Warts and Aunty

I used to have warts on my fingers. Everyone was polite to me and no one (except one of my kids) would say “Yewww, you have warts!” so I would nonchalantly treat them from time to time with prescription wart medicine, over the counter wart medicine, and even getting them burned off at the doctor’s office.

It would look like the black hole of Calcutta for a while and seem to go away…… then they would return and grow to a stronger wart colony, happy to be back on my hands, left index finger, and right calf.

I started to think I would have warts the rest of my life like familiar slightly gross pets to torture from time to time with ineffective treatments.

Then, one day I read about one that was like an old wives tale – kind of like duct tape on warts (you can try that but my warts were super warts and not affected by the duct tape at all).

The therapy was as simple as castor oil and baking soda. Yup, castor oil and baking soda.

Wash area with soap and water, pat dry but allow wart to remain moist. With a clean sterilized needle, scratch the surface of the wart or mole only, concentrating on the center. Then, use an emery board to file the wart or mole smooth – a few strokes should do it. Make a paste with the castor oil and baking soda – just enough for one application (because you will make a fresh mixture each time.) Apply to wart or mole, it might sting a little. Let it sit for a while, then put a little extra dab on it and cover with a bandaid to keep it from getting messy as well as keeping it castor oil moist.

Repeat at least 3 times per day for as long as it takes – make sure you wash the area with soap and water and pat dry before applying paste. You do not need to scratch or sand the surface again. It will look quite ugly, like an eruption of ugly the way Compound W makes it look. It may take weeks, so don’t get discouraged. Mine took 6 weeks, and I was determined to see it through.

It seemed to get bigger and stay bigger at first, and then slowly the wart started to get a little smaller. All the while it was ugly! White dead looking skin and lots of oil soaked bandaids.

A smaller one that I had on my leg came off after just 2 weeks, and each day I thought the bigger ones on my finger would fall off, but they held on and held on for weeks longer, and then one day, I peeled off the bandaid, and the last vestiges of those familiar warts fell off, and I was left with a wrinkled wounded looking finger without warts! It was almost concave where the warts used to be, and it was beautiful!

I have been wart free ever since. Free at last, free at last. Maybe not as huge a milestone as Martin Luther King, but it did feel and look great.

I have heard for external genital warts (yikes! I didn’t have those) you skip the baking soda and scratching and just use a cotton swab to apply castor oil.

Did you know that warts are highly contagious? I hope I didn’t infect anyone while I had warts. If I did, I owe them a bottle of castor oil.

Egg Whites for Burns

This from my sister in law:

A young man sprinkling his lawn and bushes with pesticides wanted to check the contents of the barrel to see how much pesticide remained in it. He raised the cover and lit his lighter; the vapors inflamed and engulfed him. He jumped from his truck, screaming. His neighbor came out of her house with a dozen eggs, yelling: “bring me some eggs!” She broke them, separating the whites from the yolks. The neighbor woman helped her to apply the whites on the young man’s face. When the ambulance arrived and when the EMTs saw the young man, they asked who had done this. Everyone pointed to the lady in charge. They congratulated her and said: “You have saved his face.” By the end of the summer, the young man brought the lady a bouquet of roses to thank her. His face was like a baby’s skin.

Healing Miracle for burns:

Keep in mind this treatment of burns which is included in teaching beginner fireman this method. First aid consists to spraying cold water on the affected area until the heat is reduced and stops burning the layers of skin. Then, spread egg whites on the affected are.
One woman burned a large part of her hand with boiling water. In spite of the pain, she ran cold faucet water on her hand, separated 2 egg white from the yolks, beat them slightly and dipped her hand in the solution. The whites then dried and formed a protective layer.
She later learned that the egg white is a natural collagen and continued during at least one hour to apply layer upon layer of beaten egg white. By afternoon she no longer felt any pain and the next day there was hardly a trace of the burn. 10 days later, no trace was left at all and her skin had regained its normal color. The burned area was totally regenerated thanks to the collagen in the egg whites, a placenta full of vitamins.

