H1N1: Exploring desi treatment options

The swine flu panic is spreading even more faster than the flu itself. But the alternative medicines too are keeping pace with the two, considering the side effects of Tamiflu.

This is not just restricted to India, even the countries across the globe are exploring the same.

Wonder herb Tulsi can not only keep the dreaded swine flu at bay but also help in fast recovery of an afflicted person, Ayurvedic practitioners claim.

"The anti-flu property of Tulsi has been discovered by medical experts across the world quite recently. Tulsi improves the body's overall defence mechanism including its ability to fight viral diseases. It was successfully used in combating Japanese Encephalitis and the same theory applies to swine flu," 

Apart from acting as a preventive medicine in case of swine flu, Tulsi can help the patient recover faster.

"Even when a person has already contracted swine flu, Tulsi can help in speeding up the recovery process and also help in strengthening the immune system of the body," 

"Tulsi can control swine flu and it should be taken in fresh form. Juice or paste of at least 20-25 medium sized leaves should be consumed twice a day on an empty stomach."

This increases the resistance of the body and, thereby, reduces the chances of inviting swine flu.

Mashed garlic, boiled ginger, coconut oil, cow urine and cow dung all these might not be related, but they are looked upon for as a solution to the dreaded ‘swine flu,’ which has taken the lives of over 20 people in the Country.

Panchagavya, a formulation comprising cow milk, cow urine, cow dung as well as ghee and curd made from cow milk can prevent flu-like infections including swine flu by acting as an immuno-modulator.

Various Ayurvedic medicines, particularly those prepared from cow products, have for centuries proved potent to build resistance against infectious diseases like flu. We would advise people to take the same along with modern medicines prescribed by experts.

Cow urine concentrate, called ‘Ark’, could be extremely useful in protecting people against the virus and "probably" also in providing relief to those who have already caught the infection. 

Garlic as the best preventive medicine. “By tying a cloth containing mashed garlic around your neck, you can keep the virus at the bay, it has been an effective medicine".

Ginger- Peper Kashaya’ added with jaggery too is an effective medicine which can build in immunity in the body. Another doctor said consuming hot water along with lemon will increase the immunity among people.

If you maintain your body's immunity, you will not fall prey to viruses. Ayurveda offers simple and effective remedies to boost immunity 

HANDBOOK Of Life

Health:

1. Drink plenty of water.

2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.

3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.

4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.

5. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, and prayer.

6. Play more games.

7. Read more books than you did in 2008.

8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.

9. Sleep for 7 hours.

10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:

11. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

12. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.

14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.

16. Dream more while you are awake.

17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.

19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.

20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.

21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

23. Smile and laugh more.

24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Society:

25. Call your family often.

26. Each day give something good to others..

27. Forgive everyone for everything.

28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.

29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.

30. What other people think of you is none of your business.

31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

 Life:

32. Do the right thing!

33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

34. GOD heals everything.

35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

37. The best is yet to come.

38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.

39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

Tips of the day

To get instant energy and calorie replenishment, eat dried fruits. They are the easiest source of calories and have plenty of iron. They are also handy to carry around.

 Make drinking your habit - get at least 1 litre of fluids per day, to help absorb nutrients better. Water in fluids is the best solvent and a good lubricant for joints. 

 To get instant energy and calorie replenishment, eat dried fruits. They are the easiest source of calories and have plenty of iron. They are also handy to carry around. 

 

 Avoid junk snacks when struck with in-between-meals hunger pangs. Keep dried fruit and nuts in your desk drawer for nutritious and quick mid-morning or mid-afternoon snacks.

Get yourself food high in fiber, like beans, peas, cereals and breads. Fiber helps the digestion process and inhibit bacteria formation. 

 

 Maintain the correct posture at work to reduce your stress levels. If you work on a computer, make sure your feet are flat on the floor, your back is straight, and you aren’t tilting your head to look at the computer monitor. Your hands should also be in a comfortably position with the elbows bent at 90 degrees. 

 To liven up your work environment and create a positive experience, keep plants in the office. Research shows that people working in an office with plants feel more attentive to work. 

 

 Keep up a regular exercise regimen. You can even follow simple routines like biking, dancing to favourite songs, jumping rope or just taking a short walk. 

 

 Getting enough sleep is necessary for a healthy life. Take a break in between work to get a short nap and see how fresh you feel. 

