May your life be the art you love.
MRSA is an abbreviation for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, meaning it is a staph infection resistant to antibiotics. MRSA is a bacterial infection of the skin and is very difficult to treat. Some antibiotics are being developed that may be effective in treating MRSA, although not all are responding to treatment. In the beginning stages, MRSA appears as small red bumps, and later it turns into deep, infected boils. It becomes very painful and often the sufferer has a fever. The bacteria eats away at the flesh and it can sometimes attack vital organs. It progresses rapidly, usually within a day or two. MRSA spreads through skin-to-skin contact, but it can also be airborne through coughing and sneezing. It’s also spread by touching contaminated objects, bad hygiene, open wounds, and crowded living situations, especially when items are shared. While washing hands may not work 100 percent, it is still a step in the right direction. One thing scientists have been able to find out is that alcohol is effective at cleaning surfaces. Hand washes that are alcohol based are also ideal as opposed to traditional hand soap. The antibiotics now used to try to kill MRSA are very rough on the body – liver damage. Here is some advice for natural prevention and treatment that may help you avoid MRSA or can be added to conventional treatment with drugs.
It’s comforting, relaxing and rejuvenating– a nice warm bath. A bath can become healing by adding a mixture of milk used to dilute essential oils. Add 1 tablespoon of milk mixed with 10 drops of essential oils such as soothing lavender, anti-cancer oils such as balsam and frankincense, or stimulating oils such as rosemary. I like to add cleansing, stimulating kelp seaweed powder or purifying neem powder to my bath. Or to ease tight muscles some Epsom salts. Remember back when a nice birthday gift for a girlfriend was fancy bath salts? Lately deadly hallucinogenic drugs masquerading as “bath salts” have appeared in head shops and other specialty stores. Who knows how nutty people are ingesting them? One woman got a flesh-eating bacteria in her arm where she injected “bath salts.” I realize this news is weird to most of my readers, but people are not aware of the dangers because theses “bath salts” are sold over the counter. A “Buyer Beware” attitude is not good enough to protect us from easily available bizarre products.
Cyrano the cat has been in the news. But animal joint replacement, stem cell therapy and other advanced treatments are being done by American Vets. It should advance human treatments as well.
Cyrano had a total hip replacement. Marcellin-Little has described the implant as being “as good as the implants used in human knee replacements.”The high-tech operation allowed Cyrano to escape amputation, the goal sought by his owner, Sandy Lerner, a founder of Cisco Systems, and owner of a farm in northern Virginia. Marcellin-Little and his fellow implant developers hope Cyrano’s surgery will help make the procedure more available and affordable for other pets.Cyrano isn’t the first feline to get an artificial knee. That distinction belongs to a British cat named Missy, who suffered a crushed leg in 2009 when a car ran over her in West Sussex, England. Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick in Surrey, best-known as the BBC’s Bionic Vet, fitted her with a stainless steel joint cemented in place.
Dr. Tom Bradbury, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Emory University, said the less invasive technique, which is gaining in popularity, was developed in France in the 1970s. U.S. surgeons, he said, first used it in California in the late 1990s and it soon spread across the states. Unlike traditional hip replacement surgery, in which the entire hip joint is replaced, Bradbury said that the anterior approach allows the joint to be replaced without cutting the muscle from the bone. By sparing the muscle, he said, doctors are able to ensure greater stability. Because of the “muscle friendly” nature of the surgery, recovery is quicker. “It used to be we had to restrict patients’ motions to prevent the ball dislocating from the socket,” Bradbury said. “You couldn’t sit in a low chair, cross your legs or tie your shoe. But because the muscles are still working with this [new] approach, patients can still do all those things.”
This afternoon in Key Largo I saw an orange male iguana shake his dewflap at me. It’s the bit of skin under his chin. It might have meant “Hello” or “Get out of here.” Not knowing his mood I walked closer to get a better view. They can grow to be 6 feet, weigh 20 pounds, and live 20 years. He smiled and said, “Happy New Year from all the Dragons walking on earth, basking in trees and flying in air.” Chinese Feng Shui experts predict a tumultuous year ahead with earthquakes, floods, a change in Communist Party leadership and governmental scandals that will impact China.
If you can manage it try to see a red bird, a sign of good luck, on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Song birds and swallows are especially lucky. Preparation for the New Year is important enough to have some rigid rules. Clean house and wash your hair before not during New Year’s Eve so you won’t wash away your luck. Don’t let anyone tell ghost stories or mention illness or death. Don’t let children cry. All are foreboding signs of future disaster. Get sick people up, dressed and out of the bedroom. Other prohibitions are not as clear. Buying shoes or books is not recommended. Their Chinese characters are a homonym for rough as in difficult and lose. In short, don’t endanger health, wealth and happiness and as much as possible attract good energy. New Year is a time to share foods and fun with family and friends. 新年快乐
January 23rd brings The Year of the Dragon – the best way to fly. Be prepared to grow, travel, change, excel. The Dragon demands your energy and high spirits. Things and people change rapidly under his influence. Stay grounded with herbs including gotu kola for reducing stress, ginsengs for energy and circulation, and lemon grass, fresh mint, and ginger tea for digestion.
Lately medical studies have found that 1 in 5 Americans suffered from “mental illness” during the last year. According to a respected medical website “The unemployed, Medicaid beneficiaries, and those living below the poverty level were more likely to have mental illness in the preceding year, as were younger patients. Women appeared to be at greater risk than men (23% versus 16.8%). Substance use disorders were more common among those with mental illness than among those reporting no disorders (20% versus 6.1%), and the prevalence was even higher among patients with serious mental illness (25.2%).”
But of course people who are unemployed, who have lost jobs, homes, and their sense of security are DEPRESSED. Of course! That is normal not “mental illness.” They might turn to drugs or other forms of escape during stressful times. The medical answer is to medicate these people. What they need are jobs, a way to regain self-respect, or at least survive the current world-wide economic turn-down. Here is my herbal advice:
New research points to the possibility that statin drugs used to reduce harmful cholesterol may also help inhibit certain cancers notably breast cancer. See the chart to the left. That is the pathway indicating how statins can disrupt the mevalonate pathway.
USA Today reports: The p53 tumor suppressor gene stops the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells, but some women with breast cancer have mutant forms of this gene. In the new study, when the mutant p53 cells were treated in the laboratory with statins, the cells stopped their erratic growth, and even died in some cases.
It seems that the mutated p53 genes may activate the same pathway that the statins inhibit — the mevalonate pathway, the study suggests. The mevalonate pathway is important in the body’s production of cholesterol. In the study, the effects of the statin drugs were erased when the mevalonate pathway was reactivated, supporting the potential mechanism. The new research is published in the Jan. 20 issue of the journal Cell. How can you safely use natural statins without taking medical statin drugs that may have many potentially harmful side-effects, including energy loss, hormonal and behavior problems?
Continue reading ‘Pu Erh Tea, Statins, and Cancer – 普洱茶的茶，他汀类药物与癌症’
