Psoriasis: The skin’s links with the liver, colon & kidneys
Femi Kusa
Ever heard of the tree man? I did about 10 years ago on the Internet. He was an Asian man whose skin was invaded by Human Papilo Virus(HPV) and twisted with all forms of growths which made clumped sections look like overgrown vegetable beds, shrubs and small trees. It was a frightening scene to behold and, at the same time, a warning that the human skin can grow out of the order we all are used to, under special circumstances.
Last week, I was reminded of one of those special circumstances by a woman, whose mother, more than 80 years old, has come down with PSORIASIS, an inflammatory over-growth, painful and itchy skin condition! From her, my mind hopped to a school girl I met in Lagos about 20 years ago. She had scales like those of a scaly fish all over her body. She wore her school uniform and other dresses right up to the neck and wrists and well below the middle of the lower limbs. I wished to help her at no cost to her family and met her mother. But we lost contact when she went to Abeokuta to continue her education.
The signs
The elbows, knees, trunk and scalp are the common sites of eruptions. Red patches of skin arise which may be covered with thick, silvery scales. In children, the disease may start as scaly spots. In adults, the skin may be dry, cracked and itchy. When scratched, the skin may also bleed, burn or feel sore. The nails may become thick and pitted, signaling some nutritional deficiency. The knee joints may be swollen or stiff in addition. Often, the skin grows about ten times faster than normal. Some therapists believe psoriasis is incurable, going by observations that it is cyclic in appearance and remission. New eruptions could ensue at any time.
But some incorrigible optimists believe the cycle can be broken. Whether the cycle will be broken often depends on how the health caregiver sees the challenge. Some do not see the skin as the origin of the trouble ravaging it. Thus, they look beyond the skin to the entire excretory organs, “household” or system to which the skin belongs. In this household are the lungs, the liver, the intestine, the kidneys and the skin, the largest of them all in terms of surface area. The liver is believed to be the most critical as the chief detoxifying agent. All these systems are meant to help the body excrete poisons which enter its systems through food, air and water. The waste products of metabolism can turn into poisons if not appropriately excreted!
Many of us do not use the lungs optimally for inhaling fresh, healthy air, which brings in oxygen, the life supporting part of the air we inhale. We do not use the lungs well, also, to eliminate waste and toxins in gaseous form. It has been widely suggested that many people employ only about 40 percent of their lung capacities. If you visit a hospital and watch busy doctors from morning to nightfall every day, you would notice the sedentary lifestyle of their job. What about civil servants? They sit behind their desks and push files all work hours. The university professor fares no better. Not many people would disembark a bus two bus stops from their destination and walk the rest of the journey to exercise their lungs, get more oxygen into their bodies and expel more gaseous waste and poisons. Such people live sedentary lives, hardly exercising or hardly getting involved in physically challenging tasks.
In many people, the kidneys are weak. These are the organs which are to eliminate toxins and waste through the urine. The urine of a healthy person is said to be near white except for a ting of yellow. But many people eliminate yellowish urine and, even in some cases, dark or brownish stuff. The tendency is to boil this down to “malaria” when, in fact, the urine is reporting concentration of urea due to either lack of enough water at the disposal of the kidneys to function efficiently or because the kidneys are losing or have lost capacity for optimal work.
What about the intestine? Anyone who keeps his or her ears close enough to the ground in Nigeria nowadays would have discovered that colon or colorectal cancer are on the upswing. As more cases are reported, so are deaths from this form of cancer. It is always my joy when some challenged persons who had lost hope but who have learned to control what they eat become stable or even improve. Some of the challenged persons I knew did not recover, though. I make these honest statements in respect of a gentleman I have known since the 1960s who telephoned me last week Friday ( November 6, 2020) that he had just been diagnosed with colorectal cancer which had spread to the lungs.
I knew a man in England who had bad colon cancer which did not respond well to chemotherapy. He and his wife had spent about one year in England for his treatment before she called me. She was advised to eliminate many items from their refrigerator and dining table and then try some herbs which included Calamus root, Pau d’Arco, Slippery elm or psyllium seed husk powder, Golden seal root, Vitamin C, etc. He got better with about 25 percent shrinkage of the cancerous tumour in one month. His doctors were shocked! We had eliminated from his diet, beef and milk and replaced them with other protein sources such as Liquid Amino and Spirulina. Anyone who is interested in the havoc which beef and pasteurised milk can cause in these matters can check the internet for a series of experiments Professor Pottenger conducted on his cats. The search words may be Professor Pottenger’s Cats.
