By Dr Atta K.Bonsu
(Written in Buea, Cameroon and published in the Post Newspaper)
Mistletoe treats cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, stroke and heart disease? It is fantastic! That means, if you have hypertension you just look for mistletoe tea to use, before it may develop to stroke and heart attacks and sudden death.
We will also not forget its dramatic effect on the blood sugar level; normalizing and neutralizing it and thus treating diabetes. Its tea soothes the bones and arrests arthritic and rheumatic pains. As a great emmenagogue, it is traditionally used for female disorders and serious fertility cases (but being an emmanagogue, after fertilization, it should be discontinued in order not to abort the pregnancy).
I have read and used European and American mistletoes, but the moment I started using African local types, I have seen a big difference – it is more effective and better to treat African patients with herbs derived from our own soil than foreign ones.
African Herbs Are The Best
Is there no balm in Gilead? Here, our God, the Creator speaks, and it is an applicable lesson to everyone who is looking for a medicine to treat diseases. Is there no balm (medicine) in Africa? There are so many practices in Africa that even our God and His Angelic hosts, living in their sphere could not understand. When a big ship is loaded with chemical medicines to Africa, the question will always be, “is there no medicine in Africa”?
The worst of all is when imported herbs are evacuated from Europe and Asia to Africa. The same question would be asked, “are there no better herbs and medicinal plants in Africa”?
Unfortunately, these chemicalised drugs, which are often experimented on Africans, have serious side effects, and have caused many untimely deaths. Today, these chemical drugs cause about 90 percent of deaths in Africa. Who may believe all these? Imported herbs also show a slow response to Africans’ ill health. Even though herbs generally work slowly, foreign herbs show timid response on a strong black man. Climate variation will clarify this fact.
Even, coming to the African continent, if it could be possible, a Cameroonian must use Cameroon herbs, a Nigerian using herbs growing on their own soil, as well as Ghanaians must use herbs close to their own environments. In the same manner, it is appropriate for one living in Buea to use Buea herbs than depending on herbs far in distances like Yaounde or even Bamenda in the same Anglophone zone.
Try to understand my facts, do not misunderstand me; I am not writing this to mean that one cannot be treated and cured with foreign herbs, or herbs from other destinations, but I am talking about God’s plan for man and the most effective mechanism by which medicinal herbs work. That is the reason why when you read plants health books, you see classification of names of plants in respect to their origin, such as American ginseng, Asian ginseng, European mistletoe, African cayenne pepper and so forth. Which indicate that the variations of properties due to climatic and soil changes and composition.
I have used herbs close to the people I administer, and could see the difference. That is why we are praying and doing our best that, at least, we must grasp some tit bits on our finger tips so that when problems come, we go direct to our environments and start using herbs that are available. Can we not even take experiences from common other animals like goats, dogs and others?
Now, Cameroonians, Nigerians, Ghanaians and South Africans import rice, chemical drugs and even medicinal herbs and leaving our own as common weeds. Interestingly and painfully, all these herbs are found in Africa, and are highly potential. Ginseng, mint, mistletoe, yarrow, lady’s mantle, vervain, ocimum and all these imported herbs grow in Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria and rest of Africa.
It is a pity to see one using imported ginseng or yarrow, whereas these items are all over in the Northwest province and many parts of Cameroon. There are some who can even import common fern plant which is a disturbing weed all over in CDC plantation farms, in Cameroon.
That “inferiority complex”, a term I often hear from Nigerians is our greatest problem. Many Africans use their eyes and the attractive, fascinated manner that drugs are designed to prove them superior, but a wise man only considers the potency of the thing and the hygienic nature it is prepared. So, one will reject African’s rice because it is not well polished as white as the foreign ones.
One thing I have always prayed for Africans is “hygiene and cleanliness”. One area I have taken much attention on my medical work is upon, how neatly the herbs are prepared from gathering, drying, packaging and preservation, but not bothering much about their fascinated manner they are prepared. Any African can easily prepare herbs neatly and use from their own environment than subjecting our minds on printed designated matters.
