healing Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Cells ‘Vomit’ Waste to Promote Healing, Mouse Study Reveals

The AHA! Team — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 05:36:33 +0000

Washington University in St. Louis via Newswise – Newly discovered purging process in gastric cells hints at how injury recovery can go wrong – The researchers dubbed the new purging process “cathartocytosis,” combining Greek root words meaning cellular cleansing. When injured, cells have well-regulated responses to promote healing. These include a long-studied self-destruction process that cleans up dead and damaged cells as well as a more recently identified phenomenon that helps older cells revert to what appears to be a younger state to help grow back healthy tissue. Now, a new study in mice led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Baylor College of Medicine reveals a previously unknown cellular purging process that may help injured cells revert to a stem cell-like state more rapidly. The investigators dubbed this newly discovered response cathartocytosis, taking from Greek root words that mean cellular cleansing. Published online in the journal Cell Reports, the study used a mouse model of stomach injury to provide new insights into how cells heal, or fail to heal, in response to damage, such as from an infection or inflammatory disease. “After an injury, the cell’s job is to repair that injury. But the cell’s mature cellular machinery for doing its normal job gets in the way,” said first author Jeffrey W. Brown, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at WashU Medicine. “So, this cellular cleanse is a quick way of getting rid of that machinery so it can rapidly become a small, primitive cell capable of proliferating and repairing the injury. We identified this process in the GI tract, but we suspect it is relevant in other tissues as well.” Jettisoning of waste Brown likened the process to a “vomiting” or jettisoning of waste that essentially adds a shortcut, helping the cell declutter and focus on regrowing healthy tissues faster than it would be able to if it could only perform a gradual, controlled degradation of waste. As with many shortcuts, this one has potential downsides: According to the investigators, cathartocytosis is fast but messy, which may help shed light on how injury responses can go wrong, especially in the setting of chronic injury. For example, ongoing cathartocytosis in response to an infection is a sign of chronic inflammation and recurring cell damage that is a breeding ground for cancer. In fact, the festering mess of ejected cellular waste that results from all that cathartocytosis may also be a way to identify or track cancer, according to the researchers. A novel cellular process The researchers identified cathartocytosis within an important regenerative injury response called paligenosis, which was first described in 2018 by the current study’s senior author, Jason C. Mills, MD, PhD. Now at the Baylor College of Medicine, Mills began this work while he was a faculty member in the Division of Gastroenterology at WashU Medicine and Brown was a postdoctoral researcher in his lab. In paligenosis, injured cells shift away from their normal roles and undergo a reprogramming process to an immature state, behaving like rapidly dividing stem cells, as happens during development. Originally, the researchers assumed the decluttering of cellular machinery in preparation for this reprogramming happens entirely inside cellular compartments called lysosomes, where waste is digested in a slow and contained process. From the start, though, the researchers noticed debris outside the cells. They initially dismissed this as unimportant, but the more external waste they saw in their early studies, the more Brown began to suspect that something deliberate was going on. He utilized a model of mouse stomach injury that triggered the reprogramming of mature cells to a stem cell state all at once, making it obvious that the “vomiting” response — now happening in all the stomach cells simultaneously — was a feature of paligenosis, not a bug. In other words, the vomiting process was not just an accidental spill here and there but a newly identified, standard way cells behaved in response to injury. Although they discovered cathartocytosis happening during paligenosis, the researchers said cells could potentially use cathartocytosis to jettison waste in other, more worrisome situations, like giving mature cells that ability to start to act like cancer cells. The downside to downsizing While the newly discovered cathartocytosis process may help injured cells proceed through paligenosis and regenerate healthy tissue more rapidly, the tradeoff comes in the form of additional waste products that could fuel inflammatory states, making chronic injuries harder to resolve and correlating with increased risk of cancer development. “In these gastric cells, paligenosis — reversion to a stem cell state for healing — is a risky process, especially now that we’ve identified the potentially inflammatory downsizing of cathartocytosis within it,” Mills said. “These cells in the stomach are long-lived, and aging cells acquire mutations. If many older mutated cells revert to stem cell states in an effort to repair an injury — and injuries also often fuel inflammation, such as during an infection — there’s an increased risk of acquiring, perpetuating and expanding harmful mutations that lead to cancer as those stem cells multiply.” More research is needed, but the authors suspect that cathartocytosis could play a role in perpetuating injury and inflammation in Helicobacter pylori infections in the gut. H. pylori is a type of bacteria known to infect and damage the stomach, causing ulcers and increasing the risk of stomach cancer. The findings also could point to new treatment strategies for stomach cancer and perhaps other GI cancers. Brown and WashU Medicine collaborator Koushik K. Das, MD, an associate professor of medicine, have developed an antibody that binds to parts of the cellular waste ejected during cathartocytosis, providing a way to detect when this process may be happening, especially in large quantities. In this way, cathartocytosis might be used as a marker of precancerous states that could allow for early detection and treatment. “If we have a better understanding of this process, we could develop ways to help encourage the healing response and perhaps, in the context of chronic injury, block the damaged cells undergoing chronic cathartocytosis from contributing to cancer formation,” Brown said. Brown JW, Lin X, Nicolazzi GA, Liu X, Nguyen T, Radyk MD, Burclaff J, Mills JC. Cathartocytosis: jettisoning of cellular material during reprogramming of differentiated cells. Cell Reports. Online July 20, 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116070. To read the original article click here.

