Friday, September 5, 2008

The health benefits of de-worming the entire family


Greetings People!

I recently had an interesting conversation with my husband about parasites, animals and humans. I asked my husband if he thought it was odd that veterinarians deem it critical to keep your pets free from parasites by prescribing ant-parasitic meds, but conventional human physicians never encourage their patients to do the same. My husband agreed and stated that he often thought of that very same idea(great minds think alike!) Well I started wondering that if our dogs and cats live in the same environment that we live in, aren't we susceptible to the same kinds of parasites? Now I know I may be freaking some of you out but think about it- parasites do not discriminate against anyone or anything-they are just looking for a host. So I did a little research and found out some very horrific info about parasites so much so that I decided to de-worm my family for 30 days. I encourage you to do the same. In the mean time, I have included an article from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health about how deworming children and pregnant women can dramatically decrease death and debilitating diseases.


WHO urges poor nations to offer women deworming pillsMedicine reduces infant deaths, Nepal study says
By John Donnelly, Boston Globe Staff
PRETORIA -- The World Health Organization urged poor countries yesterday to offer deworming pills to pregnant women after a recent study in Nepal showed a 41 percent drop in the deaths of infants of mothers who took the pills before giving birth.
The pills, which cost 2 cents each, greatly improved the women's health by making them less anemic, leading to the delivery of healthier newborns. Parasites, notably hookworms, suck blood from intestines, greatly sapping the strength of those who are infected.
Roughly 2 billion people, or one-third of the world's population, carry worms such as water-borne schistosomiasis or soil-transmitted infections that include hookworm, roundworm, and whipworm. Of those infected, 300 million are often seriously ill, or debilitated, as a result. Therefore, any effective, affordable treatment could have a major impact. The Nepal study showed that the medicines commonly used to treat parasitic infections in pregnant women and children had much wider benefits than previously thought. Health officials said if poor countries began wide distribution of the drugs, the numbers of deaths of children as well as women during childbirth could be cut back dramatically.
''The numbers are remarkable, far higher than we would have imagined," Dr. Lorenzo Savioli, coordinator of WHO's parasite control program, said in a telephone interview from Geneva. ''Giving deworming pills to pregnant women should become routine in all the world."
But outside of a handful of countries in Asia and Latin America, most poor nations do not promote the medicine. If the deworming pills are used at all, they are usually given to school-age children. Some countries have shied away from the medicines because of drug-company warnings on the labels against giving the drugs to pregnant women.
WHO officials yesterday said, however, that several recent studies have shown that the drugs do not harm pregnant women, and countries should ignore the warnings. One 1998 study in Sri Lanka of 40,000 women found that women taking the pills did not have higher birth defects than those who didn't, and in fact delivered healthier newborns on average.
Another study, on the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar, found that antiparasite treatment can reduce children's malnutrition by 62 percent and reduce anemia by 59 percent.
Most health authorities who closely follow maternal and childhood issues had long believed that the deworming pills could greatly improve children's health. But the evidence from Nepal, which Savioli said must be followed by other studies around the world, was the first strong evidence of the benefits to pregnant women.
The Nepal study, conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and presented earlier this week at a meeting in Geneva of specialists on parasite control, found that 74 percent of the pregnant women in Nepal were infected with hookworm and that 54 percent had moderate to severe anemia because of the worms.
Most of the women in the study were given one pill of the drug albendazole in both the second and third trimester of pregnancy. When researchers checked on infants at six months, they found 14 percent fewer deaths among infants of mothers given one dose of the drug and 41 percent fewer deaths of children whose mothers were given two doses.
The number of childhood deaths indirectly related to worms is huge. An estimated 3.9 million children die each year from lower respiratory infections, 1.8 million from diarrheal diseases, and roughly 1 million from malaria. In many cases, worms greatly weaken children's immune systems, making them susceptible to those killer diseases.
In an editorial in the Dec. 4 edition the medical journal Lancet called for faster distribution of deworming pills. It noted that expansion of deworming programs also would strongly contribute toward reaching most of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations. The most obvious impact would be in lowering child mortality and improving maternal health, but the editorial said that widespread deworming also would aid goals on universal primary education, eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, and promotion of gender equality.
''It's a burden that affects one-third of the world's population," Astrid James, deputy editor of the Lancet, said in an interview. ''That is staggering, and yet there is something you can do about it, which is unusual. So far, greater attention needs to be paid to it."
Savioli, the WHO official, said the Nepal study results would be no surprise to veterinarians, who routinely give deworming pills to pregnant livestock.
''We've known that for a long time. There is no cow in Europe or the United States probably that is not dewormed. But humans? Nobody really cares about poor humans. . . . Animals are money. This disease affects only poor people, who don't vote, who sadly don't count in many estimations. This is a disease of poverty."
But he hopes the studies will eventually help hundreds of millions of the poor. ''This changes things for us," he said. ''We're going to really push it."
John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.



