HOLISTIC HEALTH NEWS
 |
|
Bamboo: A Multi-Purpose Plant With
Eco-Friendly Potential It can be stronger than iron, yet fragile as paper. It can be eaten as well as worn. As a source of medicine, it can heal. It cleans the air and makes music in the wind. Cathy Sherman from Natural News reported that as the fastest growing woody plant on earth, bamboo has a short growth cycle. Some bamboo species can grow up to one meter daily, which makes it a rapidly renewable resource. Because it is so versatile and high-yielding, it solves the problem of replenishing many consumables within a short time. Environmentally, this grass generates 35% more oxygen than an equivalent amount of trees while it cleanses the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and purifies the soil. Its roots help prevent erosion and rain run-off. In addition it provides shade, an acoustical barrier and a wind break. As a building material, bamboo has advantages over wood due to its flexibility, strength and light weight. These qualities also allow it to "dance" during an earthquake. After the violent 1992 Costa Rica earthquake, only the bamboo houses from the National Bamboo Project remained standing in the affected area. Medically, bamboo has for centuries been used in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, including acupuncture. Its powdered, hardened secretion is used internally to treat asthma and coughs. Ingredients from the root of the black bamboo help treat kidney disease, and bamboo roots and leaves have been used to treat venereal disease and cancer. It is said that its sap can reduce fever and its ash will cure prickly heat. Current research is revealing bamboo's potential for many more health-enhancing uses. Bamboo is also edible; it is used by the Japanese as a natural food preservative because the antioxidant properties of its pulverized bark prevent bacterial growth. Many an Asian dish calls for bamboo shoots - very young plants. It is often used as fodder for animals and food for fish. For centuries the sound qualities of bamboo have been appreciated in uses from wind chimes to flutes. Its ambiance adds not only to the enjoyment of gardens but also home interiors. We prepare and serve foods with it and eat on it. Artists have utilized bamboo for the paper, the brush and the subject of artwork. In addition to building with it, using it for health and nutrition and its many other practical applications, we now wear bamboo. It is used in textiles for everything from towels and underwear to men's sweaters. Bamboo offers many surprising advantages in clothing: it offers breathing/wicking properties, elasticity, softness, and absorbability. It also takes up dyes easier, which means less dye needs to be used. It is less coarse than linen, hemp and burlap - other plant-based fabrics. The downside of bamboo as a textile is that it is subjected to the same kind of processing procedures as cotton or rayon, in that strong solvents are required to make it suitable for any textile use. These solvents affect the environment, as they are waste products of the manufacturing process. They find their way into groundwater when they are laundered out of the finished product. The health of processing-plant workers is also impacted by the solvents. As a result of these factors, bamboo textiles are a mixed bag ecologically. While the crop itself so far gets high marks environmentally, the processing has the same negatives as cotton. Advances can be made in this area, but manufacturers have to feel the demand for this. Consumers can make their desires known, and as long as they are willing to pay the price, bamboo clothing can become a greener alternative. Read more at See www.naturalnews.com or www.devardoc.com. Search on Bamboo or articles by Cathy Sherman. Music as Medicine Chicago Tribune's Nancy Maes reported that after Russian researchers discovered that music can prompt the brain to produce beneficial alpha waves, Dr. Galina Mindlin, a neuro-psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University in New York City, introduced music therapy for the brain to the United States. About a year ago, osteopathic Dr. David Moore started using the treatment for patients in his Chicago practice who were suffering from insomnia and anxiety. He takes an electroencephalogram of the wave patterns of their sensory motor strip and frontal lobe while they are relaxed. The test results then are used to create therapeutic music, but not just any generic soundtrack. "Each person has their own unique EEG pattern that is as individual as their fingerprints, so the Russian scientists created an algorithm to create music for each individual," Moore explained. Patients receive a recording of their one-of-a-kind composition, which is similar to classical piano music, and use headphones to listen to it. One musical message calms the brain so it's easy for patients to concentrate; another melody slows the brain down even more so they can drift off to sleep. "Ancient peoples knew about the