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Healing Childhood Trauma

The AHA! Team — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 09:46:39 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #590) and blog, I talk about how adverse childhood experiences can make us focus on the negative, and how we can manage this and heal the mind, brain and body. This is a replay of a Neurolive webinar I did on my app. For the full webinar AD-free, please see Neurocycle.app look for Neurocycle on the App Store or Google Play. In the early 90s, researchers embarked on a landmark study of over 17,000 individuals and asked them about negative experiences in childhood and their current physical and mental health. They found was that when children are exposed to toxic stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, this can have a dramatic impact on their minds, brains and bodies. This study later became known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACE study. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events that children may be exposed to while growing up that include abuse, neglect, domestic violence, substance misuse or mental illness. Long-term exposure to childhood trauma has been linked to everything from heart disease and diabetes to alcoholism, depression, and suicide. While there is no denying the reality and impact of adverse childhood experiences on our mental and physical health, just focusing just on the negative alone, or the bad that happened to us, may actually slow the process of our healing down. Research on the mind-brain-body network shows that an overly negative focus without balancing with the positive can distort our perceptions and potentially hamstring our ability to work through what we have gone through in a way that doesn’t keep us trapped in the past. Why? The mind-brain-body network is all about balance and restoring balance when it is upset. Focusing only on the negative will add to an already overloaded amount of toxic stress from the adverse experience. This is why it is important that while we do the work to find the root causes of our distress and process and reconceptualize what has happened to us, we also make sure we have some positive, balancing checkpoints in place on our healing journey or we risk the danger of getting stuck in a cycle of pain and victimhood. In fact, there is exciting research that shows that positive childhood experiences (PCEs) can actually help buffer against the negative health effects caused by exposure to ACEs. PCEs can also promote healing and recovery through activating our resilience. This shows that all of a child’s experiences—positive and negative—matter, so we shouldn’t just be considering the bad of what has happened to us but also the good, and how all these experiences affect our mental health as adults. Some research even shows that people with some exposure to ACEs, if they reported 3 to 5 positive childhood experiences, had 50% lower odds of adulthood depression or poor mental health, and those who reported 6 to 7 PCE’s had a 72% lower chance of adult mental health challenges. These findings demonstrate that positive childhood experiences can have a cumulative effect on life-long mental health outcomes and play an important role in our healing. The 3:1 Ratio Although we definitely need to work on what we experienced growing up, at the same time we need to leave room for the positive, and a great way to do this is what I call the “3:1 thought ratio”. This is one technique I often use this to balance myself and find it extremely helpful when things seem overwhelming. All you have to do is to intentionally focus on the positive to balance out the negative in a 3:1 ratio. And this can be used for any negative situation, not just for ACEs. For every negative thought that comes to mind, along with its emotions, behaviors, and perspectives, counter it with three positive thoughts. This will help to maintain a balance in energy (quantum) waves in the brain so you can think clearly, build your resilience, and rewire healthy thought patterns! When you practice the 3:1 ratio, this means that each time you have a negative thought, you don’t suppress it, but rather use it as a prompt to think of three positive childhood experiences. This doesn’t mean you are ignoring what has happened to you; rather, you are maintaining the balance of your mind, brain and body so that you can heal what has happened to you rather than remaining trapped in the past. You are essentially using the negative thought as a habit loop trigger to help you recognize what to change WHILE “padding” or mitigating the effects this negative event has on your overall wellbeing. This is not swapping the negative for the positive. It is using the positive to help us face and overcome the negative. For more on managing the effect adverse childhood experiences have on your health and wellbeing, listen to my podcast (episode #590). Podcast Highlights 2:16 What ACEs are & how they impact our mental health 7:28 Our childhood experiences are not a life sentence! 11:55 Why we need to balance the negative with the positive 13:46 What PCEs are & how they can help us heal 20:07 How to use the positive to deal with the negative This podcast and blog are for educational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. We always encourage each person to make the decision that seems best for their situation with the guidance of a medical professional. To read the original article click here.

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How Understanding the Biofield Could Hold the Key to Healing Trauma

