Herbal Remedies Natural Health Newsletter, March 2003, Issue 218

• Prostate Health without Medications? - Click here for full story

• Low Vitamin B6 but Not Homocystine Is Associated With Increased Risk of Stroke and Transient Ischemic Attack - Click here for full story

• "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." What Fears can do to Our Mind, Our Body, and Our Soul! - Click here for full story

• Questions and Answers

• Q1. "I would like to know if any herbal preparations exist to help babies sleep. My baby is having severe sleep problems (wakes up to 6 times a night) and I am desperate to seek a safe solution, just to break this habit. He is 19 months old, weighs 21 pounds." - Click here for full story

• Q2. "I am interested in herbs that address the problem of excessive urination in the evening wherein i am forced to get up several times. Also, if you possess an herb that will facilitate complete evacuation of urine when going to the bathroom each time, i would be very grateful and eager to procure same. Thank You." - Click here for full story

• Q3. "I have been looking for some information on herbal alternatives for excess belly bulge. I have had four children and I would like to know what I can take to aid me in this struggle. Someone told me to take a colon cleanse, but I am not familiar with the herbal remedies. I thank you in advance for any help you can give me. I am just simply looking for a few suggestions or other websites?" - Click here for full story

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Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosed among American men and prostate cancer occurs in African-American men more frequently than the rest of the population, and we usually see cancer at an earlier age. Popular treatments include removing the prostate, various forms of radiation, and chemotherapy. Though often successful, these treatments can leave men impotent and incontinent. Additionaly, what treatment to take is a very difficult decision that people really need to carefully consider with several doctors and their loved ones. It may be important to take an evidence-based approach and understand the scientific data regarding a particular treatment, given the disease that they have. The question might be, what is going to help me live longer and prevent the spread of the disease? Many people don't realize, for example, that even if they have a tumor that seems to be confined to the prostate, and have it surgically removed, within five years there's at least a 30-percent chance of recurrence and within 10 years, a 50-percent chance of recurrence because it had already spread microscopically. So whether or not you decide to have conventional treatment is a very personal choice, and it's not an easy choice. Even if you do go with conventional treatments, or if you want good preventive medicine, there are alternatives that have proven benefits.

According to resent research by Dean Ornish M.D., (Author and Researcher, Founder and President, Non-Profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Sausalito, California and Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco), A certain segment of men decided not to have conventional treatment because the treatments leave many men impotent or incontinent or both. after intensive changes in diet and lifestyle by a random sample of half of the group, after three months, PSA (prostate-specific antigen) levels as a marker for prostate cancer were essentially unchanged in the comparison group, but they went down significantly in the group that made comprehensive changes in diet and lifestyle. After one year, the PSA levels went up or got worse in the comparison group, went down even more in the experimental group, and these differences were also significant. And, after both three months and after a year there was a strong relationship between the adherence to the diet and lifestyle program and changes in their PSA. Thus, the more people changed the better they got. In order for the PSA to come down, they had to make really big changes. Moderate changes may be enough to help prevent diseases like prostate cancer, but it's probably not enough to stop or reverse the progression once you have it. Ornish found similar results with his heart studies over the last 25 years that, in order to reverse the progression of heart disease, people had to make much bigger changes than most doctors had recommended until then.

According to Dr. Ornish, the test group was asked to follow a low-fat, whole foods, plant-based diet, predominantly fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, and soy products. This reduced the intake of disease-promoting substances like cholesterol, saturated fat, and oxidants while getting a thousand other substances that are actually protective, that have anti-cancer, anti-heart disease, even anti-aging properties. So the program has the double affect of excluding bad things from your diet, but also includng good things in your diet - that's important. The test group was also asked to manage stress by doing an hour a day of stretching, breathing, meditation, imagery and relaxation techniques, to walk for about a half hour a day or for an hour three times a week, and to come to a support group once a week to increase that sense of connection, intimacy and community.

