment. The result is that such treatments further weaken the systems within the body, leaving it even more susceptible to illness, which often create a vicious downward spiral of illness followed by treatment, followed by more illness, and possibly death.

Another philosophy, the holistic approach, uses natural healing methods, including herbal remedies, which enable the body to heal itself. The practitioner doctor looks at the body as a whole, viewing all systems working harmoniously together to run the amazing machine that is our body; this is where the word ?holistic? comes from. When there is a breakdown within one or more systems, the doctor looks for the cause of the breakdown, such as the body being exposed to too much continued stress and over-tiredness, resulting in a shortage of certain vitamins or minerals, all which contribute to the system lacking the materials needed to run efficiently. Herbs can be chosen to add needed vitamins and minerals to gradually and gently balance deficiencies within the body. The above is just a simple example of how herbal remedies can be incorporated into care. In many cases, herbal remedies can be used to augment specific areas within the body. An example would be the body suffering from an invasive virus causing cold or flu. Eating large amounts of raw garlic will quickly stop the virus in its tracks. This is because garlic, called the number one antibiotic for herbs, contains allicin, a strong antibiotic agent, and sulphur compounds, which strengthen the immune system as well as fight infection. An antibiotic remedy, called the ?Enhanced Garlic Formula?, calls for 1 part each of garlic powder and powdered calcium ascorbate (form of vitamin C) mixed with

How Vulnerable is Your Immune System?

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s Renegade Roundtable, which can be found at http://www.RenegadeRoundtable.com. In this excerpt, Dr. J.E. Williams shares on our immune systems vulnerability and diseases like cancer or chronic fatigue syndrome.

Renegade Water Secrets with Dr. J.E. Williams, a pioneer in integrative medicine, an educational leader in “green medicines” and an internationally known speaker and published author, including his latest book, “Viral Immunity.”

Kevin: So let’s talk about the most common viruses that most people would have. What are the numbers? I’ve read that up to 90% of people have viruses.

Dr. Williams: [laughs] Well, I’d probably say 90 to 100, closer to 100. One time a very well known bacteriologist, a specialist in bacteria, was giving a lecture by my invitation at one of the medical schools that I worked with. I was in the audience and he was pointing out the number of cells in the body. It is fascinating that we have more bacteria by number, so many trillions of bacteria compared to so many hundreds of billions of living tissue cells. There’s four times more bacteria that actually compose who we are. Can you believe that? And all of those, except when we’re affected, are supposed to be there. That’s our robiotics. It’s not just in the gut, they’re through all our other tissues. And then he said, “Where viruses are not supposed to be there.” And then he looked up at me and said, “Well, Dr. Williams might have a different view because he’s kind of the pro-viral immunity doc!”

We kind of had a little eye to eye and smiled. Afterwards we chatted a little bit and realized that his information was from a different paradigm, more than 20 years ago. And mine was a little more current in that we get infected by viruses, and we used to think that the body cleared everything out, but now we realize that it doesn’t.

Anywhere between 90 and 95%, maybe higher, carry antibodies to a very common herpes virus called Epstein-Barr. And you can go, and this has been tested, into Brazilian Amazon natives along the river to the Northern Artic Eskimos to urban people in pretty much every country and every continent. So how did the virus become so global and so ubiquitous that it infects almost everybody? During childhood, it remains there. Another is roseola. The list goes on and on. Those are all herpes virus family microorganisms. So the number may be anywhere from 90 to 100% for carrying some type of virus around with us.

Kevin: So Epstein-Barr, for those people who don’t know, that’s what causes mononucleosis.

Dr. Williams: Yes, exactly. The kissing disease. It can be very severe. When I’m talking to people, for example, with chronic fatigue, one of the first things I want to track down is, is the fatigue caused by an infection, and what type of infection could that be? Could it be spyro-acute lyme disease, a type of bacteria, or another bacteria or parasites or yeast organisms or virus? Those are the main infectious microorganisms. And if it is, then I try to narrow it down further. Which type of infectious agent is it? If it’s viruses, well, then you’re in my domain!