AHA Publisher — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 07:00:28 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #385) and blog, I talk to Dr. Shamini Jain, a clinical psychologist, neuroscientist and social entrepreneur, about the science behind the mind-brain-body connection, the biofield and healing trauma, why we need to understand the placebo effect, how to avoid moralizing self-help, and so much more! Through her undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral studies at Columbia University, UC San Diego, and UCLA, Dr. Jain has conducted randomized clinical trials and other research in the areas of meditation, hands on healing, and other integrative medicine practices from the scientific lens of neurophysiology and psychoneuroimmunology. She has also been a healing student of master healer and teacher Rev. Rosalyn Bruyere, where she learned a great deal about how healing works. Through her work as a clinical psychologist, which included treating veterans with PTSD, children from disadvantaged communities, and a variety of people suffering from significant mental illness, she realized that our power for healing ourselves is immense and incredibly important for our times. Both modern science and ancient wisdom provide us with the tools we need to heal ourselves. Dr. Jain discusses this integrated model of health in detail in her amazing new book Healing Ourselves: Biofield Science and the Future of Health. She talks about how we are all interconnected, and how this connection has the power to heal us. Science is increasingly showing us how deeply our mental, spiritual and emotional selves are connected to our physical bodies, and can have a profound influence on our health. It is not just about what we eat or how much we exercise. Other factors like our relationships (both with ourselves and others) can have a big impact on how we feel mentally and physically. This is why it is so important to focus on WHOLE person health. The ability to heal ourselves is not just a “miracle”. We can study our own healing power and understand how we can start replicating this in real life. This often includes studying things that have been known for centuries and putting them in the language of science. This can be a simple as prescribing yoga for chronic back pain, which already happens in the US based on research done in the field. This is really exciting because it underscores our own agency, which, alongside asking for help when necessary (which is also a noble act), is incredibly hopeful. Key to understanding this connection is the biofield. Scientifically, biofield is a term used to describe our bio-electric-magnetic nature—fields of energy and information that guide our health. This is not “woohoo”—it is currently studied in many fields of healthcare already, including using magnetic fields to study emotions and electroceuticals to heal various ailments. The biofield also includes traditions that, although difficult to measure, have been harnessed for centuries by many indigenous cultures to heal people, such as qi, universal energy or prana. What do these ancient traditions know about the biofield that we can learn from? This is an important part of scientific inquiry. We don’t have to choose between Western and Eastern medicine. We can look at the whole person AND at different ways of describing what is going on during the healing process. One great way to understand this interconnectedness is to examine the placebo effect. As Dr. Jain points out, the placebo effect at its core means healing, or holistic elements that activate the process of healing. The placebo effect was originally developed to just please patients, not heal them. It was designed to “trick” a patient into thinking an intervention will heal them. Yet, in light of the growing body of research on the mind-brain-body connection, we now understand the placebo effect is more than just a “trick”. Placebo effects happen in all therapeutic encounters, even medications and surgery. They can be incredibly meaningful experiences, right down to the level of our neural firing and neural pathways. The placebo effect has many different facets, which Dr. Jain discusses in detail in Healing Ourselves: Biofield Science and the Future of Health. These include: 1. Expectations. This is what your conscious mind thinks about an intervention. It is generally what most people think of when they think of the placebo effect. 2. Conditioning, which is a subconscious and conscious process. 3. Relationships. This includes bedside manner. Research has shown that a friendly doctor, for example, can increase chances of recovery. 4. Ritual. This creates meaning and context that set the stage for our needs, hopes and expectations. We are training the body and mind to receive a particular healing encounter, like the ritual of meeting a white coat doctor in a medical office. You can start implementing these aspects of the placebo effect at home. Simply create a space at home or in the office to engage in a healing ritual, even for just 15 minutes a day. When you do this, you ready the whole person – mind, body and brain – for a healing encounter, allowing your mind and body to naturally do what they do: heal. This doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you if you don’t automatically heal yourself in every situation. We should avoid moralizing self-help. The more we learn about the biofield, the more we understand the vast importance of interconnectedness and the role it plays in healing—not just in ourselves, but also in our relationships with others and our environment. This is not an either/or situation. It is all about connection! This is not about thinking your way out of something or just doing enough yoga to get better. We all have a vast array of life experiences that affect us. Sometimes we get stuck and we need help. This help (in whatever form it takes) supports the natural healing process and interconnectedness that is within us and that defines our world. This is true for an allopathic doctor, and it is true for an energy teacher. Healing ourselves does not mean figuring it out alone and feeling bad when we fail, or that everything will always work out like we expect or hope. The key thing to understand about the biofield is the power of spiritual connection, however we define this and however it plays out in our unique context. This energetic nature is open and available to all of us. Regardless of how we experience this sense of self beyond the conditioned mind, brain and body, when we tap into this experience, the healing can be immense. We can start harnessing this incredible healing power by: 1. Grounding. Coming into our bodies and connecting with the earth. 2. Flowing with our emotions. Understanding and working skillfully with our emotional states. This includes tuninginto discomfort and allowing it to move through us so we can learn from it. 3. Tapping into our creativity. Creativity is an incredible healer! It leads us to a stronger sense of authenticity, whichis integral to the healing process. 4. Fostering positive healing intentions. This goes beyond positive affirmations. It is about uniting the mental and vital forces, or uniting the mind, brain and body energy and gaining more insight into our healing desires and what we are envisioning for ourselves while moving towards healing support. Community and spiritual connections are integral to this process. 5. Surrendering. This is about letting go of the conditioned mind and our desires, asking for support and realizing it. This step opens us up to possibilities of healing that we may not even have imagined. To read the original article click here.

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Minerals Can Be Key to Healing Damaged Tissue

AHA Publisher — Mon, 09 May 2022 07:00:02 +0000

Texas A&M University via Newswise – Every species, from bacteria to humans, is capable of regeneration. Regeneration is mediated by the molecular processes that regulate gene expression to control tissue renewal, restoration and growth. A collaboration between researchers in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the College of Medicine at Texas A&M University identifies the crucial role of minerals in regulating gene expression, thus controlling the number of proteins that a cell should make, thereby encouraging tissue regeneration and redefining cellular identity. This research paves the way for future studies to identify the role of specific minerals, as well as how they can be assembled to design the next generation of mineral medicine to heal damaged tissue. This study was recently published in Science Advances. Minerals are inorganic elements that play many vital roles, working interactively with vitamins, enzymes, hormones and other nutrient cofactors to regulate thousands of the body’s biological functions. Although several minerals have been shown to regulate gene expression and cellular activity, very little work has focused on understanding underlying molecular mechanisms. This engineering research group is led by Dr. Akhilesh Gaharwar, associate professor of biomedical engineering and Presidential Impact Fellow, in collaboration with Dr. Irtisha Singh, assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine at Texas A&M and the co-corresponding author of the study where a new class of mineral-based nanoparticles has been introduced to direct human stem cells toward bone cells. These nanoparticles are known specifically as nanosilicates, and with them, the team is able to determine the role of minerals in regulating gene expression profiles to direct stem cell differentiation. These nanosilicates are disc-shaped mineral-nanoparticles 20-30 nanometers (nm) in diameter and 1-2 nm in thickness. These nanoparticles are highly biocompatible and are readily eaten up by cells. Once inside the cell body, these nanoparticles slowly dissolve into individual minerals such as silicon, magnesium and lithium. Nanosilicates dissociate into individual minerals inside the cells and turn “on” a set of key genes that result in information flow throughout the cells, known as signaling pathways. These signaling pathways are responsible for instructing the cells to take on specific functions, such as converting into another type of cells or starting the healing process by secreting tissue-specific proteins known as extracellular matrix. These extracellular matrices are composed of various proteins, including glycoproteins and proteoglycans that facilitate tissue healing and support tissue functions. Combining interdisciplinary techniques and biomedical engineering and genomics methods, the lead authors of this study, doctoral students Anna Brokesh and Lauren Cross, identify and characterize significant genes that are turned “on” and activated by different signaling pathways due to treatment with minerals. One of the major findings of this study is that minerals such as silicon, magnesium and lithium are involved in inducing endochondral ossification, a process by which stem cells are transformed into soft and hard tissues such as cartilage and bone in young humans. The Singh Laboratory, managed by Singh, leverages high-throughput functional assays and perturbations to dissect the functional regulatory programs in mammalian cells. In this study, they analyzed whole transcriptomic sequencing (RNA-seq) data to evaluate the effect of nanosilicates and ionic dissolution products on the gene expression profiles of stem cells. RNA-seq, a transcriptome-wide high throughput sequencing assay, provides an unbiased and holistic overview of the gene expression profiles to identify pathways that are perturbed by specific treatments. “There are a lot of people who want to understand how minerals impact the human body, but there is limited evidence to identify how they affect us on the cellular level,” Brokesh said. “Our study is one of the first studies to utilize unbiased transcriptome-wide sequencing to determine how mineral ions can direct stem cell fate.” The proposed approach addresses a long-standing challenge in current therapeutic approaches that utilize supraphysiological doses of growth factors to direct tissue research. Such a high dose of growth factors results in a range of complications, including uncontrolled tissue formation, inflammation and tumorigenesis, the production or formation of tumor cells. These adversely limit the usage of growth factors as a therapeutic agent in the field of regenerative medicine. Gaharwar said the impact of this work is far-reaching because understanding the effect of minerals to achieve desired regulation of cellular activity has a strong potential to open novel avenues for developing clinically relevant therapeutics for regenerative medicine, drug delivery and immunomodulation. To read the original article click here.

