‘Let your food be your medicine’ – Hippocrates

By Herbert Vego

REMEMBER that TV advertisement of a patent medicine where a woman sweeps away leaves while a movie actor advertises a cough medicine? If its intention was to subdue the rising tide of public patronage for “lagundi” leaves, it failed.

That expensive and pervasive TV ad has failed to deter local drug manufacturers from compounding lagundi leaves into cough syrup. Today, many other plant-based medicines have passed the approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

There are others marked as “food supplement”.

It’s not just to save money that some people do not always follow the doctor’s prescription. May I cite a personal experience?

There was a time when a doctor asked me to take an anti-cholesterol drug after an x-ray had revealed an “atherosclerotic aorta.” Because the branded “statin drug” was very expensive and I was already spending much for anti-hypertension “maintenance,” I just bought a partial number of tablets.

However, within three days of religiously taking the drug as prescribed, I could no longer put on my polo shirt without wincing due to excruciating muscle pain.

I instinctively turned to Internet blogs to research “statin” – a medical term for an anti-cholesterol formula. It shocked me to read about other users complaining of the same side effect.

There’s this warning from the Mayo Clinic of Rochester, Minnesota: “Rarely, they may cause liver damage. “

I would rather be spared from that rare possibility.

While browsing health books in a bookstore, I noticed one entitled Stop Inflammation Now by an American author, Dr. Richard Fleming. I bought it.

The book author mainly dwelt on fruits and vegetables as the better alternatives to anti-cholesterol drugs in restoring cardio-vascular health.

It reminded me that the acknowledged Greek father of medicine, Hippocrates (460-337 BC), is credited with the phrase “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.”

Today, we all know that vegetables and fruits strengthen the body’s built-in immune system, giving it the capacity to fight disease-causing bacteria and viruses. The lowly and cheap malunggay has already been proven effective in boosting the immune system.

Shed of hypocrisy, conventional medicine ought to be integrated with alternative medicine because they complement each other like parallel railroad tracks.

On a recent trip to Singapore, I passed by the Singapore College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SCTCM), a prominent institution offering diploma and advanced diploma courses in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), focusing on herbs, acupuncture, and tuina.

Tuina  is an ancient Chinese therapeutic massage that uses kneading, pressing, rolling, and stretching.

Natural medicines are no cure-all but are not generally detrimental unless laced with chemicals. They offer hope to desperate patients, including those that hospitals have given up.

In the United States, according to the book Living Longer and Healthier by Dr. Allan Magaziner, 50% of the population are now hooked to alternative health programs that claim to “add years to life and life to years.”

The universal interest in going back to nature, the author opined, is also behind the popularity of herbal shampoos, soaps and cosmetics. Also available are “vitamin-enriched” soft drinks.

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POWER HIKE UNAVOIDABLE

IT’S not their wish that MORE Electric and Power Corp. has raised its residential rate from PHP 11.35 per kilowatt-hour in December to PHP 12.66 today. So said Raphael Dorilag, manager of MORE Power’s energy sourcing department.

It is because of the rising cost of power generation and transmission.

As a distribution utility, MORE Power does not generate electricity but buys it from the generation plants for transmission by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

“Almost half of the electricity cost goes to generation,” said Dorilag when interviewed by Angel Tan on the radio-Facebook show “MORE Power at Your Service”.

“When temperature rises,” he said, “we consume more power.”

The good news is that the present month of January is cold, and so we could minimize use of our electrical appliances.