African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic ... - Blackherbals.com

African Traditional Herbal Research ClinicVolume 2, Issue 7 NEWSLETTER July 2007FEATURED ARTICLESHow Food Helps the Body Heal ItselfBy Professor Charles Ssali, MBChB FRCS (ED)Mariandina Aids Research FoundationHuman life was meant to be sustained by the use ofnutrients from natural sources. These sources are thefoods from plants, vegetables, fruits, and herbs but notfrom animal sources.It is these nutrients that the body requires to buildtissues that are used to renew itself and replace thosethat are damaged. The body has its own defencemechanism which is the immune system. It is theimmune system that defends the body against thenumerous bacteria and viruses in our environment. Foras long as the body has an intact immune system, thesebacteria, viruses and fungus will have no adverse effecton the health of the individual. A person may be inperfect health despite the presence of bacteria, fungusand viruses on the skin, inside our intestines, lungs andin our blood circulation. The organisms are sometimesbeneficial to us by their ability to produce someessential vitamins in the gut. This symbioticcoexistence is only maintained for as long as we keepour body well supplied with food that is properlybalanced in order to maintain our immune systemintact. The immune system has what are called defencecells and chemical weapons called antibodies.It is these two parts of the immune system that keep thepotentially offensive organisms at bay.If an individual fails to keep the body supplied with theessential nutrients, then the bacteria and viruses get theupper hand of the defences and produce disease in oursystems.If we eat foods, which are low in nutrient value, webecome deficient and susceptible to diseases likediabetes, asthma, cancer and virus infections.Diseases like AIDS, Scurvy and rheumatic fevers andjoint pains are just a few out of so many others that aresecondary to some form of nutritional breakdown ordeficiency. Whenever that deficiency is corrected bythe resumption of a balanced diet, then the problem issolved and the disease disappears with all its symptomsand signs. Failure to achieve that means that one hasnot taken enough of the nutrients. A disease onlybecomes incurable if it is left for too long untreated tillbody tissues become destroyed beyond repair. In otherwords all diseases should be treatable using nutritionalsupplements to make up the deficiency.Clinical experience shows that all deficiency diseasescan be reproduced in the body if the nutrientresponsible is withheld from the individual.By the same token, all diseases should be treatable ifthe lacking nutrients are identified and supplied inliberal quantities.The use of food items that have been artificially alteredby the addition of preservatives, artificial colours,sweeteners or genetic manipulation may cause diseasein the individual using them.-19- Traditional African Clinic October 2007Foods like refined sugar where the natural compositionhas been changed by the removal of minerals andvitamins may cause degenerative diseases like diabetes,rheumatoid arthritis and many others. This is the reasonwhy the animals that feed on molasses that we throwaway do not suffer from deficiency diseases whichaffect people that own them. Our close relatives theprimates that live naturally in the forests are healthierthan ourselves. It is because of their balanced diet thatthey do not suffer from diabetes, asthma, arthritis,lupus, hepatitis and even cancer at the rate they occur inhuman beings. Monkeys do not cook their food or tryrefine it like us and hence they do not destroy thenutrients that are naturally occurring in foods likeunpolished rice, wheat and raw cane sugar which givethe brown colour to those foods. Research has shownthat by supplementing our diet with concentratedvitamins, minerals, plant hormones, enzymes andamino acids, we can eliminate most of those diseasesthat now afflict man. The pharmaceutical products thatwe use to treat many of our ailments are the very onesthat produce the toxicity symptoms that the doctorstreat with even more toxic drugs to compound theproblems of their patients. An individual treated forContinued on page 20