healing power of music, but we've lost our intuitive sense, and we're searching to reconnect with it," Moore said. He has followed up with about 60 of the 110 patients he has treated with "brain music therapy," as it's called, and 85 percent of them reported that they have improved. The Midwest Palliative & Hospice Care Center, based in Glenview, offers a different kind of music therapy for terminally ill patients. Therapist Pat Harthun, who sings and plays guitar, said, "The music helps patients express their feelings in a way that is much less threatening than talk therapy, and it can also help with physical aspects such as reducing their pain, lowering their heart rate and blood pressure, and helping them to breathe more easily and relax." Study Shows Cat Owners at Lower Risk of Heart Attack Cat owners are often fiercely loyal to their furry companions - and such devotion may be rewarded in a surprising way: Owning a cat may lower one's risk of dying from a heart attack, says Jeannine Stein of the Los Angeles Times. Non-cat owners appear to have a 40% higher risk of dying from myocardial infarction than those who don't have a cat, according to a study presented at the American Stroke Assn.'s International Stroke Conference in New Orleans. Researchers examined the data of 4,435 people from the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. (Dogs didn't factor into the findings because fewer participants owned them.) "The big question is," says lead author Dr. Adnan Qureshi, executive director of the Minnesota Stroke Institute, "is this the direct effect of having a cat or a variable of people who own cats?" Adds Qureshi: "There isn't enough evidence to recommend [getting a cat] as a standard practice. But the flip side is that unlike other medical interventions, which have a risk and a cost associated with it, this has minimal risk and isn't as costly. There's not much harm to it." Lawsuit Filed to Halt Use of Dangerous Pesticide on Foods Sherry Baker of Natural News reported a 1996 federal law required the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study the safety of all pesticides and to rule by 2006 whether they could be used on foods safely. The EPA found four pesticides posed risks to human health but decided they saved growers so much money their use outweighed the dangers of the chemicals. Now a group of farm worker advocates and environmentalists, including the United Farm Workers, the Teamsters, Pesticide Action Network North America, Beyond Pesticides, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco against the Bush administration saying the EPA should not have turned its back on its own findings and allowed pesticides that pose a danger to animals, children and adults to be sprayed on vegetable and fruit crops. The suit calls for a court order that would require the EPA to re-assess the pesticides. According to Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental law firm that represents the coalition, the chemicals mentioned in the lawsuit specifically are four deadly organophosphate pesticides derived from nerve gas developed during World War II. Some of these pesticides have been detected in California's schoolyards, homes, Sequoia National Park, and Monterey Bay. Ethoprop, one of the pesticides used on potatoes, sugar cane, and tobacco, has been linked to fish kills and is classified by California authorities as a carcinogen. Another chemical listed in the lawsuit, methidathion (used on artichokes, peaches, oranges, almonds, and olives) is classified as an air contaminant by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation because of potential health hazards. The two other pesticides in question are methamidophos, used primarily on cotton and potatoes, and oxydemeton-methyl, sprayed on cabbage, corn, broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. Both have been associated with bird kills and the lawsuit claims oxydemeton-methyl is suspected of causing birth defects. EPA has documented that children are especially susceptible to organophosphate exposure which can cause dizziness, vomiting, convulsions, numbness in the limbs, loss of intellectual functioning, and death. In addition, organophosphates have also been shown to cause hormone disruption, birth defects, and cancer. "Farm workers and people living in and near agricultural regions, especially children, are at great risk of neurological and developmental damage due to exposure to these toxins," said Dr. Margaret Reeves, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network North America, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed April 4, 2008. "These four pesticides put thousands of farm workers and their families at risk of serious illness every year," said Patti Goldman, an attorney for Earthjustice. "It is inexcusable for the EPA to allow use of pesticides that they know are harming people, especially children." EPA spokesman Tim Lyons refused to comment on the suit or the EPA's ruling to allow the pesticides to be used. |