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Is Aloe Effective for Blood Pressure, Inflammatory Bowel, Wound Healing, and Burns?

AHA Publisher — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 08:00:35 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – I discuss the risks and benefits of aloe vera. “Aloe vera is one of the most popular home remedies in use today, yet most physicians know little about it. In fact, most dismiss it as useless while their patients firmly believe in its healing properties…The usual tendency of most physicians and nurses is to dismiss as useless any popular remedy that can be purchased without a prescription. However, the aloe plant deserves a closer look because, surprising as it may seem, there may be a scientific basis for some of its uses.” It has, after all, been used medicinally for thousands of years by a number of ancient civilizations, but only recently has it been put it to the test, as I discuss in my video Is Aloe Effective for Blood Pressure, Inflammatory Bowel, Wound Healing, and Burns?. What type of tests, though? Ones that investigate whether aloe can ameliorate damage to albino rat testicles or affect the cholesterol and estrogen responses in juvenile goldfish? Indeed, if you inject aloe into the bloodstream of rats, their blood pressure drops, but if you feed it to humans, it doesn’t appear to have any blood pressure–lowering effect. Drinking aloe causescolorectal tumors to form in rats, whereas it appears to have anti-inflammatory effects on human intestinal lining in a petri dish. But, when put to the test for irritable bowel syndrome (IBD), no benefit was found for improving symptoms or improving quality of life in IBS patients. And, no benefit was found for IBD either. What about the beneficial effects of aloe in wound healing? Evidently, they are “so miraculous as to seem more like myth than fact.” It works when you slice open guinea pigs or try to frostbite-off the ears of bunny rabbits, as you can see at 1:49 in my video (though, be warned about graphic images), but in people, it may make things worse. Indeed, “aloe vera…is associated with a delay in wound healing.” Researchers studied 21 women who had wound complications after having a cesarean or other abdominal surgery. Healing on their own took an average of 53 days, whereas the wounds treated with aloe vera gel required 83 days, taking 50 percent longer. Researchers thought the aloe would help, based on the animal studies, but when it was put to the test with people, it failed. At this point in my research, it was looking like the only benefit of aloe was to improve the quality of cheap beef burgers, as one study found. But what about burns? Aloe has been used to treat burns since antiquity, but, in their ageless wisdom, people were also applying feces to burns, so I wouldn’t put too much faith in ancient medical traditions. That’s why we have science. What is the effectiveness of aloe vera gel compared with silver sulphadiazine as burn wound dressing in second-degree burns? “The introduction of topical antimicrobial agents has resulted in a significant reduction in burn mortality to date.” Silver sulfadiazine is the most commonly used, but, unfortunately, it may delay wound healing and become toxic to the kidneys and bone marrow. So, researchers tried it head-to-head against topical aloe gel. The result? The burns treated with aloe healed 50 percent faster, and the pain went away about 30 percent faster. The researchers concluded that aloe has “remarkable efficacy” in the treatment of burn injuries. Anyone see the flaw in that logic? What was this study missing? A placebo control group. Why would that matter? Remember, one of the side effects of the silver sulphadiazine is delayed wound healing. So, maybe the aloe worked better just because it wasn’t delaying healing but it wouldn’t have worked better than nothing at all. When it was put to the test against nothing—aloe vera in Vaseline versus the Vaseline alone—the aloe really did seem to help, speeding up healing by about a third. And, indeed, if you put all the studies together, aloe vera does appear to significantly speed up the healing of second-degree burns. Blistering burns, however, are thankfully less common than burns like sunburns, where your skin just turns red. What is the efficacy of aloe vera in the prevention and treatment of sunburn? An aloe vera cream was applied to study subjects 30 minutes before, immediately after, or both before and after they were burned with a UV lamp. Surprisingly, the “results showed that the aloe vera cream has no sunburn or suntan protection and no efficacy in sunburn treatment when compared to placebo.” It at least works for blistering burns, though, so should we keep some aloe vera gel in the medicine cabinet? The problem is that aloe vera you buy at the store may not contain any aloe vera at all. The product labels may say aloe vera is the first or second ingredient, but manufacturers apparently can be lying. “There’s no watchdog assuring that aloe products are what they say they are,” which means suppliers are on an honor system—but when health and nutrition are mixed with profit, honor, too often, goes out the window. KEY TAKEAWAYS Aloe vera, a popular home remedy, has been used medicinally for thousands of years. Findings from studies using aloe vera on animals were significantly different from studies on humans. Rats’ blood pressure drops when they are injected with aloe, but there’s no blood pressure–lowering effect in people, for example, and although drinking aloe causes colorectal tumors to form in rats, it seems to be an anti-inflammatory to human intestinal lining, though no benefit was found for irritable bowel syndrome. Aloe has been found to be beneficial in wound healing in animals, but humans’ wounds took 50 percent longer to heal when treated with aloe vera gel. Topical aloe vera gel appears to significantly speed up the healing of blistering, second-degree burns, compared to both a placebo control and silver sulphadiazine, the most commonly used topical antimicrobial agent. For milder burns, like sunburns, researchers found that aloe vera cream was not effective for the protection or treatment of sunburn, compared to placebo. Aloe vera gels and creams may not actually contain any aloe vera despite it being listed as an ingredient, and, as the industry is not monitored, the deception may continue. To read the original article click here.