 

 If you sit and work in the same position, do some stretch-out exercises every hour or so. You can do simple movements like reaching to the ceiling, turning your head from side to side, rolling your shoulders, arching your back, standing on tiptoe or touching your toes. 

 

 Regular exercising improves the way you look. Your facial muscles become taught and glow with the extra pumped up blood.  

 

How these home remedies and natural cures works?

Herbs, spices, condiments, fruits and vegetables are naturally occurring gifts of nature. They have been endowed with the unique capacity to absorb inorganic substances from the earth, water, fire, air, ether, and convert them into life-giving, life-supporting vital ingredients. The human body too is a living entity, and each individual body has its own life force which sustains it. When we look for herbal remedies in natural substances, we want something which is easily assimilate. The medicament present in these remedies is in the form of alkaloids, essential oils, enzymes, trace elements and minerals. Once absorbed they are assimilated only in the quantity needed by the body. The active ingredient is in the natural form needed to bind to a receptor site where the vital action has to take place, in order to balance the disturbed agent, host and environment equation. There are no synthetic constituents added, as in commercial preparations, which work on the principle that a vehicle (synthetic constituent) is needed to ensure the absorption of an arbitrarily decided, fixed amount of a drug. Modern medicine laboratory or clinical drug trials, blind and double-blind studies, determine that a certain level of the drug has to be maintained in the body to rid it of nocuous symptoms. This by itself may initially have a beneficial effect, but sustaining pre-determined, 'scientifically' approved levels in the long run also gives rise to excess intake, drug-induced/drug dependent diseases. So the right natural herbal remedy, taken at the first physical symptoms, manifestations or signs of disorder, helps the body's own healing mechanism. Since these are alternative natural medicine and a part of one's daily diet, excess of any kind is excreted. Herbs should always be gathered fresh, early in the morning when their natural oils are at the maximum-herbal natural oils are highly volatile, and the steadily increasing heat of the ascending sun depletes them. Dosage of herbal home remedies and alternative medicine. Whatever is prescribed for an adult, half that for a child of 6-12 years; half that for one of 2-6 years; and half that for one 1-2 years old. Give it in drop doses to half a teaspoon to a baby. The alternative herbal home medicine are usually administered three to four times a day. These alternative medicine (herbal home remedies) should only be tried for a three-day period. If there is no relief from symptoms within that time, expert opinion is needed, with specific treatment under medical supervision. The alternative medicines can still be taken as complementary adjuvant's, but with the consent of the specialist. Sometimes there are individual idiosyncrasies, depending on physical constitutional variations that need to be borne in mind. People may not be aware of this. If something does not agree with you, seek advice.   The bitter taste of a alternative herbal remedy will remain bitter, no matter how much you sugar coat it. But something which causes you to vomit, or break into a rash, when it should not, means your body is telling you its not good for you seek medical advice immediately. Also remember that anything taken in excess causes toxicity.   Some common ailments and disease which are characterized under different categories and can be healed by alternative herbal home remedies.

What is Butter milk ?

