Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !!!!!!!!

Healthy and green time for all of you.

All comments are filtered and obviously spam ones are rejected or modified. I like to share my work but not to feed parasites.

A comment on one of my health problems has little to do with medicinal plants but a lot with the promoter of this blog. The hiatal hernia and the Barrett’s esophagus.

A about three years ago I wrote on one of our other blogs

“What is the cause that the esophageal end of the stomach is inserted into the chest cavity and causes the condition known as hiatal hernia, is something that remains unclear. It is frequently mentioned a weakness of the diaphragm walls.

The fact is that my stomach is timely, at least sometimes, visiting the area for lungs and heart. Consequences, discomfort, although in my case not very noticeable.

I know people who say “to suffer” from hiatal hernia. Who have severe pain and they have difficulties to digest. Smaller meals and more frequent, very healthy food, easily digestible, are some of the recommendations.

I read that there are exercises and massage but I did not think could be effective.

None of this I have done. Normal life, good lunches and as befits a chronically stressed, “like I was swallowing for a contest”. After the first exam I knew, my hiatal hernia was of about 3 cm.

And also appeared Mr. Barrett.

All this was a new subject for me. I was diagnosed in early 2008 with the method of the esophageal probe (not very nice) comforted with the interesting experience of “a journey inside myself,” to be displayed on the monitor the path of the probe tip with a camera at the front, inside of “my” esophagus, the bottom of its walls eroded and scratched and a with a different structure (say the specialist, not me).

By the way the so-called Barrett’s esophagus (I’ll find out who is or was), it is precisely the modification of the surface walls of the esophagus (epithelium and endothelium) that adopt a structure similar to the small intestine walls. The continuous aggression by the reflux of stomach acid into the esophagus through the sphincter (cardias) that is not working properly, makes the lesions.

This situation must be controlled because, besides causing minor discomfort, has the risk of becoming cancer, which begins to narrow and occlude the lumen of the esophagus.

The wonders of science, the specialist told me that the key is to neutralize gastric acid, with a small amount acts effectively in digestion. Somehow telling me that I produce more acid than what I need (another of my stress?).

Two years ago I underewent a new fibrogastroscopy (June 10, 2009). With the results of a biopsy I talked to the specialist who made me the “fibro”. The hiatal hernia disappeared and modified tissues of the esophageal wall are gone. There are only small scars of previous erosions.

My treatment. To control the gastric acidity, Lansoprazole 30 mg. per day for anxiety, stress or whatever, teas, chamomile or valerian. In addition, some care in the meals. Finally, a radical change in lifestyle, a different approach to face problems, more realistic and less nervs.

Now, winter of 2011 the situation is the same. Same treatment, no hertburn, no discomforts, a variated diet, a normal life (as far as digestive tract is concern).

A few post are going to be published shortly. In the meantime I would like to state that spam comments are not welcome. Many thanks.

One issue that I discussed earlier, but due to repeated “accusations” against medicinal plants, I must repeat or extend their defense.

One way is to confront news like the following:

a) Alternative medicine can be dangerous for children and adolescents, and even deadly, according to a study conducted in Australia. 39 cases studied in children over 2 years, with 17 cases affected by not using conventional medicine. Four deaths.

b) Drug kills 2,000 in France. Paris | The health scandal caused in France by the Mediator, a drug for diabetics who are overweight and have caused some 2,000 deaths, stirred the political sphere which took 11 years to have it off the market, after the first warnings about its danger.

Another way is to argue how they should handle these drugs derived from plants:

In a previous post I stated, “In short, the regulations for medicinal products prepared from raw herbs or their derivatives, must be the same as for allopathic medicines. As for the dried herbs that are packaged and sold as such, regulations should monitor , first the good manufacturing practices and also other recommendations included in the packaging and labels or tags, as well as any material of propaganda. “

You can also highlight other issues of common synthetic drugs as well as frequent self-medication:

1 .- Aspirin has its risks. Overconfidence in aspirin has become a danger, since it is capable of producing poison, frequently associated with viral diseases. Its property of reducing blood clotting may also cause problems and frequent use can cause gastrointestinal mucosal lesions.

2 .- To take daily painkillers may raise the risk of stroke. Analgesic consumption (type of ibuprofen) daily for several years may increase the chance of suffering a heart attack or stroke, according to Swiss research published in the British Medical Journal and compiled by the BBC website.

On the simultaneous use of natural and allopathic, I take what the President of the Chilean Society of Phytotherapy and speaker of the 6 th International Congress on Complementary Medicine, Dr. Miguel Morales, said.

“He warns about the risks of mixing drugs with herbal medicine allopathic and / or herbs without medical supervision. He indicates that they may alter treatment, increased adverse reactions, toxicity occur, but also, it may enhance therapeutic success.

But if these requirements are not met by either the economic interests of the pharmaceutical industry, because despite being aware of all developments that have taken the various disciplines and technological advancement do not develop each of the stages of the investigation of future medicine either by omission or intent, or the rush to get the product to market or because they are demanding market demand or population health status, as well as professionals in the field especially the physician does not know or know only superficially mechanism action of drugs with poor real support physicochemical aspects of the particular case to prescribe now. This also goes at hand with misdiagnosis and lack of knowledge or because the patient has no fundamental culture and do not provide all the information to the doctor, is then presented with both a public health problem. “

I think that ultimately, both allopathic and natural medicines (from plants) are obviously important and they are not responsible for the problems caused by misuse. We, human beings are who act improperly. Whether consumers, health professionals, manufacturers, authorities and all other stakeholders. To the extent that if the goal is not the welfare of the people, these stories will continue coming out.