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Negotiating for Life: Mexico’s Oasis of Hope Hospital Touching Patients’ Body, Mind & Soul

AHA Publisher — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 08:00:30 +0000

George Thomas via CBN News – August 2017. Michelle Tucker remembers the words from that day while she was in the doctor’s office as her oncologist delivered the news. “I was told I had about four weeks to live, to go home and get my affairs in order,” Tucker told CBN News. The 46-year-old mother of three from Arizona had battled cancer since she was 19. It started in her breast, first spreading to her thyroid and then pancreas. “I figured I would take my children maybe to the beach for the first week of those four weeks,” Tucker recalled. “We love hearing the waves crash, so I figured let me take them to the beach and we’ll just kind of like ride it out.” Yet, there was something stirring in her that said she simply could not give up without a fight. “I had the attitude of like ‘Who are you to tell me my expiration date? There’s only one person that can do that and that’s not a doctor, no offense to medicine, that’s the man upstairs,'” Tucker recalled. In desperation, she researched alternative cancer treatments and ended up at the Oasis of Hope Hospital. “You get diagnosed with cancer, you’re not going to travel to Tijuana, Mexico. But when they have reached a point where the doctor is saying ‘We really can’t do anything else for you.’ This is the typical person that comes to Oasis of Hope,” said Oasis of Hope CEO Daniel Kennedy. Twenty-five miles south of San Diego and just across the U.S. – Mexican border, Tucker believes God is using Oasis of Hope to give her a chance to continue living. “From the moment you walk in the door, you feel this overwhelming spiritual presence,” she told CBN News during a visit to the facility in Tijuana. “There’s the pastor that sings with you. They pray with you. They become a family with people with strangers, complete strangers, from all over the world, all walks of life.” Tucker has been in remission now for two years. “Four years later, I’m still alive,” she exclaimed. Hospital Founded in 1963 Oasis of Hope was started in 1963 by the late Mexican doctor Ernesto Contreras, Sr., who believed in taking a holistic approach to fighting cancer. His son, Dr. Francisco Contreras, a surgeon and oncologist specialist, now serves as the hospital’s president. “My father felt that the reason for the failure in oncology, and medicine overall, is that we have become just mechanics of the human body,” said Contreras. The idea for Oasis of Hope originated back in the early 1960s when Contreras’ father, who was also a physician, decided to go on a mission trip to Greece and on that trip discovered three important elements that are today at the core of the hospital. Contreras says while traditional oncology focuses on destroying the tumor, his father wanted the hospital to focus on the patient’s emotional renewal, spiritual revival as well as physical restoration. The founder’s grandson, Daniel Kennedy, is proud of his grandfather’s lasting legacy. “There is no other clinic in Tijuana that actually has a pastor on the payroll, praying for patients every day, opening with praise and worship,” Kennedy told CBN News. Miracles Bringing Back Life, Hope, Faith, and a Future Ernesto Lopez is that pastor. He used to lead a local church in Tijuana. Now he walks the corridors of the hospital ministering to the spiritual and emotional needs of patients. CBN News asked Lopez if he’s encountered miracles at the hospital. “Yes, a lot of miracles,” Lopez responded. “Miracles of healing, miracles of salvation, miracles of bringing life back, bringing hope again, bringing faith again and have a hope and a future.” Using a combination of conventional treatments with alternative therapies such as whole-body hyperthermia, Ozone therapy, and dendritic cell vaccine immunotherapy, Oasis of Hope says it has treated more than 100,000 cancer patients from 60 countries. “The majority come from the United States because we’re just across the border from San Diego, but we’ve had patients from South Africa, from Vietnam, from China, from all over the world,” Kennedy said. Cancer-fighting Food Program Rosa Tessada is the hospital’s nutritionist. Working with kitchen staff, Tessada has designed a cancer-fighting plant-based food program to help patients live a healthier life. Ninety percent of meals served at the hospital are vegan-based. “We don’t want to make anybody feel like you have to leave your old life. Let’s just add more greens, more vegetables, and kind of enjoy food and go along with it,” Tessada told CBN News during a cooking demonstration. The hospital grows vegetables on its rooftop garden and teaches patients how to prepare healthy meals. “What the patients tell us is, ‘I’ve never done this. I’ve not used to eating these foods,'” Tessada said. “So what we do is help them to see, hey, you can make very healthy dishes, very fast, and very easy.'” It took a while, but Caleb Dominguez is now sold on eating healthier thanks to Oasis of Hope. Doctors in the U.S. told the 35-year-old they could do nothing for him after being diagnosed with an advanced stage of leukemia. Then he came to Tijuana. “I was going through their treatment plan and within weeks everything that my doctors were trying to fight had shrunk by half. The cancer numbers were going down. My strength was rising. My blood counts were coming back up. I just felt life being restored back to me,” Dominguez told CBN News. That was in 2007. Today, because of his experience at the hospital, Dominguez said his whole approach to life has completely changed. His eating habits, his attitude, and his walk with God have gone through a radical transformation. “Having known what I’ve been through. To be alive and well and healthy, taking all the lessons and experience here, I carry it with me everywhere I go,” Dominguez said. All Patients Need to be Treated with Compassion and the Love of Christ There remain several opinions on this alternative approach and others. For example, the American Cancer Society states some complementary methods have generally not been proven to help prevent or treat cancer or its symptoms. It recommends discussing any treatment patients might consider with their doctor or cancer team. While the doctors at Oasis of Hope are proud to share success stories like Dominguez, Tucker’s, and others, they point out not all patients who come here will make it. Still, Contreras believes all deserve to be treated with compassion and the love of Christ. “I believe that hope is a very powerful tool and that all patients should have hope because as a very old doctor said many, many years ago to a parent of a child, ‘While there’s life, there’s hope,'” he said. Contreras explained what he, along with his team of doctors, nurses, nutritionists, pastors, and counselors is negotiating for, is more time for patients. “I cannot guarantee anything,” he said. “The only thing I can guarantee is that I’m going to sit with you and I’m going to do everything possible. And I’m going to negotiate with you for life and God will decide yes, no, or maybe.” To read the original article click here.