Drugs = Side Effects

I don’t like drugs. Although I believe modern medicine has many excellent facets to dealing with disease, it is also allowing us to bypass healthy habits for the quick fix. We all KNOW the basics of what we should be doing – eat less, eat better foods, exercise, poop daily, etc. Modern medicine seems to believe in modern theories – cut it out or dose it with a drug. Naturopathic healers believe the body can heal itself, but it is a slower more arduous course, and since we are an instant gratification kind of society, drugs fit the bill, and side effects are dealt with more drugs, on and on.

Here is one of the latest articles on natural health. The title deals with heart disease, but the recommendations are good in general (unless you are a believer in vegetarianism):
Wednesday October 6, 2010
Slash Heart Disease Risk by 81 Percent

For millions or people, statin drugs are the number one doctor-prescribed defense against heart disease. In fact, so many people take them that we spent $12.5 billion on Lipitor in 2006 alone. But brand new research reveals that they may seriously damage your health. That’s because statins significantly increase your risk of diabetes.

That means millions of people taking the drugs now have to decide which is worse… heart disease or diabetes.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. An “epic” study shows that specific dietary changes can reduce your risk of heart disease by 81 percent – without resorting to statin drugs. And leading doctors agree that combatting heart disease through diet isn’t just safer… it’s far more effective too.

Dangers of Statin Drugs

We’ve reported on the dangers of statin drugs before. Plenty of reports say statin drugs cause severe pain and can actually make muscles atrophy. Worse, they may actually increase your risk of stroke.

Now, a brand new study, published in The Lancet, confirms that statins do cause diabetes. Researchers reviewed the case files of over 91,000 people from 1994 through 2009. They found a direct link between people taking statins and developing diabetes.

“Why use a [drug] with significant risks when other treatments [are] more effective for reducing heart disease?” asks Dr. Mark Hyman, a Massachusetts physician who serves on the Board of Advisors at Georgetown University. He says he’s helped hundreds of patients combat heart disease without using statin drugs.

Another study – put out several years earlier by the American Medical Association – also found that statins increase diabetes risk. The paper showed that while statins lowered cholesterol, they raised insulin levels. And that’s a precursor for diabetes.

What’s worse, raised insulin leads to extra body fat… higher blood pressure… and increased inflammation. All of which contribute to heart disease.

“In other words, lowering cholesterol with statins actually increases the risk of heart disease,” says Dr. Hyman.

But statin drugs are huge business. They generate over $12.5 billion in sales each year for Lipitor alone. And many doctors are pushed to prescribe them.

These drugs are the conventional response to high cholesterol. So drug companies have worked to make sure more people take them.

“When I was at medical school, the ‘normal’ cholesterol was 250,” says Dr. Carolyn Dean, MD. “The new ‘normal’ promoted by drug companies is 180. Hammering cholesterol down with statin drugs is the wrong approach.”

Causes of Heart Disease

The Archives of Internal Medicine has just published the results if its “EPIC” study. Researchers took 23,000 people and studied their risk factors for heart disease. They found that changes in diet reduced heart attack risk by 81 percent.

How could such simple changes deliver such amazing results? By lowering blood pressure and reducing inflammation.

This comes as no surprise to NHD panel member Dr. Dwight Lundell. He was a heart surgeon for 25 years and performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries. During his career he’s pioneered several innovative advances in coronary medicine.

He says four things cause inflammation and lead to heart disease.

1) Simple carbs and grains are the single biggest threat to heart health. They raise blood sugar which releases insulin into your system. Insulin stores and builds fat – especially around the waist.

“Every time we raise our blood sugar we injure the delicate lining of our blood vessels,” says Dr. Lundell.

And that leads to inflammation and heart disease.

2) Vegetable oils are deadly for our coronary system. They contain an unhealthy amount of omega 6 fatty acids.

Our bodies change these fatty acids into chemicals that cause chronic inflammation.

“We do need omega 6,” says Dr. Lundell. “But we’re getting 20-25 times more in our diets.”