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Williams: But interestingly, probably the smallest percentage of chronic fatigue are really caused by infectious organisms, and only a part of those that are caused by infectious are by Epstein Barr. But in the history taking, what I’ll do is I’ll try to ask the patients, did they ever have mono, will be one of the main questions, and then to what degree did it make them sick. They could have been in bed for two months with an enlarged spleen; I mean, very, very sick. Or, they could have had almost nothing. Maybe it was just like a passing cold or they thought they had a flu but actually they had mono. And it may or may not, the degree that they’re infected originally, may or may not have a bearing on how their immune system and how their body is now responding to a reactivation to this latent viral form of Epstein Barr.

Every modern disease or most of them, but certainly cancer, diabetes, even all the auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and MS and not to mention chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and the list goes on and on, the most common modern degenerative chronic ailments are linked by one thing, and that’s the immune system. And so, in researching viruses and in treating viruses what I found was that since there’s no drugs or even effective herbs or things that we have to come up with a strategy which I call the viral immunity or the viral immunity program or strategy, to strengthen and to modulate or to boost our immune systems, and what are the most important elements. And finally, by the way, I’m working, I’m just on the edges of working, concept only, right now, but with a very large international company with research in Canada and Korea and other places to develop a really world class immune-strengthening supportive formula that’s kind of broad based and would help the immune system in general, but particularly against viruses.

Kevin: What are the signs obviously that…people kind of know the signs of a weakening immune system, but what is the strategy, like what, how do you start, when do you decide to go on some sort of program that will help boost your immune system? Do you do it all the time? Is it something you go on and off of? I think this kind of encompasses a lot of questions that the audience is after.

Dr. Williams: Because there’s such a problem with dampening, weakening, or imbalancing immune system, and it tends to show up more under people with a lot of stress, and as you get older. But don’t just use those two as the only marker; it can happen to anybody at any time under many, a variety of circumstances, but the. And because all of these diseases I talked about are so linked to immunity, if there’s one thing that kind of linked them all together it would be an imbalanced or weakened or damaged immune system, that it’s important for everyone to start to take corrective action in their lifestyle, in their diet, their, the way they move, their exercise, to strengthen their immunity and to protect their immunity and to enforce it and maintain it lifelong.

Then the next part of that question is that for those people who do have the signs of a weakening immunity, then they should start to actively treat it in a, maybe we’d call it a soft way, but in a daily basis with nutrients and perhaps some herbal therapies. And then they should have the information and knowledge how to either, how to modulate upward or boost up the activity of some of those medications that they’re taking during like the fall and winter when the flu season is high, and, or if there’s, if they suspect they’re getting a virus or that they have a latent virus that’s reactivating. So, one is lifestyle part of it which everybody should do which includes also awareness of the severity of and the commonality of viral illness. And, two, a general program, sort of, almost kind of a one-sized general program that might fit everyone or close to it. And then some more specific boosting or modulating or up-regulating substances that you would only take when you need them for short periods of time, so a little kind of boost or jets of energy.

Kevin: And is it possible to eat your food so cleanly that you don’t need any of the extra stuff?

Dr. Williams: That’s a great question. I totally anticipated this one, Kevin. [laughter] I hear this so often that people say they live the perfect. . .I mean, in their own mind they, I’m exaggerating, but as if they lived the perfect diet. Nobody lives a perfect lifestyle and the perfect diet in our world, believe me. The foods that we eat in America; you could shop at the health food store and buy organic and everything; and that’s important, that’s a huge plus, and that’s going to help you a lot, but nothing in this country is pure or safe from genetically adaptation, and even trucking the fruits and vegetables, they have to be fumigated, and so forth. So, there’s no such thing as that; that’s like living in a bubble, in a pure world.

And even the places I go high in the Andes, these like Shangri-la type of places, they and other parts of the world, the living is rugged, and yes, the air is pure and clean, and the people have no disease, and etc., but it’s encroaching in on them. And it’s long, long, long ago, generations ago have encroached in on us, so our genetics have already been altered or modified. We can improve our genetic expression. We can help ourselves, in other words. But we can’t often undo the damage that our parents experienced before we were born. And so, the other thing is that if you have no immunity to infection, you’ll get infected, no matter how strong you are. In matter of fact, it will lay low the strongest of the strong, the youngest and the bravest of the brave, no one is spared when nature roars. And when viruses come in, if you don’t have the immunity to it and your immune system reacts aggressively, it’s the immune system that kills you, not the virus.