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Here Is How to Regenerate Your Bodily Tissues Through Nutrition

AHA Publisher — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 08:00:05 +0000

Stephanie Woods via NaturalHealth365 – “You only get one body, so treat it right!” You’ve likely heard this at least once in your life and probably from the mouth of a reputable healthcare professional. And while that statement is true, for the most part, there are areas of your body that can not only heal but regenerate. In fact, regeneration is the natural state for many cells and tissues throughout the body. These Six Areas of the Body Have Powerful Ability to Regenerate There have been numerous studies exploring how the body manages disease and healing. Researchers are leaving Western medicine searching for ways to return the body and healing practices to the natural state. Six areas of the body have huge regenerative properties, and it just so happens that these areas are essential to the body’s overall health. Regenerating these areas not only improves health but can extend life. This means more efficient disease management that results in eradication, not just control and keeping symptoms at bay. It means that the entire body is healthier. It means a decreased need for medical care – and the conventional medical community is running scared. These are the key areas that have strong regenerative properties and the substances that support them: Nerves: Curcumin, lion’s mane mushroom, Apigenin, blueberry, ginseng, huperzine, natto, red sage, resveratrol, royal jelly, theanine, ashwagandha, trigonelline (coffee) Liver: Carvacrol, curcumin, Korean ginseng, rooibos, vitamin E Beta-Cells: Gymenna sylvestre, nigella sativa, vitamin D, curcumin, arginine, avocado, barbering, bitter melon, chard, corn silk, stevia, sulforaphane Cardiac cells: Resveratrol, Siberian ginseng, red wine extract, geum japonicum, N-acetyl-cysteine Cartilage, Joint, and Spine: Boswellia, curcuma, resveratrol, turmeric, baicalin/catechin, glucosamine/chondroitin/quercetin, fish oil/nettle/vitamin E You will notice that each of these areas is integral to sustaining life and makes up the body’s infrastructure. Blunt TRUTH: Our Ability to Regenerate Healthy Cells (Naturally) Threaten the Profit Potential of Western Medicine Unfortunately, a cultlike reliance on Western medicine has robbed many of us of our body’s regenerative potential. The practice is rife with drugs containing chemicals that not only have no regenerative potential; instead, they strip away any potential, blocking the body’s self-renewal processes – all in the name of symptom relief. It doesn’t stop there, though. Many practitioners of Western medicine frown on natural remedies and nutritional healing. They often discourage patients from pursuing a more natural means of healing – methods that address the root of the problem and not just the symptoms – encouraging instead drugs, surgery, and invasive procedures that focus on the symptoms. Bottom line, natural remedies and the regeneration of key body components threaten the economic standing of the medical community. Again, it comes down to dollars and cents. Feeding Your Body for Regeneration Feeding the body the right foods, the foods it needs to restore its natural regenerative properties, is the first step in bringing it to that optimal state of wellness. In addition, different tissues and cells respond to different substances, so incorporating foods and supplements rich in specific compounds will feed those areas, and you will reap the rewards of a healthier you. In addition, regular exercise is very beneficial to the body. It helps with flexibility, mobility and circulation while helping to maintain a healthy body weight. However, specific exercises like Tai Chi have been shown to be exceptionally beneficial for people with osteoarthritis, heart failure, and COPD. Maintaining a healthy, balanced (organic) diet is the foundation for good health. Incorporating the foods containing these substances and adding supplements as needed will give your diet a nutritional boost. For instance, celery contains Apigenin which is essential for nerve regeneration. Likewise, broccoli sprouts contain sulforaphane that helps to regenerate beta-cells, as do Swiss chard and avocado. Supplements round out the program, providing vital compounds beneficial to the body and stimulating regeneration of the tissues and cells. Regenerative (functional) medicine is the missing component to a long, healthy life and the dramatic reduction or even eradication of chronic disease and even certain cancers. The stronger and healthier the body is, the better able it is to fight disease. Bottom line: the stronger the body’s infrastructure is, the stronger it is as a whole. If you need “extra help,” seek coaching advice from an integrative healthcare provider and/or health coach. Sources used for this article: Herbs.news To read the original article click here.