In addition to diet and lifestyle changes there are also herbs and supplements that support a healthy prostate and PSA levels. According to Lewis Wright, M.D., (Internist, New York, New York), There are double lab studies in Europe and also the in United States, showing herbal products for prostate problems decreases the symptomatology associated with enlargement of the prostate. Saw palmetto, zinc and vitamin E, are found to have positive benefits on the whole mechanism of the prostate and the health of the prostate without the nagative side effects of many prescriptioin medications. Additional supplements including pygeum, lecithin and pumpkin seed oil have been found to benefit the prostate. Any of these supplements may be found in the section on Prostate Health.

According to Dr. Ornish, no one dies from prostate cancer unless it metastasizes. And it's not usually going to metastasize unless your PSA goes up. "Whether or not you have conventional treatment, you'd be smart to consider making these changes in diet and lifestyle as well. They certainly can't hurt you. We know they'll help your heart. Our data now indicate that it may help your prostate as well, and it can only help reduce the risk of recurrence as well as helping you improve your overall health and well-being."

This famous quote was made by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President of the United States, at the outset of WWII. Roosevelt knew that fear, by itself was crippling, and at the time could change the way that the American population felt about our ability to fight and to win a terrible war. Fear can destroy all hope, and Roosevelt knew that hope was key to a successful war effort and for personal freedom from oppression. Roosevelt may not have known the deep impact pervasive fear can have on our health by impairing immunity, interrupting sleep, and exacerbating other problems like acne, and ulcers. Little was he to know that fear related disorders effect over 19 million Americans today.

"The psychological state of fear affects us biologically" according to Los Angeles psychiatrist Carole Lieberman. "People who are anxious drink and eat more. They have more accidents. They are more likely to get colds or suffer heart attacks. Fear was a brain function originally designed to keep us from getting eaten, but according to neuroscientist Stephen Maren, it is now "eating away at us".

Fear is a response fundamental to survival. We are surrounded by the fear of death because of sicknesses such as SARS, or the potential that we may be gassed by invading terrorists, or by any other number of crippling thoughts of death from potential accidents from a plan crash to a shark attack. But none is more pervasive in our daily lives than the realization of our own broken egos, or the realization that we thought we were in control of our lives and the actions of those people around us, only to realize that we are not in control. The biggest daily fear that most all of us carry is the fear of rejection by others - that blow to our self image, our own egos. Each of us live with this innate sense of fear, most of us are not even aware of it to the point of denial. These fears seem to show them selves at critical junctures or reflection points in our lives. These reflection points my be when we encounter midlife, the crises of lost job, lost spouse, or death of a loved one. The fears of the unknown without the presence of our dominating and controlling egos to protect us.

Fear can be crippling, it can make us panic, it can stop us from sleeping, it can stop us from eating, it can cause us to loose are jobs, or to make rash decisions about what to do with our money. Fears are constantly causing us to change our behaviors, freeze our capability to function, and diminish our lives. Fears create emotional pain and emotional upset that are most recognized as anxiety or depression, or may further push us into other dark mental conditions with many possible causes. Resolving the cause of pain within ourselves is each of our own personal journeys to emotional freedom. Emotional pain occurs when the mind decides that as humans we have or may be harmed or threatened because:

• there is a potential for harm to us or the ones we love.
• we are deprived of perceived physical, mental, or emotional needs.
• we have assumed a position of insecurity about ourselves.
• we have inappropriately accepted shame for mistakes in our lives.
• the loss of a loved one, through death, divorce, or breakup.
• a mental or physical attack on our person, family, or a loved one.
• because of long term mental or physical mistreatment
• mental scars and perceptions of our needs causing personality or "feeling disorders".
• because of chemical irregularities in our brain brought on through heredity, nutrition, or outside substances
• a combination of all of the above or something else all together.

