Raw Milk and Pasteurisation

Most milk today derives from the modern, rather than the traditional Holstein cow, bred to produce huge quantities (three times a much as the old-fashioned cow) and to survive on cereals rather than grass. Average life span is 42 months compared to about 12 years for the grass-fed cow, she must be milked three times a day and is very susceptible to mastitis. Her milk contains high levels of growth hormone from the pituitary gland even when spared the indignity of genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone to push her to the limits. 

The proper feed for cows is green grass in spring, summer and autumn, with only small amounts of grain; then stored dry hay, silage and root vegetables in winter. It is not soy meal, cottonseed meal or other commercial feeds, nor is it bakery waste, chicken manure, swill from ethanol production or citrus peel cake laced with pesticides. Soy meal has the wrong protein profile for the dairy cow, resulting in a short burst of high milk production followed by premature death. Vital nutrients like vitamins A, D, E and K are greatest in milk from cows eating green grass, especially rapidly growing green grass in the spring and autumn. Vitamins A and D are greatly diminished and Vitamin K disappears when milk cows are fed commercial feeds. 

Pasteurisation destroys enzymes, denatures anti-microbial and immune-stimulating components, diminishes nutrient availability, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B6 and B12, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, infant colic, growth and behavioural problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis and heart disease. Calves fed pasteurised milk do poorly and often die before maturity. Raw milk sours naturally whereas pasteurised milk turns putrid. 

Pasteurisation was instituted in the 1920s to combat TB, infant diarrhoea, undulant fever and other diseases caused by poor animal nutrition, dirty production methods and infected water supplies. But times have changed and effective water treatment, stainless steel tanks, milking machines, refrigerated transport and improved testing methods make pasteurisation unnecessary for public protection. Pasteurisation does not always kill pathogens: the bacteria for Johne’s disease, which infects a large proportion of confined cattle, survive pasteurisation; Johne’s has been linked to Crohn’s disease in humans. 

Much commercial milk is now ultra-pasteurised to eliminate heat-resistant pathogens and lengthen shelf life. Ultra-pasteurisation is a violent process that takes milk from a cool temperature to above boiling point in just a few seconds. Most milk is then also homogenised, which breaks down butterfat globules so they don’t rise to the top. Homogenised milk has been linked to heart disease. Average butterfat content used to be 4% but today it is more like 3%. 

Consumers have been duped into believing that low fat and skimmed milk products are good for them, and only by marketing low-fat and skimmed milk as healthy can the modern dairy industry get rid of its excess poor quality, reduced-fat milk from modern high-production herds. Butterfat contains vitamins A and D needed for assimilation of calcium and protein in the water fraction of milk; without them protein and calcium are more difficult to utilise and possibly toxic. Butterfat is rich in short and medium-chain fatty acids, which protect against disease and stimulate the immune system. It contains glycospingolipids, which prevent intestinal distress, and conjugated linoleic acid, which has strong anticancer properties. 

Powdered skimmed milk is a source of dangerous oxidised cholesterol and neurotoxic amino acids. Low-fat yogurts and sour creams contain mucopolysaccharide slime to give them body. Pale butter from hay-fed cows contains colourings to imitate vitamin-rich butter from grass-fed cows. In the 1920s people could procure fresh raw whole milk, curdled milk products and buttermilk as well as natural raw butter, cheese and cream. Today’s milk is accused of causing everything from allergies to cancer, but prior to pasteurisation and the industrialisation of dairy farming these diseases were rare. In fact fewer and fewer people can safely consume today’s pasteurised, ultra heat treated, homogenised, standardised, fat-reduced and manipulated dairy foods. 

Raw milk contains numerous ingredients that kill pathogenic bacteria in milk, strengthen the immune system, protect the intestinal tract, prevent the absorption of toxins and ensure full assimilation of all nutrients. These components are largely destroyed by pasteurisation.

Community Acupuncture Clinic

We are very pleased to announce the launch of the first Community Acupuncture Clinic in Eastbourne.

Kirsten Germann will be offering this service on Tuesday afternoons from 4th February 2014. This will enable patients to receive treatment for just £20 per session in a clinic room with two other patients.

A separate room is available for those who want to discuss medical issues privately before treatment. The first treatment will be £35 which includes a private consultation.

Kirsten will continue seeing patients on a one to one basis as before. Please note the fee increase for this clinic will be from £35 to £40 per treatment.

For further details please contact us. 

Herbs and Infections

In attempting to understand disease we naturally look for direct causation, which with infections usually means isolating and then targeting specific disease agents that can be held responsible. This is important so long as we don’t forget that germs do not cause disease by accident: their potency depends on the terrain in which they exist, ie. the health and vitality or otherwise of the host organism and its immediate environment.

The major infectious diseases were declining in the Western world, before the introduction of vaccines and antibiotics, thanks to improved public health, cleaner water and better nutrition. They pose no serious threat anywhere that society has organised adequate provision in these spheres. Similarly at the level of the individual, “germs” need reason•ably favourable conditions to survive and, whether bacteria, viruses or even fungi, they cannot thrive in the tissues of a healthy body.

We must still cope with a host of infections – almost as a condition of human existence – which it would be foolish to underestimate. Dangerous complications of meningitis, for example, are inevitably going to be treated with conventional antibiotics and these drugs will always have an important place in modern medicine. But they have long been over prescribed for less serious conditions, or where problems are more chronic in nature, and there is widespread abuse of antibiotics in modern agriculture. This has resulted in over exposure and consequent resistance to therapeutic action when that becomes necessary.