3) Deficiency in omega 3 fatty acids hurts heart health.

“Omega 3 is a powerful natural anti-inflammatory,” he says.

There’s plenty of research which shows omega 3 boosts heart health. Those studies say it’s your best option for cooling inflammation.

4) Oxidative stress damages your heart. Free radical damage causes inflammation and increases stroke risk.

“Oxidative stress is detrimental to health and is definitely [linked] with heart disease,” says Dr. Lundell.

The good news is that all of these heart risks are easy to fix without statin drugs. Small, simple changes in diet can improve heart health.

Boost Heart Health through Diet

You can take a few key steps to improve your diet and heart health. In a nutshell, you need to eat more omega 3s and cut back on omega 6s. Slash your carbs and go for healthy fats and protein. And look to boost your intake of antioxidants.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to what you need to do:

Make omega 3 fatty acids part of your daily diet. So much scientific evidence shows that omega 3s are vital to heart health. And there are plenty of good sources to choose from. There’s no good reason not to enjoy omega 3s.

Your best sources for these fatty acids include:

Sardines
Tuna
Wild salmon
Grass-fed beef
Milk

Cage-free eggs
Be sure when choosing fish that you avoid the farm-raised variety. It’s better to go for cold-water wild fish. That’s because they have a proper ratio of omega 3 to omega 6.

Dr. Lundell says you need to eat at least two to three servings of fresh fish each week.

Another easy option for getting omega 3 into your diet is a simple fish oil supplement.

“Supplement your diet with at least 3 grams of high quality pure fish oil,” says Dr. Lundell.

Cut out omega 6 from your diet. Too much of this fatty acid will do serious harm. So try to keep your omega 3s high and your omega 6s low. It’s pretty easy to do with a little effort and well worth it. Just make sure you avoid the worst foods. These include:

Grain-fed beef
Grain-fed chicken
Processed foods
Fried foods
Vegetable oils
Try to get more saturated fats into your diet. These can really help to reduce inflammation.

Great sources include:

Olive oil
Walnuts, pecans, and almonds
Avocados
Slash sugary and starchy carbs from your diet. These are the worst offenders for raising blood sugar and insulin. That process wreaks havoc on long-term heart health. Worst offenders include:

Bread
Pasta
Rice
Look to enrich your diet with antioxidants. There are so many to choose from. Even foods like dark chocolate and red wine are loaded with them. Some of the best antioxidants include:

Berries
Broccoli
Grapes
Spinach
You can easily combine all of these suggestions into simple meal plans. For breakfast, switch out bagels and cheerios for yogurt, hard boiled eggs, and a handful or almonds.

When you’re on the run, try combining your healthy snack foods to enjoy vital omega 3s and antioxidants in one go. A grab-bag of walnuts, blueberries, and grapes packs a powerful punch. A don’t forget to wash it down with some antioxidant-rich green tea.

You can’t beat broccoli and grass-fed beef for dinner… or spinach and wild salmon… for a powerful combination of health benefits. And you can help yourself to a glass of red wine (loaded with youth-preserving resveratrol) and a square or two of dark chocolate.

To your health,

Ian Robinson,
Managing Editor, Natural Health Dossier “Health Watch”

Exercise

I am being a hypocrite here.  I say to everyone that you should exercise but I hardly do myself.  I do love to weed and garden, and that is very good.  I also have started to learn TaiChi in the Young style – my pal Patricia and I take weekly lessons on Tuesdays.

TaiChi section 1 Showing for a limited time, for us beginners who still haven’t quite remembered the first section.  Thanks Gerri and Virginia!

TaiChi section 2:

Walk with Leslie Sansone for those of us who need to exercise but we really don’t have the time to put on our sunscreen, exercise clothes, socks and shoes every day.  A great way to walk 2 miles with a nice perky lady.  You will be glad you walk!

 


Bruce Lee playing ping pong with nunchucks.
Okay, this may be beyond what we will ever do, but in my dreams, I would love to be able to do this.  Woooowaaaah!