The brain is much more than a thinking machine. The brain adapts to situations using biological changes to promote mental and physical survival. These are automated mechanisms within our heads that tend to override our natural thinking process. It is believed that the brain structures that handle responding to threats evolved long before the neocortex (the center for conscious awareness). The "emotional brain" is highly attuned and adaptive to signs of potential danger. When conditioned over time it develops patterns of behavior and response to mundane stimulus as a warning sign. As an example when a rat is subject to a particular visual or audio stimulus before administering and electrical shock, after a few repetitions, the stimulus alone will trigger a paralyzing fear response from the rat. This is why a soldier that was subject to extreme trauma in the south pacific, may now have massive panic attacks in the midst of a hot, humid summer. Or a child of an alcoholic that is constantly beaten under any chaotic circumstance my be in fear of or react to future relationships with disdain or disbelief which destroys the relationships. Or if a child had been regularly beaten before bedtime they may have a very difficult time coping in the evenings later in life.

The Fear and Pain Centers
The fear system control center is the Amygdala, a small, almond shaped structure that sits near the center of the brain and is connected to other regions of the brain through nerve fibers. Test show that rats and people with damaged or removed Amygdalas are indifferent to repeated stimulus that are linked to harmful or painful events.

For most of us, the Amygdala is actively creating perceptions about what may or may not be harmful events and storing them up for future reactive behavior. For many of us the Amygdala it is over reactive or has developed perceptions based on unhealthy events or relationships. Wrong or right, the Amygdala creates innate responses to life's constant stimuli primarily based on our passed life events. Children are especially vulnerable to fear and anxiety. Though genes and temperament make some kids less vulnerable than others, when a child experiences to much fear, the damage can go beyond general anxiety to include phobias and posttraumatic stress disorder in which the brain is totally overtaken anytime a fearful cue is received. In these situations, a developing child will respond as violently to a harmless stimulus as a life threatening emergency. Additionally, a persons Prefrontal Cortex, which makes the final decisions about the information being feed by the Amygdala, can become hard wired to respond in what may be considered an abnormal fashion based upon the role models that it became acquainted with during its growth. Thus if a parent is highly critical of a child, yells and screams, hits a child regularly, and offers no logical reasoning for situations, the prefrontal cortex of the child will develop all of the same improper response traits. Thus a person may have both hard wired incorrect assumptions of fear in the Amygdala and incorrect control of the responses to that fear in the prefrontal cortex.

Unfortunately, after these perceptions are entered into the Amygdala data bank, it reacts without the need of thought. As soon as it perceives a threat, it triggers a body wide emergency response within milliseconds. Impulses from the Amygdala cause the hypothalamus to produce a hormone called CRF, cotropin releasing factor, which then signals the pituitary and adrenal glands to release epinephrine, adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol. With these hormones in action, the body shuts down non-emergency related functions like digestion and immunity, and enhances our systems for fighting and fleeing. Right or wrong, our heart pounds, our sense of awareness becomes keen, and our muscles are primed with glucose.

Unfortunately, the Amygdala also tells the brain to do an extra special job of recording the event and tying the predisposed stimuli that occurred before and during the event. So, as a child if you were constantly beaten for no real reason, your brain would have created a highly attuned reflection to the actions, words, and cues which would warn you of an impeding future attack. Unfortunately these inbred cues to behavior may be incorrect when living with a normal, more emotionally mature, human being. Undoing the reactions to these inappropriate cues can become a lifetime battle. Many people grow to become addicted to the rush, and are similarly attracted to people that fit the incorrect stamp that was embossed on the Amygdalas.

Real or perceived threats push the Amygdalas into action releasing stress hormones that are toxic to much of the bodies normal systems. Stress events trigger heart attacks, and heart arrhythmias and low grade long term fear can progress heart disease, improper immune system response, stomach ulcers, high blood pressure, and impaired memory. It is also believed that the effect of low or abnormal immune response can triger cancer and other ailments.

Real or Perceived Pain
Emotional pain is serious real pain. Emotional pain, if left unchecked can turn into more serious forms of sepression, anxiety, paranoia, personality disorders, or any other number of mental or physical illnesses. The mind is a very dangerous place that can destroy us. Many people do just that through suicide, the development of illnesses, and the general robbery of our experiences because of our minds preoccupation with unhealthy thought that dominates our daily experiences. Ever recall being there in body but not in mind?

