CHOLESTEROL: POTENTIAL SIDE EFFECTS OF STATIN DRUGS

Raised liver enzymes: Statins can cause some inflammation and damage to your liver, thereby giving you raised liver enzymes. For this reason it is recommended that your doctor orders a blood test called a liver function test before you start taking a statin, and 12 weeks later. You are more likely to have raised liver enzymes if you take a statin along with another cholesterol lowering drug at the same time, such as Lopid (gemfibrozil) or niacin (vitamin B3) at high, prescription doses.

The irony is that many people who are put on statin drugs have a fatty liver and may already have raised liver enzymes. If you carry excess weight over your abdominal area, especially your upper abdomen, it is quite likely that you have a fatty liver. People with a fatty liver have an excessive amount of inflammation in their liver, and statin drugs will worsen this. Because the liver is the main site of cholesterol production, the reason your cholesterol is high is because your liver is dysfunctional. Taking a statin drug does nothing to improve your liver health, it does the opposite and worsens liver disease.

Therese in Western Australia has tried three different statins: Pravachol, Zocor and Lipitor. Therese recalled “All three drugs seem to raise my (liver) enzyme levels and now I have given up with feeling so lousy”. She experienced “constant pain in my legs from the knee down, and a constant feeling of weakness in my calf muscles. I also feel nausea not long after taking the tablet”.

Muscle soreness and weakness: Statins can cause muscle pain and tenderness, called statin myopathy. The pharmaceutical industry claims that only two to three percent of people experience muscle pain, but reality may be quite different. Dr Beatrice Golomb, MD, Ph D from the University of California, San Diego, USA is conducting a study funded by the National Institute of Health on the side effects of statins. She has found that 98 percent of patients taking Lipitor suffer with muscle problems.

You are more likely to experience this side effect if you regularly exercise, as Co Enzyme Q10, which is depleted by statin drugs is needed for muscles to contract. People who take statins usually take a lot longer to recover from exercise than people who don’t; they experience muscle pain for several days afterwards. Fibromyalgia is usually aggravated by statins also.

Statins are capable of causing a much more severe form of myopathy called rhabdomyolysis. This is where muscle cells break down and release a protein called myoglobulin into the bloodstream. Myoglobulin can impair kidney function and cause kidney failure, with eventual death. Certain medications increase the risk of developing rhabdomyolysis if taken with statins; these include:

•     Fibrates (another type of cholesterol lowering drug)

•     Erythromycin (an antibiotic)

•     Antifungal medications

•     Niacin at high, prescription doses

•     Cyclosporine (an anti-rejection drug for patients who have had an organ donation).

You can have a blood test to see if statins are causing muscle damage; a substance called creatine kinase (CK) will be elevated. However, many people experience muscle pain and tenderness even if their creatine kinase levels are normal. Patients who experience muscle pain and muscle damage from statins may never fully recover; in some cases the myopathy is not reversible.

June from Victoria could not tolerate statin drugs because of the myopathy they caused. According to June, “I stopped taking my cholesterol lowering medication (Lipex) because it made the muscles in the back of my legs so painful that I could not go for my morning walk.” Hal in the UK had a much worse experience. He was 32 years of age, with a diagnosed fatty liver and raised liver enzymes when his doctor put him on a low dose of Lipitor (l0 mg). It was after the first week of taking Lipitor that he started to experience “an unbelievable fatigue”. According to Hal, “Walking became almost impossible, and if I did decide to walk to the end of the garden I had to crawl. My sister remarked that I had become an old man within a week”. Hal immediately stopped taking Lipitor and decided to tackle his high cholesterol with diet and nutritional supplements. His liver enzymes are now normal, and his cholesterol is down to a healthy 5.3mmol/L.

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HONEY — ITS SPECIFIC THERAPEUTIC EFFECT (TREATMENT OF DIPHTHERIA)

A doctor wrote in a medical journal about having successfully used honey in the treatment of diphtheria. A 25 per cent addition of honey to another remedy was found to act as an antiseptic and prevented the diphtheria bacilli from propagating.

This experiment is without doubt proof of the fact that honey deserves attention as a folk medicine of long-standing. It is certainly no coincidence that years ago honey was prescribed as a remedy for exactly this disease. In those days, unlike today, there were no effective treatments for diphtheria, and honey, together with other remedies, no doubt was beneficial to the patients and may have helped to save many lives.

As regards natural remedies in general, I am sure that scientific research would find many an old piece of folk wisdom to be true. The Bible’s recommendation, ‘My son, eat honey, for it is good’, is clearly well founded. Honey is indeed good for us because it has healing properties.

