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May 2009 |
Vol. 8 Issue 5 |
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A Starch-based Diet
Supports Spontaneous Healing: As a medical doctor, I (John McDougall) have had a chance to witness the power of spontaneous (self-generated, arising from a natural inclination) healing thousands of times; but nothing has been more impressive than the recovery that follows massive trauma. During my early training years, working at Queen’s Medical Center in Hawaii, a young man mangled in a motorcycle accident arrived through the emergency room doors one evening. His splintered femur bone stuck through the flesh of his left thigh, a 12-inch long gash across his left forearm was streaming bright red blood, and the skin on his left cheek and forehead had been scraped off during his slide across the pavement only minutes before his arrival. X-rays showed his skull was fractured and many ribs were broken. I thought, “How could he ever survive?” Medical intervention was crucial—his bones were straightened and his wounds cleaned and sewn. However, without his body’s innate abilities to repair this massive damage, all would have been lost. Moments after his motorcycle accident his body had begun the healing processes. Platelets and blood clotting proteins activated, coagulating his blood and plugging millions of leaking vessels. During the following hours inflammatory cells (commonly called white blood cells) migrated into his open wounds, defending them against infection. Fluids collected within his torn flesh and around the broken bones. The swelling of his thigh, shoulder, and face would last for weeks. Pain kept him still, preventing movements that could cause further injuries. Soon restoration of the damaged tissues began with the laying down of new structural materials by cells known as fibroblasts in the soft tissues and osteoblasts in the broken bones. Over months replicator cells produced new muscle, skin, bone, and scars, and remodeled his wounds to cause his body to look and function as close to normal as possible. |MORE| Preparing for Swine Flu and Other Animal-borne Infections The H1N1 swine flu virus has already been identified as a new virus, with genes from human, bird, and pig influenza viruses. Symptoms include fever, coughing, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea. In severe cases, it may lead to pneumonia, multi-organ failure, and death. The incubation period is two to five days. Currently there have been relatively few deaths worldwide, but matters could become worse in the winter months—you should expect no serious risk of infections in the Northern Hemisphere until then; possibly because of the high ultraviolet light exposure during the summer and early fall. The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed 20 to 40 million people worldwide, began with a mild wave of infections in the spring, but the virus returned a few months later in a far more dangerous form. With international air travel the disease could spread rapidly. Worse than the infection could be the disruption of trade and the economy that follows an outbreak. Everything you take for granted (grocery shelves filled with food, gasoline, heating fuels for your home, TV, etc.) may be no longer be available, soon after a serious outbreak. |MORE| Featured Recipes
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