While we laugh at such notions today, the fact is, many “old time” remedies should share a place with more conventional treatments in our home medicine cabinet. For example, soaking with ordinary vinegar over a few days time will indeed remove a wart, if you don’t mind smelling like a salad.

Grandma didn’t know exactly how or why, she only knew that they worked. Many time-tested, common cures and treatments are now being seriously investigated under laboratory conditions, with interesting results.

One of the most useful items that might be found in our kitchen cupboard is the ordinary, humble, honey jar. We might expect honey to be helpful for soothing a sore throat when added to hot herbal tea or lemon juice (or brandy), but consider its other medicinal uses:

Due to wound-healing properties, it was used extensively during the Civil War. Doctors in hospitals or on the battlefield used honey for both an immediate dressing and for post-surgical treatment of wounds as it has natural anti-bacterial properties. As well as needing no refrigeration, honey also had the field advantage of being readily available (a “honey tree” could usually be located by scouting the surrounding countryside), and it could be put into jars or oilcloth packets and easily transported.

The notion of “germs” and other medical knowledge was still rather vague in those days … they only knew honey was useful stuff. They couldn’t have known of its natural antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties, or that it contains helpful enzymes in so-called “bee spit”: that magical concoction produced by the bees in order to convert nectar to honey.

But it’s important to note that these helpful enzymes and anti-bacterial elements are only found in raw, unheated honey … heat and over-processing destroys them. Ingesting honey and the pollen from local hives will also assist your body’s immune system, helping you to build antibodies against allergies. Visit your local beekeeper to get the best and most gently-handled honey.

According to a blurb in the Health section of the New York Times*, scientists have also found that honey may be a quick and easy treatment to soothe and promote healing of minor burns. One study found that small, non-serious burns healed faster when treated with gauze and a dash of honey, on average, than those treated with antibiotic creams and other dressings. A separate report published earlier found similar results. The reason? burns need air to assist the skin tissue in healing … and honey “breathes”.

So take the honey jar along on your next camping trip … you might find it comes in handy.

Yours in health …

* “Honey Can Soothe a Burn” by Anahad O’Connor; NYTimes, Feb 19, 2008

One of the ways to get vitamin D is through our skin via sunshine … about 15 minutes daily … but given the winters up here I can either 1) scurry to the deserts of California or Arizona for three months, or 2) get it through food sources and nutritional supplements..

Despite expensive advertising campaigns, the amount of vitamin D in breakfast cereals is minimal at best … don’t rely on them as a source unless you want to eat the equivalent of a box of cereal a day. Salmon is king up here in the Pacific Northwest, but I must confess I don’t care for salmon (or mackerel, or sardines), so I get my vitamin D from high-quality Omega-3 fish oil capsules or other supplements containing vitamin D.

For my money, supplements are a good and consistent source … vitamin D can be found in prenatal vitamins, multivitamins, and some calcium-combined supplements. Be sure to choose a high quality supplement for best absorption, and select those that contain vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol). It has been shown that vitamin D2 is 25 percent less effective than D3.

Growing research has raised strong doubts about currently recommended levels. Based on a number of studies, levels once considered adequate to prevent bone problems such as rickets in children are not enough to counter the list of serious ailments now linked to low D levels in adults. Inadequate vitamin D has even been linked to heart disease and cancer. A team of nutrition experts noted in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that doubling the intake of vitamin D from the government-recommended dose (400 I.U.) to 800 I.U. greatly reduced fracture risk, even without the addition of calcium. These findings seem especially important with regards to post-menopausal women concerned about osteoporosis.

We’re not talking only about women and children … men need it, too, and for those who aspire to be a jock, take your vitamin D and you’ll have better bone density AND create more muscle mass. Other studies have shown it to be a factor in reducing the incidences of MS and diabetes. In addition to the benefits of bone protection for humans, vitamin D has been demonstrated to strikingly reduce tumor growth in animals.

So to all you who live in sunny climes, get out there in the warm sunshine and soak up your vitamin D. I’ll just continue taking my supplements and dream of California.

Yours in health …

To blindly place our trust solely within the realm of conventional medicine is often a poor choice. We all know of and can attest to unfortunate results from not exploring alternative options. But neither should we trust only in alternative methods … delaying proven treatments have also resulted in serious consequences. It’s clear there is room for both conventional and alternative treatments within our health care system.

While conventional medicine certainly has its uses (when I needed abdominal surgery a couple of years ago, I was thankful for a competent surgeon), most doctors openly admit to treating disease or illness symptomatically rather than holistically. It’s not their fault … it’s how they are trained by the medical schools. They treat effects, not the cause.

“What’s wrong with that?” you ask. Well, nothing on the face of it … an illness can usually be identified by symptoms. The doctor will then hand you a prescription for a best-guess medication and tell you to come back in two weeks if you don’t improve. And if that drug doesn’t work, they’ll prescribe another. So they are basically telling you to get sicker before they can help you! Am I the only one who sees the flaw in this approach?