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What to Do When People Don’t Accept Your Boundaries

AHA Publisher — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 07:00:51 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #312) and blog, I am going to talk about how to respond in a healthy way when people don’t respond well to you taking ownership of your mental health and life. Recently I put up this post on social media:“You were never hard to love. You were just getting harder to manipulate & control. You were getting better at honoring your boundaries”. Based on the great responses and questions, I decided this is something that needs to be discussed in a podcast! As you start to heal and prioritize your mental health, you may notice people reacting negatively as you change. There are many reasons for this, which I am going to go through, but before I do, I want to emphasize that you were never hard to love. You are phenomenal. And I am not saying that to make you feel all warm inside; I am saying it as a scientist and researcher. Your psychoneurobiology (mind, brain and body) is wired for love, which is amazing! There is something you can do that no one else can do, which is also incredible! Besides the different structures of your brain, you have about 200 specializations across the different parts of your brain that are aligned in a unique and wonderful way, making you you. Just wow! All this means that your brain is inherently specialized. The cerebral cortex has 200 structures, each with specialized circuits. Everything that you process as you go through life is more efficient when done with a specialized circuit, which is how the brain works. Yes, there is a limit to how many areas there are and how many circuits within those areas exist, because the human skull is limited to a certain size. Yet we all have our own unique 200 areas, or what I call our “perfect you”, which gives us a unique way of perceiving and being in the world—I call this the “wise mind” in all of us. When all this specialization between individuals comes together, we can enhance each other’s existence using our “wise minds”, which is essentially what it means to be part of a community! But, of course, life happens, and adverse circumstances can mess with this beautiful specialization, temporarily blocking our wise mind. The brain is always changing in response to the mind, and this can go in both a negative and positive direction, which is known as the plastic paradox. When we go through hard times, we are messy because our minds get messy—this is part of what it means to be human. However, when we are messy, this can impact those around us, upsetting the natural balance that we, as humans, seek out. Consequently, the people around us may try to restore this balance, and this can potentially make things messier. It is important to note that healing can be very messy, and that seeing loved ones in pain is messy. When this happens, our perspectives can become very dominant to help us survive and cope, which, in turn, makes it difficult to see anything except our own point of view. When this happens, it often feels like the person in your life is trying to control or manipulate you, or is getting frustrated with or resentful of you. They just cannot understand why you are not taking their advice, why you are taking so long to heal or why you aren’t doing it their way. As I said, it can become very messy! But there is hope. When this happens, the situation can be repaired, and all parties involved can grow from this, if they can work through it individually and as a community, which involves a lot of mind management! But how? Here are some tips to handle this kind of situation: 1. Remind yourself that they don’t really understand what you are going through, and you are not responsible for how they choose to react. Most of the time, when someone in your life is acting in the “messy” way described above, it is because they don’t know how to deal with how you are changing. They don’t understand your experience because they are not an expert on your experience—only you are. Indeed, even you won’t fully understand what you are struggling with at times as you go through the stages of healing (which often get worse before they get better). This means you will do and say things you don’t really mean to do or say during your journey, especially if you are triggered. In this case, it’s important to identify those triggers so that you can work on them. And, when you are ready, you can let your loved ones know that this is your mess, your healing, and it will look different at different stages, and that you need to do this for you. You may also have to say to this person (or people) that if they are uncomfortable with this, for the sake of your healing and the relationship, that some distance may be required. Remind yourself that these kind of boundaries are more for you than for them, and that you are not responsible for how they choose to react to you and your needs. 2. Remember that you are entitled to your own space. Sometimes someone may feel they are losing their power over you when you start to heal, which can also lead to a very messy situation. Certain people with narcissistic tendencies may not like losing control over you because of their own traumas, toxic experiences and pain. Some people may be angry that you are changing because of certain cultural or religious mindsets. People like this tend to flip things around and blame you in an obscure and confusing way—they try make you feel bad about what you need to do to heal. When this happens, the key is to recognize this and, as mentioned above, put some major boundaries in place to protect yourself. You can start doing this by visualizing yourself in a suit of armor when you are around them, and creating space and distance between you and them till you feel strong enough to deflect their “darts”. If they try to make you feel guilty for doing this, or “love bomb” you to manipulate you, just see this as more evidence that you need to maintain your boundaries; you are entitled to your own space and have the right to seek out your own healing and peace. 3. Remind yourself, and them, that you are not helpless. Some people may react negatively to your healing journey because they see you as helpless. They feel that their plan, not yours, is the thing that is going to carry you through this challenge/issue/time. They don’t believe that you have it in you to heal yourself. But you should never be treated as helpless, regardless of what may or may not have happened in your past or in your relationships. We all need help and support at times, but you should be supported in way that empowers you to find your own healing—you should be allowed to walk your own journey. In fact, your wise mind becomes activated when people support you with unconditional love, not when people tell you what they think you should be doing. If you find yourself being boxed in by other people’s expectations, it’s important to show and say that even though you are battling, you aren’t helpless, and with your 200 unique brain specializations and circuitry, what works for them will not necessarily work for you. At the end of the day, you need to work out what boundaries you need to heal. As I mentioned above, this is not to keep people out; rather, boundaries are about protecting yourself while you work through your own stuff. This may look like asking the person in question to just listen to you when you need support, or it may mean creating some distance from them as you learn how to embrace, process and reconceptualize your pain. Or you could choose to keep things neutral and light, just seeing this person when you need a mental and emotional break. There is no one way to “do” boundaries. 4. Be careful of “fixers”. There are also people that are always trying to fix things for others, which is often a sign that their own trauma response needs healing; they are trying to fix you to avoid facing their own pain. In this case, blind compliance with no boundaries will only make things worse. If you can see this happening, tell the person directly, but as kindly as possible, that they can’t fix themselves by trying to fix you. It may end the relationship or put it on pause for a time, but it’s important you are not being used as an avoidance technique by someone else—this will only cause more mental pain for everyone involved. Trying to fix someone can also come from a sense of helplessness. When a person sees someone they love in so much pain, it can be heartbreaking. They may want to try to absorb the pain and make it go away, and can end up saying and/or doing too much, until they reach a tipping point and make things worse. In this case, it’s important to calmly tell this person that you understand what they are trying to do, and that you appreciate their concern, but a better way to help you is to wait until you ask them for support instead of offering advice or help so freely all the time. This often happens in a parent-child relationship, especially as the child grows up and enters adulthood. Yet allowing our children, no matter what age they are, to be free to make a mess and accept mental “messiness” as a part of life is incredibly important, as it helps them learn how to manage their mental health and grow as a person. If you find yourself in this kind of situation, just let your parent or guardian know this: “What has happened is a mess, but it is my mess. I need to experience this without judgement. I need to embrace, process and reconceptualize what has happened. I am thankful for your love and support, and I appreciate the fact that I know you will be there for me no matter what, like I am there for you, because we are on the same side. But you cannot fix this for me.” If things are really challenging, I highly recommend family therapy as well, which creates a safe environment, which allows everyone involved to discuss how they feel and what their intentions are. 5. Change the narrative! We need to change the narrative surrounding mental health. We need to accept the fact that it’s okay to be a mess, and we need to level the playing field; no-one is exempt from battling with their mind! At the same time, we need to empower people and let them know that there is hope. As I discuss in detail in my book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, through developing self-regulation, we can tune in to our wise minds and find a way forward—we can gain a sense of peace amidst the chaos. Indeed, you can start doing this today! Just take some time out of your day (even if this is just a few minutes!) and tune into yourself…tap into your wise mind. Embrace your worth, and acknowledge your own desire to heal. Say to yourself, “I see you”. To read the original article click here.