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Wednesday, September 3, 2008

A Homage to Natural Sistas Everywhere




Greetings!




I found this video on you tube titled "Natural. "It captures the beauty of the natural black woman so effortlessly. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! This is what gives me the inspiration to continue my natural journey.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_F-CaHH07E&eurl=http://moyonia.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2154777%3AVideo%3A962

Ridding our bodies of mucous


Okay People!


I am trying to find easy, cost-effective ways to make our temples as healthy as possible so I decided to share some info about mucous that I think you will find interesting.

First off, clearing the body of disease promoting mucous (in excess of protective levels) is one of the most significant changes that you can make on the road to optimal health. For many of us who regularly eat the Standard American Diet, we are living in a constant state of disease as mucous clogs up the entire piping system of the body. Whether the illness is actively manifesting itself in the form of a virus, reproductive, respiratory or autoimmune disease, or simply perched on a dangerous precipice, waiting only for the clock to strike the appropriate hour before showing its face, the levels of mucus in our bodies and the amounts of mucous promoting food that we consume, leave us in an extremely vulnerable position when it comes to the preservation of our health.

A simple test of the amount of mucous in our systems can be had as we pay attention to the number of times we reach for a tissue to blow or wipe our noses or clear our throats. Or maybe you have a slow postnasal drip which moves down the back of your throat into your sinus cavity. This storage of toxic mucous begins to accumulate in the body from birth. It is the product of undigested and uneliminated unnatural food substances. Mucous is found not only in the nose, throat and lungs but throughout the entire 30 feet of our gastrointestinal tract which begins at the mouth and extends to the rectum. It's overpopulation in the system is the cause of many diseases, the most deadly of which is pneumonia.One thing we can do fast day to further aid the body in reducing the amount of mucous in the system is to add fresh lemon juice to our purified or filtered water. This can be done by squeezing juice directly from the lemon into a glass of water or preparing a pitcher of water with lemons slices soaked in it. If this prepared method works best for you, the pitcher can be refilled with water as long as the lemons continue to float. The pitcher should preferably be glass and not plastic. Chemicals used to create plastics leach into the water, contributing to the levels of toxicity in our system.As you drink the water, you will find that it is literally pulling the mucous from the body. This can be seen most obviously by the increased need to spit it out but mucous is also being removed through the more typical eliminative functions as well.


Mucous producing foods:

All Dairy Products

All MeatWheat

Refined Sugar

Bananas

Processed Foods

Saturated Fats


Adapted from fast girls

Monday, September 1, 2008

How to Clean and Style Natural Hair for Children


I really wanted to share this post because I am so tired of seeing little girls with damaged hair from relaxers. I just want to lend some support to parents of little girls with kinky/coily hair and show them how easy it is to care for their natural hair.
1. Washing the hair- If your child has very thick or kinky/coily hair, you should first wet the hair by spraying a homemade solution of water and natural glycerine or water and castor oil and then by using a wide tooth comb to detangle. Starting from the ends and work your way to the scalp when detangling. Then section the hair off into 6-10 sections with hair clips or small rubber bands. Then you can start to shampoo each section individually(please use only sulphate free shampoos) sectioning off each section again after you shampoo and rinse. Then rinse the entire head of hair again in cool water. Then you can begin the conditioning process using the same steps in the shampooing process. Once the hair is rinsed well with cool water you can apply a leave in conditioner and using a wide toothed comb, distribute the leave-in conditioner evenly. Then your last step is to either braid, twist or plait the hair in a style while damp or plait the hair in 10-15 plaits and let air dry if your next step is to put ponytails in. Natural hair is damaged with regular heat use from blow dryers-please air dry whenever possible!

I hope this info was helpful! I have included a URL to a video on youtube that gives a great tutorial on styling a little girls hair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzLAeV59UwE