The group of cats fed cooked beef and pasteurised milk experienced extermination by the third generation. The first and second generation reproduced poorly, lacked stamina, experienced all sorts of degenerative diseases and suffered population depletion by the time their survivors came to the third generation which soon became extinct. The human body is derived from the animal. We may argue that it is animated by being of a higher origin than the cats and we would be right. But would we be right to say over-flogging the human intestine may not leave detrimental marks? Are these not what we are experiencing with rising cases of colorectal cancer?
In any case, our friend in England thought all was well when the coast was not clear as I advised his wife who was a minister at a popular church in Ilupeju area of Lagos. He put her under pressure to visit Nigeria on holiday. I, too, yielded to his pressure. It is true one should not be disconnected from his native soil for too long because the radiations of the stars which converge there are the most suitable for not only re-invigouration of the physical body but the soul and spirit as well. He came home and resumed the consumption of meat to please an old passion. All the foods eliminated from his diet resurfaced. So also did alcohol. In the end, he died during the brief holiday. I am however glad to note that I relate with no fewer than five persons who, commendably, are progressing towards marked improvement!
One of them is a medical doctor’s wife who declined chemotherapy. The last time they spoke, she had overcome the bleeding and was defecating fairly well. To the arsenal of herbs listed above, she added stuff like Cellgevity, Liquid chlorophyll, Mushroom, CBD oil and capsules etc. to her regimen. One of my classmates in the 1960s who still lives in England no longer has to wear pampers for his bleeding. So is a distant cousin who once permitted mention of his name as a cancer survivor on this page about 10 years ago. He is still alive!
The liver
The liver is an organ many people do not pay serious attention to. It is the chief detoxifying organ of the body. In the 1970s, I learned that its name was derived from the words… TO LIVE. I also learned that tough and bad as cancer was, it could not gain a foothold in any human system with a robustly functioning liver. About 20 years later, scientists began to discover through autopsy, reports that a relationship existed between cancer affliction and a subnormal liver. Thus, in the treatment of psoriasis today, recourse is made to the hypothesis that:
- Toxins not detoxified, like bombs or explosives not defused, build up or escape from a weak or subnormal liver. Blood is supposed to flow through the liver and to be checked for poisons, damaged cells, parasites, cancerous cells and other germs. Through various mechanisms, the liver is expected to degrade these materials to the point that they cannot cause trouble anywhere in the body.
- When the liver as a “checkpoint” and as “shredding” machine fails to properly perform its functions , some of these waste are passed unto the lungs, kidneys, intestine and the skin for elimination. Thus, respiratory challenges such as asthma may have their roots in the failure of other eliminative organs to function properly. Each ailing eliminative system, therefore, through its element(s), bear testimony to the failure of the liver.
- All skin problems, as indeed some types of headache have this common ancestry. It is often reported that when the skin is visited by a larger load of toxins and waste than it has capacity to deal with, the negative reaction is seen in skin blemishes and eruptions we often ignorantly seek to dismiss while applying skin creams and/or lotions. But when we do this, we fare no better than one who tries to block the flow of a flood or river. The water would change its course. Thus, the suppression of skin eruptions such as psoriasis could divert the flow of toxins and waste to the lungs, for example, possibly causing asthma and other respiratory disorders.
As our forefathers said, the night fall, whose coming we witness, cannot terrorise us. This means we saw our way around in day time and should, therefore, pick our way around fairly well in the dead of the night. By extension, the disease with an origin we can trail has lost its sting. In other words, as we sighted the environment before darkness fell, we are able, safely, to pick our way through the dark. By extension, this means, if we know the origin of a disease, the remedy is to walk backwards on the path we trod there. Thus, still, if how we got to psoriasis was a weakened eliminative system which impacted the skin, we only need to clean up this system and detoxify it, to end the terror unleashed on the skin. We must begin this arduous journey with the liver. I say arduous because wide spread opinion is that psoriasis is incurable. Wasn’t this said of cancer, too?
The liver
Regular readers of this column should know our starting point, when it comes to detoxification of the liver. I always like to yield the platform to Dr. Max Gerson, of blessed memory. He bequeathed to us The Gerson Therapy. One of his principal weapons against terminal cancer bedeviled with chemotherapy and radiotherapy was Organic Enema Coffee. This coffee is not edible.