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A Vegan Diet Could Boost Gut Microbes That Aid Weight Loss

AHA Publisher — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 07:00:43 +0000

Sally Robertson, B.Sc. via News Medical-Net – Switching to a vegan diet could help people lose nearly one pound in weight every week and significantly reduce their risk for diabetes, according to a study recently presented at this year’s Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Barcelona, Spain. In a study of 148 people, 73 of those who switched to a vegan diet lost an average of 13lbs (5.8kg) over the course of just 16 weeks and were more able to absorb sugar from their bloodstream. The researchers suggest that the weight loss is the result of the diet boosting gut microbes that are related to improvements in body weight, composition, and blood sugar control. Gut Microbiome’s Role in Weight Regulation and Diabetes The gut microbiome, which is made up of trillions of beneficial bacteria, plays an important role in regulating weight and in the development of metabolic syndromes and type 2 diabetes. For the current study, scientists at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington tested the effects of switching to a 16-week plant-based diet on the composition of the gut microbiota, body weight, body composition and insulin resistance among overweight individuals with no prior history of diabetes. Of 147 participants (aged an average of 55.6 years), 73 were instructed to follow a low-fat vegan diet over the course of 16 weeks and 74 were told not to make any dietary changes over the same period. At baseline and at 16 weeks, uBiome kits were used to assess gut microbiome composition, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry was used to measure body composition and a method called the PREDIM index was used to assess insulin sensitivity. The vegan diet improves BMI and insulin sensitivity After 16 weeks, body weight had reduced by an average of almost one stone (13Ib) in the vegan group, compared with baseline, which was mainly accounted for by decreases in fat mass and visceral fat. All of the people in the vegan group shed weight, with the greatest weight loss being 15.2lbs (6.9kg) and the least loss being 10.3lbs (4.7kg). Participants who followed the vegan diet also had significantly increased insulin sensitivity, compared with baseline. A greater sensitivity to insulin makes the body more efficient at absorbing sugar from food, thereby reducing the amount left in the bloodstream and decreasing the risk for type 2 diabetes. Certain Species of Bacteria Increased On the Vegan Diet The relative abundance of a bacteria called Faecalibacterium prausnitzii increased by 4.8% in the vegan group, a change that was associated with decreases in body weight, fat mass and visceral fat. The relative abundance of another bacteria, Bacteoides fragilis, also increased by 19.5% in the vegan group and this change was associated with decreases in body weight, fat mass and visceral fat, as well as increases in insulin sensitivity. The Authors Write: “We have demonstrated that a plant-based diet elicited changes in gut microbiome that were associated with weight loss, reduction in fat mass and visceral fat volume, and increase in insulin sensitivity.” They add that the main shift in the composition of the gut microbiome was an increased relative content of short-chain fatty acid-producing bacteria that feed on fiber and that high dietary fiber content, therefore, seems to be essential for the changes that were seen in this study. The researchers say that fiber is the most important component of plant foods for promoting a healthy gut microbiome. Short-chain fatty acids-producing bacteria such as F. prausnitzii degrade complex sugars and starch in plants to produce health-promoting butyrate and/or other short-chain fatty acids. These compounds have been found to have a beneficial effect on body weight, body composition, and insulin sensitivity: “Eating more fiber is the number one dietary recommendation for a healthy gut microbiome,” the authors conclude. What Do Other Experts Think? Some experts are saying that, while encouraging, the study is too thin on detail about what the participants’ diets actually consisted of and how their bodies were affected. “It’s true that many of the foods in a balanced vegan diet are good for us, but that doesn’t mean that all vegan diets are healthy,” says Emma Elvin from Diabetes UK. Tom Sanders from King’s College London’s says the study could not link bacterial changes directly to the weight loss: “The diet used was a low-fat vegan diet whereas typical vegan diets usually contain 30-35 percent energy from fat. The weight loss was substantial and would be expected to improve insulin sensitivity.” However, he adds that it is not possible to attribute these changes to changes in the gut microbial flora and that these are already well known to change on a vegan diet, so it is not a novel finding. Sanders points out that what the study does illustrate is that a calorie-restricted diet rich in carbohydrates (presumably unrefined) is beneficial to people with diabetes, which contradicts the misplaced public perception that high-carb diets increase the diabetes risk. Ian Johnson from the Quadram Institute in Norwich also says that without further research, it certainly cannot be inferred that the changes in gut bacteria caused the weight losses or the improvements in metabolic health: “Without other information, simple correlations cannot prove causality.” Taking the Research Further Next, the researchers plan to compare the effects of a vegan and a standard, portion-controlled diet on gut microbiome among people with type 2 diabetes, with the aim of separating out the positive effects of the reduced calories in a vegan diet from those caused by the composition of the diet. “This is a fascinating area of research and we have been collecting data from more study participants. We hope we will be able to present them at the next year’s 2020 EASD meeting,” concludes the team. To read the original article click here.

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