Diagnosing certainly has its place, but if you’re invested solely in treating symptoms, you aren’t really looking for a cause and/or prevention. The healthcare system (at least in the U.S.) may give lip service to prevention of illness and disease, but in reality they’re saying to just trust them to eventually figure it out. If they can’t figure it out, they may deny you have an issue and say it’s all in your head. In the meantime, you are only the patient. As a result, while they plod through their standardized protocols with you as their guinea pig, you may get worse before you get better. This is how folks end up taking a whole sack full of prescription drugs.

Take for example, high blood pressure. Wouldn’t it make more sense to first look at the possible causes as to why an individual has developed high blood pressure in the first place? These things seldom happen overnight. Once the causes in your personal case are understood, you can first explore avenues such as changing diet and lifestyle habits or taking supplements that will provide a more natural way to keep arteries and veins healthy, while pharmaceutical options should be the last option. When other protocols have not been helpful, at the very least it might mean that if and when you do resort to prescription drugs you will require a lower dose.

I believe, as the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, so I feel it important to help our body take care of itself. Given the chance, it has a remarkable capacity for healing and regeneration, and that doesn’t always come in the form of a drug with a myriad of negative side effects (and a high price tag).

But then the medical establishment (and the drug companies) couldn’t keep pushing more and more drugs, could they? And that’s the real name of the game.

Yours in health …

So from time to time be sure to check back to find practical, inexpensive (and eco-friendly) do-it-yourself solutions and recipes for seasonal health woes, skincare issues, cleaning products, and organic gardening.

For example, here’s a link to an easy recipe from WikiHow for a simple make-your-own bath salts.

One caveat: No matter how pretty those chunky bath salts might be in the jar, they do not dissolve readily in the bath water and will feel like little shards of broken glass when you step on them. Ask me how I know. Whether making your own or buying them handcrafted, always look for the ones made with fine-grained salts.

Yours in health …

We are beginning to see articles in magazines, on newsstands, and through mainstream media about everything from the health benefits of honey to recent studies touting the potential of rice bran as a treatment for diabetes.

The basis of many modern medicines are often rooted, so to speak, in common plants or their components, and food and dietary factors relative to health (and disease) are now beginning to be at long last recognized and studied. This is certainly gratifying, but altruistic aspects aside, there is also money to be made as a result. Big money.

According to an article in the New York Times, a study by the European Commission showed that products derived from plant substances generate more than $75 billion in sales each year for the pharmaceutical industry, $20 billion in herbal supplement sales, and around $3 billion in cosmetics sales. The article states, “Although the efficacy of some of the products the herbal ingredients go into is hotly debated, their popularity is not in doubt. Thirty-six percent of adults in the United States use some form of what experts call Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM).

Indigenous “medicines” are showing great potential in eventually leading to cures for some of our most devastating diseases … and what company wouldn’t like be the one to find a cure for cancer or any of the other Holy Grails of the world of medicine in a commonly found plant? This is exciting and heady stuff, but at what eventual cost? Big Business and Big Pharm are joining hands and beating a path to remote areas as diverse as the Amazon rain forests and the Andes in Peru in aggressive searches for the latest discoveries. It’s telling that the aforementioned article was found not in the Travel or even in the Health sections, but in the Business section of the New York Times.*

Whether the indigenous peoples (and their fragile environments) will benefit or be on the losing end, both are often victims the so-called “bio-pirates”, a moniker for those who steal traditional knowledge and then don’t give back to the local community. Meantime, the drug companies are investing large sums in the hope of lucrative profits.

* “On a Remote Path to Cures”; New York Times; Jan.1, 2008

I believe we are still the primary caretakers of our own health, making the daily decisions and choices, and should never relinquish that responsibility. We live in the “Information Age”, do we not? And information is very empowering.

So my goal is to provide content about health and wellness issues and more natural approaches to health by providing resources, articles, and links to relevant websites for health-related information. My hope is that you can then use those tools to help you make better informed choices regards your own and your family’s health care.

The primary focus will be on women and children’s health issues and concerns, but also on health promotion and illness prevention in general, using safe and proven methods or products. While open to alternative ideas and more natural solutions, I’m also a true believer in authentic research as opposed to “junk science,” and not interested in promoting the latest fads or dubious (and potentially dangerous) “cures” or treatments. Anyone selling machines that hook up wires to your head, promising everything from communication with residents of Alpha Centauri to rearranging your molecules need not apply here.

So in these posts you will find content on traditional medicine and practices, complementary and alternative medicine, holistic approaches to common ailments, more natural alternatives to that prescription drug, and links to and articles about the latest research on a variety of topics from Asthma to Xylitol.

You may also find topics such as functional and organic foods, herbs and their uses, organic gardening, healthy recipes, and “green” living, for all these threads are in synergy and connected to a larger whole. In the end, we are all fruits of one tree.

It’s in our own best interest to learn about and pay attention to our bodies, to look for avenues that will open other doors leading to better self-care, and explore solutions that will complement conventional medicine. We are on this journey together, and I value your input.

Yours in health …