Sabrina - thanks for the tips. Can you send me your frappe recipes?

All sent. In case anyone else wants them:

One (750 calories):
1 cup milk or soy milk
1/2 cup ice cream or sherbert
1 scoop protein powder (Spiru-tein or other, but note Ed's comment on Spirtu-tein))
1 Benecalorie (this is 330 calories alone, but note Karen's comments on weight)
2 TBSP Canola Oil (240 calories alone)

Two (500 cal):
Ensure Plus
1/2 cup ice cream

Three (obtained from some site somewhere, 1300 calories):
2 cups ice cream
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup 1/2 and 1/2
1 pkg instant breakfast
1 tablespoons malted Milk
2 tablespoons Ovaltine

I've already experimented with the first one. IE, mixing Ensure, Support, Boost, skim milk, etc. She just gave me that as a base, so it's obviously flexible.

Sabrina

Gary,

I have serious doubts whether essiac tea is really a cancer cure. However, I believe some of the ingredients are very good for the body in general. I'm sure even suggesting the medicinal properties of herbs will stir a controversy but some will agree with even the beneficial merits of garlic.

Burdock Root is one of the foremost detoxifying herbs in both western and Chinese herbal medicine. It is used to treat conditions caused by an overload of toxins such as throat and other infections, boils, abscesses, eczema and other skin disorders. A diuretic, it is used for gout and for arthritic swelling and deposits within the joints. Burdock root is also used as a blood cleanser and to help rid the body of waste products and for helping rid the body of heavy metals. The Japanese believe eating long roots promotes long life and burdock is exactly that, a long root.

Slippery Elm is used extensively for inflammation of the lungs, bowels, stomach, heart, diseases of the female organs, kidney and bladder. It apparently soothes ulcerated or cancerous stomachs and heals all mucus membranes. It is also an immune system booster.

Mucilage has a smooth acting cleansing action. The cleansing action is due to the sticky substance found in the gum resins of the plant, which helps dissolve mucus that has been deposited in the tissues of your body organs, lymph glands and nerve channels.

Slippery Elm has a lubricating action that protects and softens all the membrane linings in the body, especially those membranes damaged by chemotherapy and other cancer treatments. Membranes damaged and inflamed from other illnesses might also be healed or helped by Slippery Elm.

As part of the cleansing action, the gum resins in Slippery Elm bark gather up dissolved toxic waste in your body, including your bowels and helps discharge them accordingly.

Sheep Sorrel is high in vitamins A and B-complex, C, D, E and K. It is very rich in minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, silicon, sulfur chlorine and trace amounts of iodine and zinc.

Beneficial elements in sheep sorrel are the carotenoids and chlorophyll. Chlorophyll has been shown in lab studies to increase resistance to x-rays, purify the liver, stimulate the regeneration of fresh tissue, relieve pancreas swelling, cleanse the walls of blood vessels and strengthen the cell walls. Vitamin A strengthens the immune system by increasing the production of white blood cells and T-Cells. It is the white blood cells and the T-Cells that are known to destroy cancerous cells.

Turkey rhubard aids and helps cleanse the digestive canals and the entire digestive tract, improves digestion and appetite. It stimulates colon action and glandular secretions, alleviates bowel pain, clears colon blockage, duodenum ulcers and is an excellent stomach tonic. Turkey rhubarb (Rheum palmatum) should not be confused with domestic rhubarb, the variety commonly used to make rhubarb pies

Echinacea is one of the most popular herbal products on the market. It has been used for years in the fight against ailments that increase the stress on the immune system; upper respiratory conditions such as colds, sore throat, enlarged lymph glands (tonsillitis), coughs, flu, and ear infections. Studies have found this plant to be highly anti-bacterial and anti-viral, probably due to its stimulating effect on the human immune system. The ability to combat infections has given Echinacea a reputation for relieving fevers.

Echinacea (purple coneflower). The subject of more than 350 scientific studies, most conducted in Europe, Echinacea seems to stimulate the immune system nonspecifically rather than against specific organisms. In laboratory tests, Echinacea increased the number of immune system cells and developing cells in bone marrow and lymphatic tissue, and it seemed to speed their development into immunocompetent cells (cells that can react to pathogens). It speeds their release into circulation, so more are present in blood and lymph, ~and increases their phagocytosis rate--the rate at which they can digest foreign bodies. Echinacea also inhibits the enzyme hyaluronidase, which bacteria use to enter tissues and cause infection. This inhibition helps wounds to heal by stimulating new tissue formation.