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VARIOUS DIETS AND TREATMENTS – THE MEDICINAL VALUE OF CLAY

From time immemorial clay has been used to cure many ailments. Yet this old remedy has often been rejected by those who could have benefited from it. Nevertheless, clay has never been totally forgotten and today it is once more finding favour. Among other things, it is particularly recommended as a treatment for tumours where external application is possible.

Also, there is an interesting account in the Bible of how Christ used clay to cure a blind man (John 9:11). Even though it may have been a symbolic act, we should not lose sight of the fact that earth or clay was used and that the Teacher of Nazareth surely knew of the healing elements of nature and respected them.

People who live closer to nature in less developed parts of the world treat many illnesses with clay, and veterinary surgeons make use of it too. Beauty specialists recommend it for face packs and athletes use it for strains and sprains. Clay applications have proved their worth for centuries. A combination of clay and herbs is especially recommended. Instead of using simple herb poultices, the herbal properties are combined with those of clay. Usually the clay is mixed into a paste, to which the hot herbal infusion is added to form a poultice. The poultice is then applied to the affected part of the body and the double action of the clay and herbs results in a more potent effect.

If you want to get the best out of a treatment with clay, you must be certain that you understand how it works. There are those who use clay where linseed or fenugreek seed should be applied, and this is quite wrong. For instance, clay should not be placed on a boil to collect the pus and draw it to a head. Hot linseed or fenugreek compresses will do this job far better, for the action of clay disperses, it never draws together or gathers.

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VARIOUS DIETS AND TREATMENTS – FURTHER OBSERVATIONS (GENERAL INFORMATION)

Way back in the Middle Ages a physician by the name of Carier discovered that an extract made from pine and fir buds or shoots was a good remedy for scurvy. Later research proved that the buds or shoots of coniferous trees have the highest content of vitamin C. You have here the reason why pine bud syrup, when prepared with the raw juice, as in Santasapina Cough Syrup, has a twofold effect: in cases of catarrh it soothes the mucous membranes and it also improves the general health of the patient because of the pine buds’ vitamin Ñ content.

It is not only wild fruits and berries that are good for us in the spring, there are also a number of wild vegetables that sprout in the milder regions where there is no snow, or where it has melted. To name but a few, we can find dandelion shoots, watercress, nettle shoots, bear’s garlic (ramsons) – and many others that can be used for salads. These plants often seem more like weeds and we might pass them by without a glance. It would be much better if we were to make use of them and their appreciable content of natural vitamins.

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A BRIEF GUIDE TO SELECTED HOMOEOPATHIC REMEDIES – LACHESIS (GENERAL INFORMATION)

After a serious illness, when all sorts of toxins are circulating in the bloodstream and the body is fighting to eliminate them, Lachesis can be of great service.

Where typhoid fever is concerned, Lachesis is one of the most useful and reliable medicines. After a stroke, especially in cases where the left side is paralysed, Lachesis as well as Arnica are often given with good results.

In cases of pulmonary abscesses, gangrene of the lung or very bad tonsillitis and other serious throat diseases, this remedy can help where all others seem to have failed. I have often seen tonsillitis completely disappear after an injection of Lachesis lOx, without any ill effects.

This remedy should be kept in every home, for whenever a serious illness threatens to induce blood poisoning, there is no better medicine available. The safest potencies to use are lOx or 12x.

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A SELECTION OF MEDICINAL HERBS – PIMPERNEL ROOT (PIMPINELLA SAXIFRAGA) – INTRODUCTION

In the Middle Ages, women must have often sat talking and exchanged advice on all sorts of subjects. The medical practitioner often lived miles away from a hamlet or fortified castle and there were no telephones to summon him or her. Sometimes it might have happened that some young noblewoman was unable to give her new-born baby sufficient milk and, often within the walls of the castle itself, some wise old woman would be found to give advice. Later, a young girl would be hustled through the gates and over the drawbridge with orders to find some pimpernel roots somewhere outside. Having been well washed, these roots would be placed in the noblewoman’s bosom and within 6-8 hours there would be so much milk that the pimpernel roots would have to be quickly removed and thrown away.

Thus, old stories and records tell us of the wonderful effect produced by the little pimpernel. Today we have other remedies that may be easier to come by and apply (for example Ricinus communis 3x) but wherever the pimpernel may be found, it should prove to be as great a help as it was in days of old. Nursing mothers might try to discover whether its effect is as good as the old records say it is.

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