Beat Pylori with spices
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Ameer Hamza
Some years ago the multinational company, Novartis Bangladesh Ltd, sponsored a seminar on peptic ulcer in which medical stalwarts under the auspices of the Bangladesh Gastro-enterology Society suggested that 'only three drugs' could cure the disease in 'just two weeks'! The key speaker was a professor from Basle, Switzerland, and he let it be known that some fifteen million people in Bangladesh were suffering from chronic peptic ulcer, an ailment known to be caused by the bacteria, Heliobacter Pylori. This tenacious bug in the gut is also implicated in a number of other diseases, including cancer.
If we are to take what experts say in good faith, then almost the entire population in this country is harbouring the bacteria. Ninety per cent of adults and eighty per cent of children under five are affected, they say. That may well be, considering the poverty and the tropical climate ---- both helping fresh foods become stale in no time and leading to various gastro-enterological diseases. Diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, salmonella poisoning can all be traced to the heat and dust and poor food preparation, serving and consuming processes. So what's the big fuss over peptic ulcers ? Business, my dears !
Indeed it is normal for giant drug manufacturers to take up clever marketing strategies for their products in countries like Bangladesh where the sheer number of people suffering from morbidity and chronic, non specific diseases ---- of malnutrition and poor hygiene, primarily ----- raise the potential for profit very high. It is not the mandate of big foreign businesses to advise the public that properly prepared and balanced food, along with a healthy lifestyle, is the best preventive medicine, even against peptic ulcers. But one cannot help but be dismayed when our reputed, 'national' level medical professionals don't bother to point this out to suffering compatriots. Instead, they sing along with the MNC's and forget to focus on 'prevention' as the first step to the eradication of Heliobactor Pylori.
At a time when overuse and misuse of antibiotics and other drugs are being blamed for increasingly resistant varieties of known diseases evolving, and creating a medical disaster, informed sections of the public would have hoped that our medical experts would approach the pylori problem with pro-people pragmatism. The common sense attitude should be : take medicines only when it is a life or death issue. Pundits of holistic healing highlight this basic principle and recommend diet and lifestyle-based approaches to good health in mind and body.
One way to avoid nasty bacterial infections could be to rely on the tested anti-bacterial properties of Asian spices. Two Cornell University researchers had published a survey in the Quarterly Review of Biology, many years ago, suggesting that most of our spices are actually preemptive antibiotics. For the pylori infected people of Bangladesh would it not be better to spend on these spices than the aforementioned three drugs ? MNC -recommended drugs could leave malnourished bodies worse off ---- and even lead to iatrogenic diseases that even doctors cannot fathom.
After all, we live with thousand of bugs --- both friendly and otherwise ---in the guts, and if beating the nasty ones will enhance the quality of life, what better way than by building the body's defences through good food and hygienic habits ? The most urgent problem that needs addressing therefore, is widespread malnutrition ----- both protein-calorie and micronutrient deficiences ---- which affect the overwhelming majority of the population in this country. It is essential nutrition that should be a first priority, with essential drugs, rather than optional ones, following closely. Let us be wary of the giant pharmaceutical companies that invest heavily in promoting their optional products as essential, and winning over indigenous experts , often with misleading claims.
Some years ago the multinational company, Novartis Bangladesh Ltd, sponsored a seminar on peptic ulcer in which medical stalwarts under the auspices of the Bangladesh Gastro-enterology Society suggested that 'only three drugs' could cure the disease in 'just two weeks'! The key speaker was a professor from Basle, Switzerland, and he let it be known that some fifteen million people in Bangladesh were suffering from chronic peptic ulcer, an ailment known to be caused by the bacteria, Heliobacter Pylori. This tenacious bug in the gut is also implicated in a number of other diseases, including cancer.
If we are to take what experts say in good faith, then almost the entire population in this country is harbouring the bacteria. Ninety per cent of adults and eighty per cent of children under five are affected, they say. That may well be, considering the poverty and the tropical climate ---- both helping fresh foods become stale in no time and leading to various gastro-enterological diseases. Diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, salmonella poisoning can all be traced to the heat and dust and poor food preparation, serving and consuming processes. So what's the big fuss over peptic ulcers ? Business, my dears !
Indeed it is normal for giant drug manufacturers to take up clever marketing strategies for their products in countries like Bangladesh where the sheer number of people suffering from morbidity and chronic, non specific diseases ---- of malnutrition and poor hygiene, primarily ----- raise the potential for profit very high. It is not the mandate of big foreign businesses to advise the public that properly prepared and balanced food, along with a healthy lifestyle, is the best preventive medicine, even against peptic ulcers. But one cannot help but be dismayed when our reputed, 'national' level medical professionals don't bother to point this out to suffering compatriots. Instead, they sing along with the MNC's and forget to focus on 'prevention' as the first step to the eradication of Heliobactor Pylori.
At a time when overuse and misuse of antibiotics and other drugs are being blamed for increasingly resistant varieties of known diseases evolving, and creating a medical disaster, informed sections of the public would have hoped that our medical experts would approach the pylori problem with pro-people pragmatism. The common sense attitude should be : take medicines only when it is a life or death issue. Pundits of holistic healing highlight this basic principle and recommend diet and lifestyle-based approaches to good health in mind and body.
One way to avoid nasty bacterial infections could be to rely on the tested anti-bacterial properties of Asian spices. Two Cornell University researchers had published a survey in the Quarterly Review of Biology, many years ago, suggesting that most of our spices are actually preemptive antibiotics. For the pylori infected people of Bangladesh would it not be better to spend on these spices than the aforementioned three drugs ? MNC -recommended drugs could leave malnourished bodies worse off ---- and even lead to iatrogenic diseases that even doctors cannot fathom.
After all, we live with thousand of bugs --- both friendly and otherwise ---in the guts, and if beating the nasty ones will enhance the quality of life, what better way than by building the body's defences through good food and hygienic habits ? The most urgent problem that needs addressing therefore, is widespread malnutrition ----- both protein-calorie and micronutrient deficiences ---- which affect the overwhelming majority of the population in this country. It is essential nutrition that should be a first priority, with essential drugs, rather than optional ones, following closely. Let us be wary of the giant pharmaceutical companies that invest heavily in promoting their optional products as essential, and winning over indigenous experts , often with misleading claims.