This article was translated from the original, written in spanish at http://plsmeddrherbie.blogspot.com/

At least for one day this blog was banned or prohibited. The announce used another word that I didn’t register. The use of latin expressions by british people is so particular that is quite difficult to register them.

But I would like to state about the real danger of having free sites. It is enough a wrong determination, made by ???, to lose hours, days, months or years of work.

In the best situation a request has to be made and to wait for the ???? benevolence.

Microalgae as chemicals producers for functional foods

Sometimes I wish to be able to choose the research lines in institutions that work with functional foods.

The small amount of research done on the potential of microscopic algae as a source of substances to be incorporated in new functional foods are demonstrating the enormous potential of these marine plant organisms and should be giving rise to a whole new line of work.

The draw on the rich biodiversity of these algae and the possibility to transform them into controlled biorreactors as factories of secondary metabolites, usually produced to defend themselves from adverse or extreme conditions, seems that these microscopic beings are shouting, COME FOR US, WE CAN HELP YOU.

The beneficial effects of some of these metabolites are already known and surely there are clues about what factors cause the microalgae to produce them in larger quantities.

The huge bioreactors that today produce fish food throughout the cultivation of these microscopic algae can also be used to produce chemical compounds to be added to common foods in order to transform them into functional foods.

More articles on functional foods http://drherbiemedplants.blogspot.com/

Broccoli and tomatoes enriched with bioactive chemicals

A line of work that I fully agree with.

Feeding Tomato and Broccoli Powders Enriched with Bioactives Improves Bioactivity Markers in Rats

Ann G. Liu, Sonja E. Volker, Elizabeth H. Jeffery and John W. Erdman, Jr.

Division of Nutritional Sciences and Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, 905 South Goodwin Avenue, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801

J. Agric. Food Chem., Article ASAP Publication Date (Web): August 3, 2009

Abstract

Many studies have evaluated the cancer -preventive potential of individual bioactives from tomatoes and broccoli, but few have examined them within the context of a whole food.

Male Copenhagen rats were fed diets containing 10% standard tomato powder, tomato enriched with lycopene or total carotenoids, standard broccoli floret, broccoli sprouts, or broccoli enriched with indole glucosinolates or selenium for 7 days. All broccoli diets increased the activity of colon quinone reductase (NQO1). Indole glucosinolate-enriched broccoli and selenium-enriched broccoli increased hepatic NQO1 and cytochrome P450 1A activity.

These results demonstrate that the bioactive content of vegetables affects both tissue content of bioactives and activity of detoxification enzymes. Enhancing bioactive content of tomatoes and broccoli may enhance efficacy in the prevention of prostate cancer.

I came across a daily news page announcing a scientific discovery, drinking wine reduces the chances of having Barret’s esophagus.

At this time of wellness for all who support natural life and a healthy diet, where exercise helps prevent many ailments and each of the edible plants prevents this or that, also fermented drinks are beneficial for health, these news on wine appear as too much of the same.

As I said in other posts, I am one of the patients recovered from Barret’s esophagus condition, following an adequate medical treatment. I repeat the title, if I had knew it, instead of controlling heartburn with a silly and tasteless gelatin capsule, I could have followed a good treatment, either at breakfast or at mid morning, with a good glass of wine, for instance one of our uruguaian prized Tannats.

See this journal article, it goes on the line I strongly support.

Tomatine-Containing Green Tomato Extracts Inhibit Growth of Human Breast, Colon, Liver, and Stomach Cancer Cells

Mendel Friedman, Carol E. Levin, Seung-Un Lee, Hyun-Jeong Kim, In-Seon Lee, Jae-Oke Byun and Nobuyuki Kozukue

J. Agric. Food Chem., Publication Date (Web): June 10, 2009

Abstract

Tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum) synthesize the glycoalkaloids dehydrotomatine and α-tomatine, possibly as a defense against bacteria, fungi, viruses, and insects. Six green and three red tomato extracts were investigated for their ability to induce cell death in human cancer and normal cells using a microculture tetrazolium (MTT) assay.

Compared to untreated controls, the high-tomatine green tomato extracts strongly inhibited the following human cancer cell lines: breast (MCF-7), colon (HT-29), gastric (AGS), and hepatoma (liver) (HepG2), as well as normal human liver cells (Chang). There was little inhibition of the cells by the three low-tomatine red tomato extracts.

Cell death induced by the pure glycoalkaloids dehydrotomatine and α-tomatine isolated from green tomatoes and characterized by HPLC, GC, and GC-MS, as well as their respective aglycones tomatidenol and tomatidine, was also evaluated. α-Tomatine was highly effective in inhibiting all of the cell lines. Dehydrotomatine, tomatidenol, and tomatidine had little, if any, effect on cell inhibition.

The results show that the susceptibility to destruction varies with the nature of the alkaloid and plant extract and the type of cancer cell. These findings extend related observations on the anticarcinogenic potential of glycoalkaloids and suggest that consumers may benefit by eating not only high-lycopene red tomatoes but also green tomatoes containing glycoalkaloids.

Possible mechanisms of the anticarcinogenic and other beneficial effects and the significance of the cited observations for breeding improved tomatoes and for the human diet are discussed.