Check out the PACE exercises in the Exercise section.  Short, fast, slow to intense.  Build lung capacity and you build good health.

PACE Airplane for building lung capacity

Here’s a great example of a P.A.C.E. workout that can give you more lung power and improve your Age Quotient (Dr. Sear’s standard) starting today. It’s called an Airplane.

1.  Stand with your feet together, knees slightly bent and upper body leaning slightly forward.
2.  Hold your arms in front of you about waist height, hands together in a “praying” position.
3.  Spread your arms and swing them backwards, and at the same time, lift one leg behind you.
4.  Return to the starting position, then swing your arms and raise the other leg.
5.  Repeat until you are slightly winded.
6.  Rest and recover.  This may take a short time, or a long time (since I am quite out of condition).
7.  For the second set, increase the intensity until you can only speak in short sentences.
8.  Recover.
9.  For the third set, increase the intensity until you can’t complete a sentence, then stop.  (gasp, gasp)
The slight increases in intensity make it a true P.A.C.E. workout. You can increase the intensity without increasing the impact by doing the airplanes “bigger.”  That means leaning a little more forward, doing a squat before you “airplane,” or extending your hands and arms as much as possible with each repetition.

PACE Back Stroke Squat

More P.A.C.E. exercise, thanks to Dr. Al Sears:

Remember to do these two things:

Use progressivity – Little by little, you increase the intensity of your exertion over time
Apply acceleration – Try to reach your intensity target faster, and reduce your recovery time.

1.  Stand with your feet shoulder width apart

2.  Bend slightly at the knees and lean forward, arms hanging straight down

3.  Squat down, and as you come back up, swing both arms up and back in a windmill, as if you were doing the backstroke in a pool using both arms at the same time

4.  Return to start position and repeat until you are slightly out of breath

5.  Recover

6.  Do three sets, with recovery periods in between
In the P.A.C.E. studio, we use a 5-7-9 progression for intensity. That means do the first set at what you perceive to be a 5 on your intensity scale. Do the second set at 7, and the third set go almost all out, leaving a little room to where you could have done a bit more.

Every time you work out, you’ll be a little more fit. Your perceived exertion will change over time so that your “5” of today will only be a “4” tomorrow. So you have to progressively increase your intensity to match your fitness.

That might mean adding a little jump to your squat. Or doing two backstrokes on the way up. Or adding a few more squats to each set but trying to do them in the same amount of time. It’s P.A.C.E. as long as there’s a tiny increase in intensity with each workout.

Then, you accelerate the intensity. Instead of resting for three minutes between sets, only rest for two. Then one minute. Then 20 seconds. Also, instead of a 5-7-9 intensity progression. Try for 6-7-9. Then 7-8-9. Eventually you’ll be able to go 9-9-9 right from the start.
Acceleration is so beneficial because it gives you energy fast, that you can feel right away.

PACE Jumping Side Crunch

Here is another of Dr. Sear’s great exercises that even I can do.  He stresses the  5-7-9 intensity scale for working out with POWER Fit, this allows you to get the full benefit of building lung capacity and also endurance.

Do your first set for each routine at what would be about an intensity level of 5 for you. That means you’d still be able to speak sentences afterwards, but you’re a little winded.

Rest and recover, and up the intensity to a 7. After, you should only be able to talk in short, clipped sentences, but you’re not gasping for air. For the third set, go up to 9. That means that you’re breathing hard and can’t complete a sentence.

The numbers are just a way of converting something subjective – exertion level – into something concrete. But they don’t tell the whole story.

They’re also a way to keep your focus on your intensity, so you can be in control. If you get to your peak heart rate after the second set, you’ve gone beyond your current level of conditioning and lost control.

And you want to be in charge of how hard you’re exerting yourself. You want to focus your attention on your use of oxygen, on your heart rate, on your perceived exertion.

We have the capacity to feel that. To feel how we are working in a much more complete and detailed way than most of us do because we’re so distracted. We’re taught to be distracted.