Buttermilk refers to a number of dairy drinks. Originally, buttermilk was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cream. It also refers to a range of fermented milk drinks, common in warm climates (e.g., India, or the Southern USA) where fresh milk would otherwise sour quickly.   Whether traditional or cultured, the tartness of buttermilk is due to the presence of acid in the milk. The increased acidity is primarily due to lactic acid, a by-product naturally produced by lactic acid bacteria while fermenting lactose, the primary sugar found in milk. As lactic acid is produced by the bacteria, the pH of the milk decreases and casein, the primary protein in milk, precipitates causing the curdling or clabbering of milk. This process makes buttermilk thicker than plain milk. While both traditional and cultured buttermilk contain lactic acid, traditional buttermilk tends to be thinner whereas cultured buttermilk is much thicker.  Production process  The fermentation that takes place in traditional buttermilk is accomplished by controlled strains of lactic acid-producing bacteria, sparking a chemical reaction due to the environment. Traditionally, before cream was skimmed from whole milk, it was left to sit for a period of time to allow the cream and milk to separate. During this time, the milk would naturally be fermented by the lactic acid-producing bacteria in the milk. One reason this was done was to facilitate the butter churning process since fat from cream with a lower pH will coalesce more readily than that from fresh cream. The acidic environment helped prevent potentially harmful microorganisms from growing, thus the soured liquid helped increase the shelf-life of the product. Commercially available cultured buttermilk is pasteurized and homogenized (if 1% or 2% fat) milk which has been inoculated with a culture of lactic acid bacteria to simulate the naturally occurring bacteria found in the old-fashioned product. Some dairies add colored flecks of butter to cultured buttermilk to simulate the residual pieces of butter that can be left over from the churning process of traditional buttermilk. Buttermilk solids have increased in importance in the food industry.[  Such solids are used in ice cream manufacture.  Adding specific strains of bacteria to pasteurized milk has allowed for more consistent production. In the early 1900s, cultured buttermilk was once labeled as artificial buttermilk, to differentiate it from traditional buttermilk, which was also known as natural or ordinary buttermilk. This has since been obsolete, as cultured buttermilk is now considered to be natural.   Acidified buttermilk is a related product that is made by adding a food-grade acid to milk. Benefits Cultured buttermilk is lower in fat and calories than regular milk because the fat from buttermilk has already been removed to make butter. It is high in potassium, vitamin B12 and calcium. Buttermilk is more easily digestible than whole milk and it also contains more lactic acid than skim milk. Due to being more easily digestible (a result of the bacteria added to the milk), protein and calcium can be taken up more easily by the body. There are 99 kilocalories and 2.2 grams of fat in one cup of buttermilk (fat content may be different with some buttermilk brands, as some brands are made with skim milk while others are made with reduced fat milk), as opposed to whole milk that has 157 kilocalories and 8.9 grams of fat.

What is Butter milk ?

Buttermilk refers to a number of dairy drinks. Originally, buttermilk was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cream. It also refers to a range of fermented milk drinks, common in warm climates (e.g., India, or the Southern USA) where fresh milk would otherwise sour quickly.   Whether traditional or cultured, the tartness of buttermilk is due to the presence of acid in the milk. The increased acidity is primarily due to lactic acid, a by-product naturally produced by lactic acid bacteria while fermenting lactose, the primary sugar found in milk. As lactic acid is produced by the bacteria, the pH of the milk decreases and casein, the primary protein in milk, precipitates causing the curdling or clabbering of milk. This process makes buttermilk thicker than plain milk. While both traditional and cultured buttermilk contain lactic acid, traditional buttermilk tends to be thinner whereas cultured buttermilk is much thicker.   Production process   The fermentation that takes place in traditional buttermilk is accomplished by controlled strains of lactic acid-producing bacteria, sparking a chemical reaction due to the environment. Traditionally, before cream was skimmed from whole milk, it was left to sit for a period of time to allow the cream and milk to separate. During this time, the milk would naturally be fermented by the lactic acid-producing bacteria in the milk. One reason this was done was to facilitate the butter churning process since fat from cream with a lower pH will coalesce more readily than that from fresh cream. The acidic environment helped prevent potentially harmful microorganisms from growing, thus the soured liquid helped increase the shelf-life of the product. Commercially available cultured buttermilk is pasteurized and homogenized (if 1% or 2% fat) milk which has been inoculated with a culture of lactic acid bacteria to simulate the naturally occurring bacteria found in the old-fashioned product. Some dairies add colored flecks of butter to cultured buttermilk to simulate the residual pieces of butter that can be left over from the churning process of traditional buttermilk. Buttermilk solids have increased in importance in the food industry.[  Such solids are used in ice cream manufacture.  Adding specific strains of bacteria to pasteurized milk has allowed for more consistent production. In the early 1900s, cultured buttermilk was once labeled as artificial buttermilk, to differentiate it from traditional buttermilk, which was also known as natural or ordinary buttermilk. This has since been obsolete, as cultured buttermilk is now considered to be natural.   Acidified buttermilk is a related product that is made by adding a food-grade acid to milk.     Benefits   Cultured buttermilk is lower in fat and calories than regular milk because the fat from buttermilk has already been removed to make butter. It is high in potassium, vitamin B12 and calcium. Buttermilk is more easily digestible than whole milk and it also contains more lactic acid than skim milk. Due to being more easily digestible (a result of the bacteria added to the milk), protein and calcium can be taken up more easily by the body. There are 99 kilocalories and 2.2 grams of fat in one cup of buttermilk (fat content may be different with some buttermilk brands, as some brands are made with skim milk while others are made with reduced fat milk), as opposed to whole milk that has 157 kilocalories and 8.9 grams of fat