Cure Common Cold

The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory system, including the nose, throat, sinuses, Eustachian tubes, trachea, larynx, and bronchial tubes.

It occurs more often than all other diseases. A person suffers from this disease three times in a year on an average.

Almost all colds clear up in less than two weeks without complications.

The real cause of a cold, however, is the toxic condition of the body brought about by wrong feeding habits such as an excessive intake of starch, carbohydrates, proteins and other acid-forming foods.

People with colds are contagious during the first two to four days of the infection. Colds pass from person to person in several ways. When an infected person coughs, sneezes, or speaks, tiny fluid droplets containing the virus are expelled. If these are breathed in by other people, the virus may establish itself in their noses and airways.

Its usual symptoms are a running nose, sneezing, a rise in temperature, headache, sore throat, chill, aches and pains in the body and loss of appetite. The skin around the nostrils may become sore.

Treatment

There are no medicines that will cure the common cold. Given time, the body’s immune system will make antibodies to fight the infection, and the cold will be resolved without any intervention. Antibiotics are useless against cold.

The best way to treat cold is a proper diet. The best way to begin the treatment is to put the person on a fast for two days. Nothing should be taken during this period except warm water mixed with lemon juice and honey or fruit juice and hot water.

The juice fast may be followed by a fresh fruit diet for three days. In this time, the person should have three meals a day of fresh juicy fruits such as apples, pears, grapes, grapefruit, oranges, pineapple, peaches, melon or any other juicy fruit in season.

After the fruit diet, the patient should gradually start upon a well-balanced diet.

Food like meat, fish, eggs, cheese and starchy foods should be avoided for few days.

Garlic and Ginger is also an excellent food remedy for colds and coughs. It should be made into a paste and can be taken as a soup.

Steam bath, hot foot bath and hot hip bath are also beneficial. Hot packs are excellent for treating chest and head colds.

Gargling with warm salt water—made by adding one teaspoon of salt to 8 oz of water—for a sore throat.

Not smoking, and last of all

Getting plenty of rest

Tackling Alcoholism

Alcoholism refers to addiction to alcohol. In other words alcoholism is the popular term for two disorders, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. The essential feature of alcohol abuse is the maladaptive use of alcohol with recurrent and significant adverse consequences related to its repeated use. Both these disorders can have serious consequences, affecting an individual’s health and personal life, as well as having an impact on society at large.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed alcoholism as one of the three most deadly killer diseases of the 20th century. According to the WHO, "Alcoholics are those excessive drinkers whose dependence on alcohol has attained such a degree that it shows a noticeable mental disturbance or interference with their bodily or mental health, their interpersonal relations and their smooth social and economic functions, or who show the prodormal signs of such development."

Alcohol cannot be called a food for it enters the alimentary canal and is not changed or digested in any way. It is quickly absorbed in the bloodstream and then travels to every part of the body, adversely affecting vital organs like brain and liver.

Causes

A person generally takes to drinking as a means to enliven social life, to overcome anxiety or to induce sleep. 

S/He becomes an alcoholic if he gets dependent on alcohol physically and psychologically. 

S/He resorts to heavy drinking because of his maladaptive way of dealing with life’s stresses.  

A weak-minded person consoles himself by taking to drugs or alcohol. In doing so he simply tries to escape the situation rather than face it boldly.

Symptoms

Alcoholics have a puffy face with bloodshot eyes, a hoarse voice and a rapid pulse. They are suspicious, irritable and over- emotional. Vomiting, delirium, impaired judgment and disturbed sleep are some of the other symptoms.

The effects of alcoholism causes problems like poor nutrition, memory disorders, difficulty with balance and walking, liver disease (including cirrhosis and hepatitis), high blood pressure, muscle weakness (including the heart), heart rhythm disturbances, anemia, clotting disorders, decreased immunity to infections, gastrointestinal inflammation and irritation, acute and chronic problems with the pancreas, low blood sugar, high blood fat content, interference with reproductive fertility, and weakened bones.

Treatment

Treatment of alcoholism has two parts. The first step in the treatment of alcoholism, called detoxification, involves helping the person stop drinking and ridding his or her body of the harmful (toxic) effects of alcohol.

After end or stop of drinking has been accomplished, the next steps involve helping the patient avoid ever taking another drink. This phase of treatment is referred to as rehabilitation. The best programs incorporate the family into the therapy, because the family has undoubtedly been severely affected by the patient’s drinking.

Natural Treatment

The most effective way to treat alcoholism is to build the body’s nutritional integrity to prevent desire for stimulants like drinks. The patients should be put on a cleansing juice fast for at least ten days in the beginning.

During this period, he should have juice of an orange every two hours from morning to evening. The juice may be diluted with warm water, if desired. If orange juice does not available, vegetable juices may be taken. 

During this juice fast, the patient will usually feel no craving for alcohol. This will give a good 10 day start towards breaking the drinking habit and would help remove not only the physical dependence but also the psychological factors.

The best substitute drink for alcohol is a glass of fresh fruit juice, sweetened with honey, if desired.

In the alternative a candy can be taken or any foods or vegetables which diverts the mind of the user from the use of alcohol. 

All refined foods such as sugar, white rice, macaroni products and white flour and meat should be avoided. The patient should eat several small meals a day in preference to two or three large ones.

S/He should avoid strong condiments such as pepper, mustard, and chilly.

S/He should not smoke as this will only increase his desire for alcohol.

Finally, Dr. William B. Terhune has advisable to follow the Ten Commandments to prevent alcoholism:

• Never drink when you ‘need one

• Sip slowly  

• Space your drinks, taking a second drink 30 minutes after 

• The first and a third an hour after the second

• Dilute your alcohol

• Keep an accurate and truthful record of the amount and number of drinks you take

• Never conceal the amount of alcohol you drink

• Do not drink on an empty stomach

• Stop drinking on ‘signal ‘(signals are lunch, dinner, fatigue, sex stimulation, boredom, frustration and bedtime)

• Make it a rule never to take a drink to escape discomfort - either physical or mental and never, never take a drink in the morning thinking it will cure a hangover.

Prevention

Prevention must begin at a relatively young age since the first instance of intoxication (drunkenness) usually occurs during the teenage years. It is particularly important that teenagers who are at high risk for alcoholism— those with a family history of alcoholism, an early or frequent use of alcohol, a tendency to drink to drunkenness, alcohol use that interferes with school work, a poor family environment, or a history of domestic violence—receive education about alcohol and its long-term effects.