It’s gotten very bad in the modern world because we use our brains to disconnect from what our bodies are feeling. We take our brains somewhere else through TV or music when we work out.

But you want to bring your mind back into your body, and bring your body’s signals back into your conscious focus.

You’ll know with a lot more reliability how hard you’re working. And you won’t all of a sudden find you’re working out at peak intensity and huffing and puffing because you were thinking about something else.

Then you can influence your body, and direct it. And make your exertion, by intent, what you want it to be.

It’s the reason why we find P.A.C.E. to be so exceptionally safe. I think that part of the reason is because you’re focusing on the intensity.

It’s like if you were reading a book and walking on the edge of a cliff, it’d be dangerous. But if you’re walking near a cliff while paying attention to how close you’re getting to the edge, you can get pretty close and be safe.

That’s what you get when you repeatedly challenge yourself. You never get to your maximum intensity, but you are by design looking at how close you are, and getting closer and closer. That progressivity is what makes P.A.C.E. so effective.

Here’s one of the exercises we were filming that you can use to challenge your focus and intensity. It’s called a jumping side crunch.

1.  Start with your feet a little wider than shoulder width

2.  Raise your arms so they’re in a goal post position – upper arms parallel to the ground, elbows at 90 degrees, hands pointed up

3.  Jump up, and as you come back down, turn your upper body toward your right leg –
Do a kind of twisting abdominal crunch, pressing the left elbow toward the right knee

4.  Rise up out of the crunch and return to start position

5.  Jump again, and repeat on your left side, pressing your right elbow toward your left knee.

To increase the intensity, you could do the side crunches faster, squat all the way down before each jump, and jump as high as you can.  Remember to BREATHE!  We all remember to inhale, but don’t forget to exhale (I usually exhale on the down motion).

In every P.A.C.E. workout we use contralateral arm-leg movement. The opposite leg and arm move together. That’s why, for the side crunch, you turn and move your weight onto one leg, but press your opposite elbow into it.

It’s how our natural neuromuscular coordination works. We’re already hard-wired to move this way. People who have been taught aerobics and people who lift weights often forget this natural movement. They tend to use muscles and tendons on the same side of their bodies. It’s one of the reasons I don’t recommend lifting weights.

The solution is to exert yourself with your body weight using contralateral movement and it all works perfectly.

[Try this one – it is easy to do, and Dr. Sears is right – focus so you have complete control over how far to push yourself.  He also said:

“This is something I see a lot with people just starting P.A.C.E.  Everyone does the warmup set (intensity 5) fine. She knew she had to gear up the intensity for the second set, but kind of zoned out and went after it too hard. By the third set she would have had nothing left.

As a teacher of P.A.C.E., I tell my students to work on keeping their focus. I want you to know how intensely you’re doing it. I want you to pay attention because I want you to be in control.

You get more benefit by easing off a little bit, so you can effectively increase the intensity a little at a time.”

PACE Jumping Side Crunch

Here is another of Dr. Sear’s great exercises that even I can do.  He stresses the  5-7-9 intensity scale for working out with POWER Fit, this allows you to get the full benefit of building lung capacity and also endurance.

Do your first set for each routine at what would be about an intensity level of 5 for you. That means you’d still be able to speak sentences afterwards, but you’re a little winded.

Rest and recover, and up the intensity to a 7. After, you should only be able to talk in short, clipped sentences, but you’re not gasping for air. For the third set, go up to 9. That means that you’re breathing hard and can’t complete a sentence.

The numbers are just a way of converting something subjective – exertion level – into something concrete. But they don’t tell the whole story.

They’re also a way to keep your focus on your intensity, so you can be in control. If you get to your peak heart rate after the second set, you’ve gone beyond your current level of conditioning and lost control.

And you want to be in charge of how hard you’re exerting yourself. You want to focus your attention on your use of oxygen, on your heart rate, on your perceived exertion.

We have the capacity to feel that. To feel how we are working in a much more complete and detailed way than most of us do because we’re so distracted. We’re taught to be distracted.