Herbal antimicrobials have enormous potential to fill some of the gaps in modern healthcare, including treatment of infections. Garlic has appreciable antiseptic properties, once being known as “Russian penicillin” and credited with preventing gangrene and sepsis for thousands of troops in the 1914-18 World War. Taken raw it has a cleansing action on the gut, effective in almost all enteric diseases, and disinfects the lungs. Applied locally it is useful too for ear infections, oral thrush and tonsillitis. Many other herbs have local antiseptic action, eg marigold petals and myrrh (gum resin from Commiphora molmol and related species), particularly when used in the form of an alcoholic tincture.

Myrrh is a good example of a herbal antimicrobial which, far from leaving us depleted as usually happens with conventional antibiotics, in fact augments and vitalises the body’s own defences. It combines direct toxic action on bacteria with the ability to stimulate white blood cell production. Thyme and sage are also known to increase white blood cell activity, certainly in the form of the essential oils. And echinacea, which has been well researched and is readily available, is a potent antibiotic herb that seems to work by enhancing our defence against invasive pathogens.

This enhancement of innate immunity is a crucial advantage with herbal antimicrobials. Herbs can be robustly effective against viral as well as bacterial infections, which may just mean the common cold or a mild flu, but also AIDS and hepatitis B. Somewhat exotic herbs such as astragalus and siberian ginseng probably work this way, strengthening the immune system, yand two others with broad spectrum antiviral and antibiotic properties which are perhaps more modest and closer to home: honeysuckle flowers and forsythia seeds.

Harry Boys MNIMH

Tension Myositis Syndrome

Dr John Sarno of New York University Hospital has a theory that a great deal of back pain is the result of a psychosomatic process called tension myositis syndrome where the brain generates physical pain to divert attention from emotional distress. Here is an example from my practice.

An elderly lady came to see me to find out if I could help her with the pain in her back. The pain had started four years earlier after a fall when taking her pet dog to the vets to be put down. She was convinced arthritis must have set in and when she came to see me she was absolutely certain that a spinal fusion was the only thing for her. She was exasperated that her doctor was refusing this.

In hypnosis we returned to an episode 59 years earlier. She was a young wife. Her husband was away in the forces. She had just given birth to her first child but it had been malformed and still-born. Her mother was telling her that it was for the best that it was dead, and that she should be pleased about that. In hypnosis she said all the things she really needed to say to all concerned and she addressed the child's spirit. After her heart was finally cleared of all the feelings she had repressed for so long she got up from the couch. There was no more pain. She was surprised and elated.

What had happened here was that the loss of the little dog had activated the memory of the still-born child and then the TMS had set in to help keep it buried. Revealing to her waking consciousness the original traumatic event and the feelings involved in it, and helping her to process all that removed the need for the TMS and so it disappeared taking the back pain with it.

John Hirst

John Hirst MA, CHP(NC), NRHP, ALTT gained a certificate in Hypnosis and Psychotherapy from the National College and is a member of the National Register of Hypnotherapists and Psychotherapists. John works at the Eastbourne Clinic of Natural Medicine.

The Cholesterol Myth

Cholesterol lowering statins are now the most profitable drug family, with annual sales of around $26 billion for the pharmaceutical industry, supposedly so good for us that some doctors even advocate adding them to mains water.

The theory that high fat foods cause heart disease originates from animal research in the 1950s which demonstrated that cholesterol fed to rabbits caused atherosclerosis. Of course animal research from the same period also led medical science to believe that thalidomide was safe. Epidemiological evidence from the populations of seven countries showed a direct correlation between heart disease and animal fats, and alongside this “lipid theory” was the hypothesis that polyunsaturated vegetable fats could reduce cholesterol.

The Seven Countries Study excluded evidence from 15 out of the 22 countries studied, which together would have contradicted the diet-cholesterol link. And the Framingham study, which has tracked the heart health of the inhabitants of a small town in Massachusetts since 1948, found that people with low cholesterol were more likely to die from heart disease. A 1994 study of 997 people over seventy found no association between high cholesterol and heart attack or death from any cause including congestive heart disease; and statistical evidence suggests that higher cholesterol is associated with lower mortality.

This is hardly surprising: cholesterol is vital to the control of inflammation and infection, is needed for the creation of bile to help digestion, and for the hormonal system. It is required by the nervous system and for the synthesis of Vitamin D, and protects against dementia and cognitive decline. Indeed, statins cause Parkinson’s disease, memory loss, confusion and irritability; other side-effects include muscle tenderness and weakness, depression, dizziness and birth defects.

Men who have had a heart attack may benefit from statins, yet if cholesterol is considered too high (hyperlipidaemia) it would be more sensible to control it using a herbal agent such as red rice yeast, which is prepared from cooked, non-glutinous white rice fermented by the yeast Monascus purpureus. Additionally, herbs such as garlic and melilot may be taken to thin the blood and others such as hawthorn to support healthy heart function. Nutritional supplements may also be advisable, eg Vitamin C which is crucial to the integrity of the arterial walls: deficiency causes the walls to thicken, increasing blood pressure and vulnerability to thrombosis.

For far too long medicine has been wrong about fats in the diet, perpetuating the notion that we should lower our fat intake without distinguishing between normal fats and trans fats in cooked, processed foods, which are certainly undesirable. This faulty dietary advice and the obsessive focus on cholesterol lowering statin drugs toxic to the body is a deadly combination, which has jeopardised the health of entire populations. Nature offers many ways out of this predicament, common sense nutrition and natural therapeutics among them.

Harry Boys