Causes And Prevention
Cholesterol is your watchword when you are battling with hypertension, stroke or heart disease. If you go for medical examination, the area you must watch is your blood cholesterol level. There are two main causes: meat eating and cholesterol (the major causes) and the habit of over thinking on problems; that is anxiety, depression and stress.
It is difficult to find a hypertensive vegetarian. That is to say, it is not easy to see someone who does not eat meat or flesh foods having hypertension, stroke or heart problem. It can happen, but I see it rare, and the causes could be very unique and strange.
Cholesterol is needed in the body, it is indispensable in the cells, but you need it in the most appropriate quantity. Thank God, the body provides its own 250mg that the body needs daily. So when one eats meat and more flesh food, he adds more cholesterol to the body. And those excesses often find themselves in the walls of the blood streams, notably the arteries that carry blood from the heart to other parts of the body.
Persistence accumulation of cholesterol in the arteries, tend to harden them, narrowing the tract, making the blood-flow very difficult, when the heart beats and pumps blood. Thus, there is pressure on the heart, and when continued, hypertension is occurred; the victim’s name is registered on the lists of hypertension patients.
As long as the individual continues eating meat, fresh fishes, eggs, milk, butter and cheese, the more these cholesterol are pilling on the walls of the arteries causing first arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which develops to high blood pressure, then heart attacks and diseases may be invited in, and eventually when the cholesterol has blocked the entire bloodstream –apoplexy which is popularly known as stroke occurs.
The blocked vessel will force the brain to send a vital force to help dilating the vessel to make the blood flow. By so doing, any weak capillaries in the brain raptures, causing drainage of the blood in the brain and the whole part of the brain is paralysed. The mouth twists at times, and the whole limbs of that half portion of the body are paralysed, stroke occurs. And it is difficult to cure, due to the “concrete-like” cholesterol blockage.
Cut down your meat intake; even if you will eat meat, toast it as the old people were eating, and occasionally too. The Bible advises man to toast meat before eating but modern man thinks he knows better than God – he eats everything. Now Christians preach that everything can be consumed. Many eat horrible creatures and wonderful devastated foods. But the Bible teaches that we must be selective, and if we want to eat meat and flesh foods, we must toast them to drain the fat, cholesterol and the diseased blood. Our God knows better (read Leviticus 3:17).
If we take Bible lessons we would live longer and stronger. Some do not want to gather wisdom from the Old Testament – all their attention is on the grace, grace, and grace. But we need to be careful of “extrapolation” where people believe that they can live anyhow and still please God and enter into the eternal kingdom: I do not believe that!
You can eat eggs but from healthy fowls, and it should not be more than three in a week. Remember, one egg-yolk contains 250mg of cholesterol and your body only needs 200mg. Milk is not mature person’s food, it is for nursing babies. When babies are teething the enzymes that digest milk disappears; which means it is not for mature people, that is why when one eats milk he constipates because it was not digested. Even at all you feel like eating milk, use soya milk. Coconut milk is also nutritious.
Instead of animal butter and chocolate, why not use ripped avocado pear in your bread; it is the best natural food cream, without cholesterol. Apart from palm oil and coconut oil, there is no plant food, which is a saturated fat or oil that produces cholesterol. So use palm oil and coconut oils sparingly with care. If possible, use soya, cotton seed, corn, and other vegetable, cholesterol free oils.
Mitletoe Leaves
Mistletoe Leaves
Use only mistletoe leaves, the berries are poisonous; they should be strictly avoided. Dry the leaves, not much in sun, if possible under shade, for air-drying. Mash it with the palms to break it into fine granules, after exposing to the sun a bit to make it bristle.
Infuse two teaspoonfuls of the granule in a glass or tea cup of boiling water for about 10 minutes; strain, add honey and lemon juice and sip slowly but hot as you can stand. Take this tea 3 times daily before meals. Do this till you observe a big change. You can skip for some weeks, then you come back to it, till you see a big change. (But do not take it for a long time without a break). Cold infusion is the best: Soak overnight and use.
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