The Walk of Life

Another post on Health Matters regarding Lemon Grass (locally known as Serai) use in treatment of Cancer. I guess this can be classified under Alternative Medicine.

It all began when researchers at Ben Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev discovered last year that the lemon aroma in herbs like lemon grass kills cancer cells in vitro, while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

The research team was led by Dr. Rivka Ofir and Prof. Yakov Weinstein, incumbent of the Albert Katz Chair in Cell-Differentiation and Malignant Diseases, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at BGU.

Citral is the key component that gives the lemony aroma and taste in several herbal plants such as lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus), melissa (Melissa officinalis) and verbena (Verbena officinalis.

Why does it work? Nobody knows for certain, but the BGU scientists have a theory.

"In each cell in our body, there is a genetic program which causes programmed cell death. When something goes wrong, the cells divide with no control and become cancer cells. In normal cells, when the cell discovers that the control system is not operating correctly - for example, when it recognizes that a cell contains faulty genetic material following cell division - it triggers cell death," explains Weinstein. "This research may explain the medical benefit of these herbs."

The success of their research led them to the conclusion that herbs containing citral may be consumed as a preventative measure against certain cancerous cells.

As they learned of the BGU findings in the press, many physicians in Israel began to believe that while the research certainly needed to be explored further, in the meantime it would be advisable for their patients, who were looking for any possible tool to fight their condition, to try to harness the cancer-destroying properties of citral.

According to Dr. Weinstein at Ben-Gurion University, he recommended to put the loose grass in hot water, and drink about eight glasses each day. Here is another local preparation method.

Take 3 stalks of lemon grass – use only the white part. Boil with 300cc water for about 1 hour. This recipe will give one glass of lemon grass drink for 1 person.

Lately there were more food products such as biscuits, chocolates sold locally, were found to contain high levels of Melamine. I actually wondered about why manufacturers add Melamine into the food process knowing the health risks involved! Have you ever wondered? Mind you it seems Melamine is not cheap so it does not make economical sense.

Well, I received a 'report' originating from China explaining the Melamine Mystery over the recent Contaminated Milk from the China fiasco. According to this report; Melamine is not added into the milk at all! What the manufacturers in China did was to add another toxic compound known as 'Urea' into the milk!!!

Why Urea? It seems that adding cheap fertilizer compound like Urea increases the Protein Content in the milk! The way to test Protein Content is to measure the Nitrogen content level which the Urea produces in sufficient quantities!

What happens is that fresh milk is kept at ultra high temperatures (UHT) and when sprayed out to produce milk powder; the urea undergoes a chemical change into Melamine! That's how the Melamine content was discovered in the milk powder!

Sounds logical to me but I guess chemistry people will understand the process better! So folks, that's what I found out from this 'China Report'! Can anyone check the truth in this story? If you do please leave a comment here for the benefit of all!

The 'report' also mentioned the following:-

Best quality milk is used to produce Yogurt, High Calcium Milk.

Low quality milk used to produce breakfast milk!

Milk that has turned bad or 'smelly' is used to make ice-cream and cheap milk powder!