ARE you, or a family member, one of the many suffering chronic illness or other forms of recurring sickness? Chronic diseases—especially cancer, diabetes, and recurrent respiratory and heart diseases, have according to the World Health Organization (WHO) reached global epidemic proportions. This 21st century, blight kills twice as many people worldwide every year than do infectious diseases like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, combined.
Diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic conditions account for most deaths in rich, middle-income and lower middle-income countries, surpassing infectious diseases, malnutrition, and deaths of new mothers and babies combined. In low-income countries, they account for 40 percent of deaths, but are predicted to become the cause of more than half of all deaths.
Within the Philippines, a WHO report noted how in 2002, more than half of Filipinos suffered from chronic illnesses, and that it accounted for 57 percent of all deaths at the time. Recent posting in the Department of Health, PH, reported this: “The leading causes of death are diseases of the heart, diseases of the vascular system, pneumonias, malignant neoplasms/cancers, all forms of tuberculosis, accidents, COPD and allied conditions, diabetes mellitus, nephritis/nephritic syndrome and other diseases of respiratory system. Among these diseases, six are non-communicable and four are the major NCDs such as CVD, cancers, COPD and diabetes mellitus.”
Yet, recent research findings show how diet and lifestyle changes can lower the risk of chronic disease. However, current lifestyle trends in Asia and other continents, run counter to recommendations supported by the WHO report. In truth, people in developing countries are adopting unhealthy behaviors practiced in developed nations.
In response to the alarming health trends, and the high incidence of chronic deadly diseases among the poor, I wrote first, “Away sakit: Natural kag herbal nga pamaagi,” for the sugarcane workers I am directly in contact with in Negros island. The book, provides a handy information resource to enable readers to take a proactive stance regarding their health. Being in Ilonggo, many among speakers of the dialect, found it ‘convenient to read’. A doctor friend went to the extent of challenging to come up with an English version, and to get me going, donated the first thousand peso to see through its publication.
Thus, was how “Fighting sickness: Natural and Herbal Way” came to life. An enhanced version of Away sakit, it is handy tool for health freedom and empowerment-- that is, if the reader takes on the prescribed alternative path to personal health care. A fundamental shift to vegetable, fruits and herbs, not only for food, but as medicine is the path to wellness.
Empowering and lifesaving information have been generated by various advocates for health and wellness. This diverse information has been published in bits and pieces in multimedia: books, magazines, newspapers and the Internet. However, very few of us has taken note, or read the vast information available on health and wellness. The vast majority of people around the world pursue lifestyles characterized by fast-paced rhythm: rushed ad hoc meals, multi-tasking, shortened hours of sleep, etc. Stress defines most of our lives, so are chronic pains and recurring illnesses.
North or south, east or west, urbanites, and even urban and rural folks have become captives of drug-oriented modern medicine. Few are aware of alternatives, particularly herbs, and natural food as medicine. There is an urgent need to popularize crucial information that can liberate people from widespread prescriptions given for lifetime maintenance on drugs.
My purpose in writing the book, Fighting Sickness: the Natural and Herbal Way, is to popularize health empowering information that could equip individuals to go into preventive medicine, or free people from prevalent costly chronic illnesses. The book is written in popular English to reach as many people as possible with an urgent message: We can be health empowered, freed from dependence on proliferating harmful drugs. My intent is to reach out to as wide key actor groups as possible: integrative, ‘holistic’ medical practitioners, professional and non-professional caregivers, medical students, health ‘buffs’, and the chronically ill themselves.
In writing this book, I serve as an alternative health information broker, sharing and trading my accumulated knowledge in alternative, holistic healing through my research and actual practice. Since 1978, I engaged in documentary, and ethnographic research that opened my eyes to issues of poverty and endemic illness, especially among the poor.
As newly married person then, I was confronted with a chronic type of illness—asthma. A genetic predisposition, asthma afflicted my husband from childhood. Expectedly, our own children had asthma from their infancy—a condition that made me resolve to fully breastfeed them for at least seven months. A recurring illness, I sought alternative forms of treatment for asthma. At the helm of pioneering research on Philippine medicinal plants and their proper use, my son’s pediatrician, Dr. Nelia Cortes Maramba served as a real help. Through her, I was initiated into natural medicine, particularly, the use of Lagundi,Vitex negundo, or Five-leaved chaste tree which the University of the Philippines (UP) pharmacological research team tested to be best for asthma. With further guidelines from her on what food and other allergens to avoid, asthma ceased to be a heavy weight on my family.
In my life I have also fought sickness in different forms, mainly at midlife and beyond. I have come out not only as mere survivor, but victor. However, my path taken to wellness was not an easy one. At the onset, I had to face conventional “health warriors”, well-meaning specialists one in dictum, “You have to be on maintenance medication “(not just one but several costly drugs with many listed harmful side-effects).
I refused the “life sentence” for drug maintenance given me, not just by one, but other doctors I sought for various ailments. When my blood pressure shoot up a bit, I was advised to start on lifetime maintenance for hypertension. With slight elevation of my cholesterol, I was prescribed another support drug for upkeep. Yet, equipped with a researcher’s mind, I did not readily accept my “doctor’s orders”. Aware of the harmful side effects of drug medication, I made it my own life policy to do research on the side effects of prescription drugs before taking them.
Driven by various advocacies, I did multi-tasking, and lived a hyperactive life from my 20s onward. Extreme busyness and hyperactivity may work well for a person at the prime of life—one that has been identified by some studies to be, midlife. I found this to be true in my own life. Yet, in my 50s, I went through a time of hormonal imbalance, and swung from seasons of hyperactivity to passivity.
My bout with depression led to different drug prescriptions: anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, and sleep inducing pills. Despite repeated assurances that the prescribed drugs have ‘little’ or no side-effects, I opted to do further research on them. Armed with a long list of their harmful side effects on one’s internal organs and other debilitating end, I did not fully subscribe on chemical drug interventions. I researched on alternative cures—use of herbs and medicinal plants, exercise, meditation, nature walk, consumption of natural food as medicine, taking herbal decoctions, psychotherapy and therapy massage. Change of pace and lifestyle, wilful realignment of priorities, even reorientation of my bent as a Type A personality, and the ultimate-- unconditional surrender of self to Yahweh Rophe, the Lord who heals, brought about my total deliverance .
My vision, my aim with Fighting Sickness: the Natural & Herbal Way, is to promote Health Empowerment Movement (HEM) nationwide, and even beyond. My two books are available at the Negros Showroom in Robinsons, LFIsher Book/SOuvenir SHop, and SEACREST Foundation, Tel. (34) 433-6653, ORDER via, vlg.seacrest@gmail.com.