So the answer is, it’s very helpful, and it will help prevent a lot of immune system related conditions but it won’t make you completely immune or armor you to a point where you’re invincible or completely invulnerable. That’s not how biology works. And then there’s every shade of not only gray but every color of the rainbow in terms of viruses. It’s quite interesting.

Knowing About Immunizations

However, there are several diseases that can not be cured because of the unavailability of proper medications. But, there are some diseases that can not be cured by medications, but, you immune system can really assist you to fight with those problems.

It implies the fact that if you will use some medications that are to strengthen your immune system, then you will surely become able to handle different diseases in a better way. For this very reason, immunogen is used to strengthen the immune system to produce antibodies in order to deal with certain diseases.

Here, it is essential to mention something about the adaptive immune system which plays an important role to handle certain challenges. The adaptive immune system is composed of systematic cells and processes. Its main function is to remember the response to deal with specific non-self molecules.

Immunogen is used to make your body aware of the fact that something needs to be tackled in the right way. With the help of immunogen, you body can be taught to fight with specific harmful molecules that can cause certain ailments. The whole process of doing so is called immunization.

When you talk about immunization, the role of B Cells can not be neglected. B Cells are lymphocytes which are extremely important for humoral immune response. They are the essential part of adaptive immune system. B Cells are to produce antibodies to fight with antigens. These cells are produced in the bone marrow and developed after going thorough several stages.

Along with B Cells, T Cells also play an important role to keep you body fit and fine. The special thing about these cells is that they come with a special receptor which can be found on their cell surface. Memory T Cells along with memory B-Cell can help you body to fight with certain foreign molecules as soon as they enter the body.

Here, it is also pertinent to mention that immunization can be divided in two forms. One is called active immunization and the other is called passive immunization. In active immunization, a foreign molecule is introduced in the body to stimulate immune system to protect your body against it. Here, immunity is generated by the T Cells and the B Cells.

The whole concept behind active immunization is to inspire your immune system to develop a defense system against a particular molecule or microbe. So, the body may become able to deal with those molecules as they, naturally, enter in your body for the second time. Vaccination is a common technique for immunization which is known as active form of immunization.

In passive immunization, some pre-made elements of immune system are injected in the body to see quick results. However, this can not protect your body for a long time as there will be no B Cells to create antibodies.

So, it can easily be said that if you want to stay away from certain diseases, then it is momentous to go for immunization.

Herbal Remedies for Urinary Tract Infection

Herbal remedies for urinary tract infection are certainly worth considering if your symptoms are mild. They can have a good success rate and the popularity of natural treatments is climbing generally due to concern over the widespread use of antibiotics.

Ancient history supports the theory that herbs have been used for many centuries to heal all manner of conditions. They are generally good for the whole body and can help support general healing, not just of the urinary tract. Herbal remedies can be an economical option-indeed you may even find that you already have the ingredients to hand in your kitchen cupboards.

Herbs which have been shown to be beneficial for urinary tract health include rose hips, dandelion, fennel, marshmallow, oat straw and nettles. It therefore follows that if you drink herbal teas made with any of these ingredients, you will be on your way to improving the health of the urinary tract. Parsley is also another component of good herbal remedies and this can be eaten raw in salads or the dried variety can be liberally added to foods.

Health food stores often carry a range of herbal remedies for urinary tract infections and you may like to consider keeping one of these in the cupboard as a standby.

Other good natural treatments for urinary tract infections include drinking plenty of plain water and perhaps a couple of glasses of unsweetened cranberry juice each day. It is also good practice to avoid sugar, as this can aid the growth of bacteria within the urinary tract. You could also try placing a heat pad on the abdomen and avoid using any perfumed products around the vaginal area.

If you prefer to use a natural treatment, herbal remedies for urinary tract infection are not the only option. There is an excellent natural cure which is guaranteed to begin working to take away the pain within just 30 minutes and you will be completely free of pain by the following day. By supporting the body’s own healing qualities, this treatment will enhance and strengthen the body’s immune system enabling it to fight off the cause of the infection extremely quickly and effectively. It is totally safe for both sexes and for children and adults alike. In addition, it completely safe to be taken alongside any other medication. As with herbal remedies for urinary tract infection, this treatment does not contain any synthetic ingredients or expensive over the counter medication. It is also guaranteed to work faster than antibiotics. Home Remedies For UTI

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