Echinacea exhibits interferon like antiviral activity documented through extensive experiments in Germany. For example, in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 180 volunteers, Echinacea's therapeutic effectiveness for treating flu-like symptoms was "good to very good" (Braunig et al., 1992). Another study showed that orally administered Echinacea extracts significantly enhanced phagocytosis in mice (Bauer et al., 1988). Water-soluble Echinacea components strongly activated macrophages (Stimpel et al., 1984), enhanced immune system cell motility, and increased these cells' ability to kill bacteria. Other immune system cells were stimulated to secrete the disease-fighting tumor necrosis factor and interleukins 1 and 6 (Roesler et al., 1991). Another study showed that Echinacea polysaccharides increased the number of immunocompetent cells in the spleen and bone marrow and the migration of those cells into the circulatory system. The authors said these effects resulted in excellent protection of mice against consequences of lethal listeria and ~candida infections (Coeugniet and Elek, 1987).
Echinacea's effects are not yet fully understood, but it is known that a number of constituents simulate the immune system to counter both bacterial and viral infections. The polysaccharides have an antihaluronidase action, inhibiting the ability of viruses to enter and take over cells, while the alkamides are antibacterial and antifungal.

We eat vitamins in many forms and vegetal sources of vitamins and minerals are the basis of our nutritional pyramid which promotes eating fruits and vegetables to the tune of five servings per day. The key is to know what is in what we ingest and to avoid overindulgence.

Ed

There is much we know about these herbals and much that we do not. The thing that bothers me the most is that there is no regulation of them by anyone. Echinacea from one manufacturer may not be anything like the same-labeled product from another for instance. There are also no controls that are enforceable to ensure that they are free of contaminants, as the manufacturers are unregulated. In all this there is also a ton of misinformation from a variety of sources, because there have been few controlled studies of herbals. As in all things, make sure you have the best possible information from the best possible sources. Please read new article we are putting up tomorrow on dangerous herbals from the Consumers Union and the FDA.

Hello, I'm Eric.
I am new to this but not for along. I am going to be having surgury on 5/4. Brain has been a great help to m today. I can see from reading your messages this site will be of grat value.

I'm not sure if this is were I introduce myself. I think I'll wait a bit to tell you more. I want to see if this is the place to intro myself.
Eric

Brian,

You make an excellent point. When we use the same meds manufactured in different countries to save money in our economic adversity, we raise some of the same issues, sans the contaminants (I hope.) When it comes to vitamins and minerals, including trace minerals, we have had to rely on the Maker above to regulate our doses by this magnificent machine we live in. The government attempts to regulate this with all of their nutrion guidelines and food pyramids, only to discover years or decades later that they, too, were wrong.

Heck, even the U.S. Navy provided guidelines for military scuba divers that the entire world adopted and then they suddenly retracted them after about 50 years and said they may have been dangerous and life-threatening. Go figure.

Ed

Hi Ed,
They may be good for some people but could have serious consequences for people with impaired livers (like me with Hep C). It can also change the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatment.

I work as an FDA consultant and I have to agree with Brian than this food supplement loophole has got to be stopped. Why companies are allowed to promote medical benefit of unproven and potentially dangerous herbs and other food supplements is one of the dark sides of the regulatory business and congressional and political meddling with the FDA. Using some logic here - if an herb really DID have curative powers, why wouldn't a company WANT to do the clinical trials to prove it - they would make billions! The deceptive, testimonial style of marketing is the tip off.

Let's assume the most positive, that something does have actual clinical benefits. Without regulation of the manufacturers of that herb into tablet form we cannot control if what they say is in the tablet, (actual composition, contaminants, same form of it that has be set to some common standard, etc.) actually is what is in it. We really don't know what we're taking. I'm suggesting regulation of the industry for these issues. Claims of effectiveness of a given product can only be proven by double blind testing, and that is the second issue. In an unregulated industry you can pretty much make any claim you like, such as

I just had another wake up call about this whole subject. I was meeting with a client this afternoon and he informed me that his brother-in-law just died from oral cancer. He was a PhD and opted to explore alternative medicine to treat his cancer. By the time he sought conventional medical solutions it was too far advanced to be treated.

I sure hope you aren't implying that I am suggesting to anyone that they should stop conventional treatment and rush out to the nearest herbologist and cure their cancer. If it were this easy, there would be no cancer left in the world. Exploring alternative medicine for even trained individuals is a sure sign of lack of intelligence, even for a PhD. Taking Oregamax (wild oregano) to ease a runny nose from allergies or hay fever is a far cry from dumping everything available for something unknow, unquantifiable and undocumented. Our bodies ability to ingest raw or cooked vegetables and extract the needed nutrients is not fully understood by man and we may never know exactly how it is done on a cellular level other than to surmise, speculate, develop a theory and test for the desired results.

We have released many drugs after even decades of thorough testing to find out future generations are born deformed physically and/or mentally. We have created many drugs that have damaged livers and hearts but solve other biological issues. I can't help but think that many of the studies by pharma companies have been somewhat stacked for success in view of the enormous profit potential that drives them as well as the quacks. We can't develop a false sense of security because the FDA has rubber stamped it. How many people on this board received the bad batches of Duragesic patches that were recalled. The dosages were totally uncontrolled and caused a roller coaster ride from no medication to the entire patch unloading at once. Lucky me, I was asking the doctor and pharmacist about it back in December only to find out several batches were released in error. I keep getting legal forms to fill out now to allow them to dig into all my medical information from now on, just in case.

There are no sure cures for many illnesses and the herbal or vitamin path is certainly a potential to improve quality of life.

Ed