As you would find on-line in The Gerson Therapy conversations, organic coffee is boiled, allowed to near body temperature and then let through a tube into the anus from where it finds its way to the hepatic portal vein, and, from there, into the liver. Inside the liver, the organic coffee solution stimulates a range of responses which flush out accumulated toxins and waste into the alimentary canal and, from there, to the colon and rectum. Faecal matter, which may have been wedged in or stuck to the internal walls of the intestine, is hacked down or dissolved or flushed out in clumps. Repeated exercises, as Dr. Gerson reports in his works, including 50 cases of hopeless cancers and skin challenges such as tuberculosis of the skin were healed via the Gerson Therapy.
Gerson Therapy may be supplemented with other liver supplements such as Carqueja, Milk Thistle, Jerusalem Artichoke, Dandelion, Maria Trebens Bitters, Garlic, Onion, Bitter Kola, Basil, Bitter Leaf etc. When onion is in season, I eat one medium size raw on an empty stomach in the morning and at bed time. It is high in sulphur, which is cleansing and detoxifying. Eating onion this way has been reported by some readers of this column to help their prostate glands decongest. As we clean out the liver, we must decongest the colon, lungs and kidneys as well. Fiber-rich supplements, such as Slippery Elm and Psyllium Seed Husk are good for the colon. So are proprietary supplements such as INTESTINAL CLEANSING and Weight Control, AMAZON DIGESTION SUPPORT and Maria Treben Bitters. The kidneys may profit from Red kidney bean pod tea, Water melon seed tea, Corn silk tea, Aloe vera, Cranberry and proprietary blends such as Kidney Rescue. We cannot wave aside the notion that dehydration of the skin may be a major cause of psoriasis.
A re-hydration therapy is therefore suggested. There are many herbs around us. Water melon fills us up, so does pear when it is in season. Pawpaw does the same. Vitamins A, C, and E support skin health. So do Zinc, Selenuim, Beta carotine and Diatom, among many others. With respect to skin health, we are returning more to Mother Nature. I have seen people who bathe with potato soap and who cream up with sea cucumber. Shark liver oil contains not only Omega 3 fatty acids, which are anti- inflammatory, and better in this regard than chemical steroids and cortico-steroids. It comes also with SQUALENE, which forms about 15 per cent of the weight of some species of cod fish. In humans, Squalene is distributed ubiquitously in every tissue for their protection against free radical and oxidative damage. But the greater concentration is in the skin.
There, it probably functions as an anti-oxidant against singlet oxygen free radicals and prevents skin oxidation by ultra-violet rays from the sun. Mrs Mojisola Agbeyangi, in her 60s, and a member of the KUSA GREEN PASTURES health chat group, who wanted to know why a woman in her 80s should develop psoriasis, may now see a possible answer to this question. As we age, our bodies produce less of the substances which keep us young and agile and able to prevent or throw off many health assailants, including psoriasis. Squalene has been found useful against cholesterol damage of blocked vessels in the heart, and against cancer in the breast, ovaries and the colon. This fatty substance is found also in plants, bacteria and fungi where it is used to produce hormones, enzymes and steroids. Nowadays, commercial production of squalene is facilitated by plants such as Olive, Amaranth, Soy, Maize etc.
Orange peel
This is a cheap but nevertheless effective natural medicine for many purposes, as this column always says. It is anti-inflammatory and anti-histamine, two qualities which recommend it against asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory challenges. I wish to limit myself today to orange peel benefits for skin health. When it is eaten raw alone or with a meal, it is often discovered that the complexion of the skin becomes lighter, the skin is smoother and more supple. It has been widely reported, also, that adding the powder of orange peel to body creams, makes such creams clear blackheads, acne, freckles, eczema and even erase some scars. So, I wonder if adding orange peel to the diet would not be helpful in psoriasis. I crave your indulgence to over-step my promise and quickly add that orange peel in hair creams make hair grow longer, thicker and stronger and prevents baldness. But what I believe will gladden the hearts of many people is that orange peel is a good natural recipe for diabetes, yes diabetes!
When I rose from my desk on Monday I went straight to the internet to check if I could still find photographs of THE TREE MAN there. There were. Please search for the tree man. No knowledge is lost, we may learn from the lesson THE TREE MAN teaches us to take better care of our health, especially skin health. Many of us host the Human Papilo Virus (HPV). While speaking with a well-dressed pretty young woman a few years ago, I noticed in one of her inner-cheeks a ring of puss-filled sacks which Yoruba traditional medicine practitioners call OWO-ENU or coin in the cheek. Indeed, the ring is like the rim of a coin. The infectious agent responsible for this ring is HPV. Many women bear it in their genitalia as well. I felt sorry for her and her boyfriend. Trust me. I told her what I saw without mincing words