Fear is especially real for the individual with the pain and can become real for those that live around them. The first step in healing emotional pain is controlling the thoughts related to the fear. Our obsessive thinking about "how we may, have or are being hurt" usually leads to an ever-deeper state of emotional pain and distress. Remember that most of the emotional pain that we have is a mental decision that each of us makes - no matter how automatic. We can simplify the remedy without simplifying the pain. The pain is real to the person that has developed real or false cues to potential pain. We must acknowledge that to the individual with the pain - the pain is real, but it can be unlearned.

Fears are never forgotten, because of this some 11 million Americans have phobias. These are tenacious fears that we can forget that dominate our thinking. To compete or overcome phobias the brain actually needs to create new competing memories to battle against the bad memories created by the Amygdala. Test have shown that these new memories are created by the prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain the distinguishes the validity of fear responses. Recent studies on rats suggest that properly stimulating the prefrontal cortex can help rats remove or extinguish the inappropriate fear response conditioning. Researches are testing various electromagnetic devices to stimulate new memory development for people that suffer from phobias.

David Barlow of Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders still believes that the best way to overcome fears is the old fashioned way. If someone is afraid of high places, taking them to high places and allowing them to have a safe experience will help them form new memories and responses to their experience of being in high places. In other words, the best way to overcome your fears is to attack them head on and come back alive. This is especially true for improperly developed Amygdala memories that were created from dysfunctional childhood situations.

"We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes." (John F. Kennedy). "Pain and suffering are inevitable; being miserable is optional." (Art Clanin). Staying ‘focused” on our goals allows us to push aside our fears. Time heals all wounds especially if we move on to create new memory patterns. Often in life we think we "need" someone else, something else, or to be some place, when truly these are only "preferences". Most of our needs are due to our own fears and insecurities about surviving without another person, thing or place. Deciding or fighting these destructive dominating thoughts put us on the road to mental and physical recovery to getting our lives back. Removing our mental "needs" allows us to feel better most of the time.

Prayer and meditation helps clear the mind of the painful thoughts that torment you. Prayer is a form of controlled thought that allows us to replace painful and bad thoughts with controlled good thoughts. Anxiety, depression, anguish are many times the result of our own obsessed thought and reoccurring memories. Changing our thoughts and controlling them through prayer and meditation is as simple as thinking about one thing rather than another – you must choose your thoughts, not let them choose you. Praying for the other persons that oppress you can also release you from painful thoughts and memories. This is a form of giving true love, praying that that person is happy in whatever they do, love without expecting anything in return. We can reduce our emotional pain in any situation by applying these principles. It may not change the situation but it will help us get through it, and help us move on. Remembering our importance in this world, that we already helped and touched many lives in ways that we don't even know about, helps build our character and self worth. Fighting against negative controlling thoughts and replacing them with positive healthy thoughts helps us find that life will get better for us and those around us. Various meditation books have referred to the brain being controlled by a group of drunken sailors - thinking whatever it wants, contriving negative thoughts about oneself and others, delivering messages to the brain based on passed bad or dysfunctional experiences. The trick is to get the ship captain back in control. This is something that needs to be practiced just like riding a bike, learning to swim, or any other activity that you want to get good at. The more you practice the more you take control back from our minds automated and negative responses to life’s situations.

Proper role models through the age from birth to age 20 are critical to the development of the hard wired memories in the Amygdala and the Prefrontal Cortex of a child. Good role models help create good memories while emotionally immature role models may create bad ones. Good role model help eliminate the need for future unlearning and relearning of life’s critical coping skills. An unlearning process that makes most people feel insane, as they are realizing that their thinking is incorrect. Kind of like having been brainwashed that the sky is red, and then finally realizing after many years that it is actually blue. Mental breakthroughs, though powerfully beneficial, can cause a state of mass confusion and fear during the mental transformation. Coping, having someone to talk to, and having the knowledge that things will get better are critical to the success of this breakthrough, the emotional growth, and the future opportunities that this will create.

There are various supplements that help reduce mental over thought and obsessive thinking. These supplements may help reduce mental "over activity" so that we might be able to get back mental control. Additionally some supplements support the bodies vital organs during stressful times.

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