It’s gotten very bad in the modern world because we use our brains to disconnect from what our bodies are feeling. We take our brains somewhere else through TV or music when we work out.

But you want to bring your mind back into your body, and bring your body’s signals back into your conscious focus.

You’ll know with a lot more reliability how hard you’re working. And you won’t all of a sudden find you’re working out at peak intensity and huffing and puffing because you were thinking about something else.

Then you can influence your body, and direct it. And make your exertion, by intent, what you want it to be.

It’s the reason why we find P.A.C.E. to be so exceptionally safe. I think that part of the reason is because you’re focusing on the intensity.

It’s like if you were reading a book and walking on the edge of a cliff, it’d be dangerous. But if you’re walking near a cliff while paying attention to how close you’re getting to the edge, you can get pretty close and be safe.

That’s what you get when you repeatedly challenge yourself. You never get to your maximum intensity, but you are by design looking at how close you are, and getting closer and closer. That progressivity is what makes P.A.C.E. so effective.

Here’s one of the exercises we were filming that you can use to challenge your focus and intensity. It’s called a jumping side crunch.

1.  Start with your feet a little wider than shoulder width

2.  Raise your arms so they’re in a goal post position – upper arms parallel to the ground, elbows at 90 degrees, hands pointed up

3.  Jump up, and as you come back down, turn your upper body toward your right leg –
Do a kind of twisting abdominal crunch, pressing the left elbow toward the right knee

4.  Rise up out of the crunch and return to start position

5.  Jump again, and repeat on your left side, pressing your right elbow toward your left knee.

To increase the intensity, you could do the side crunches faster, squat all the way down before each jump, and jump as high as you can.  Remember to BREATHE!  We all remember to inhale, but don’t forget to exhale (I usually exhale on the down motion).

In every P.A.C.E. workout we use contralateral arm-leg movement. The opposite leg and arm move together. That’s why, for the side crunch, you turn and move your weight onto one leg, but press your opposite elbow into it.

It’s how our natural neuromuscular coordination works. We’re already hard-wired to move this way. People who have been taught aerobics and people who lift weights often forget this natural movement. They tend to use muscles and tendons on the same side of their bodies. It’s one of the reasons I don’t recommend lifting weights.

The solution is to exert yourself with your body weight using contralateral movement and it all works perfectly.

[Try this one – it is easy to do, and Dr. Sears is right – focus so you have complete control over how far to push yourself.  He also said:

“This is something I see a lot with people just starting P.A.C.E.  Everyone does the warmup set (intensity 5) fine. She knew she had to gear up the intensity for the second set, but kind of zoned out and went after it too hard. By the third set she would have had nothing left.

As a teacher of P.A.C.E., I tell my students to work on keeping their focus. I want you to know how intensely you’re doing it. I want you to pay attention because I want you to be in control.

You get more benefit by easing off a little bit, so you can effectively increase the intensity a little at a time.”

PACE Starter Gate Lunge

Before your start, measure your resting heart rate. Just count the number of beats in 6 seconds and multiply it by 10. You can feel it by pressing your fingertip against the pulse in your wrist or neck.

1.  To begin, stand with feet hip-width apart.
2.  Step your right foot back, and lower into a lunge so both knees are at 90 degrees.
3.  Keep your chest lifted, bend forward at the hips and touch your hands to the ground on either side of your front foot.
4.  As if you were about to sprint, spring forward and take a long stride, but then stop.
5.  Return to the starting gate position stepping your left foot back this time, and repeat.
6.  Do as many lunges as you can until you are slightly out of breath.
7.  Stop and rest until your heart rate goes back down to about 10 beats above your resting rate, then start another set.
You can make it slightly easier to begin by rising from starting gate position without catching air, then sinking back down.

With each PACE workout, try to progressively increase your intensity. Increase the height of each jump, or try to do more jumps with each set. Also, remember to accelerate – to shorten your rest periods or get to that higher intensity faster. Progressivity and acceleration are what make it a true PACE workout that will give you more energy, available faster, that you can feel.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD