This piece is about its gentler, less well-known companion: myrrh. We all know the story of the Magi, travelling from afar, bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh. It’s actually pre-Christian, so we can all share!

All three substances have significant health properties. Yes, even gold. It’s used homeopathically as aurum met. and it is good for cardiac arrhythmias.

Myrrh is a resin that comes from trees belonging to the genus Commiphora, notably Commophora molmol, which grow in Northern Africa and the Middle East. The sap-like substance, which has a unique sweet and smoky aroma, has a wide range of uses.

Myrrh resin

Here are some notes from the Department of Medical Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The origins of myrrh and frankincense are traced to the Arabian Peninsula. According to Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC): “Arabia is the only country which produces frankincense, myrrh, cassia, and cinnamon… the trees bearing the frankincense are guarded by winged serpents of small size and various colors.”

Diodorus Siculus, in the second half of the first century BC, wrote that “all of Arabia exudes a most delicate fragrance; even the seamen passing by Arabia can smell the strong fragrance that gives health and vigor.”

He also mentioned gold mines so pure that no smelting was necessary!

The frankincense trade route, with transport by donkeys and later by camel caravans, reached Jerusalem and Egypt from the Dhofar region of what is today Oman, through Yemen, turning north to follow the Red Sea coast.

It is likely that the same or similar species of the resin-bearing plants grew across the Red Sea in the area that is now Somalia and Ethiopia, while the collection of the gum resins was initiated in Arabia.

As an aside, I have long written that the actual ORIGIN of the so-called “Spice Route” was actually in modern-day Sri Lanka. That’s where cinnamon was grown in ancient times and not Arabia, as Herodotus mistakenly reported (he never went as far as Sri Lanka, the head of the trail). From Sri Lanka—which the Arabs called Serendib, giving us our word serendipity—supplies went up the Arabian gulf and ashore in eastern Arabia.

Myrrh And Human Welfare

Myrrh contributed much historically in human welfare. Schistosomiasis was known in ancient Egypt since remote times. It affects over 200 million people in 74 countries and territories worldwide (WHO, 1999) causing several chronic complications. A characteristic symptom, haematuria (blood in the urine) with urinary bladder disturbances was mentioned in four Papyrus papers dated back to 1950-1900 BC, and Schistosoma eggs were detected in a cirrhotic liver of a mummy from 1200 BC (Ruffer, 1910).

Also, Fasciola eggs (liver fluke) were detected in a mummy. Flukes infect over 17 million people worldwide causing marked morbidity and mortality.

Treatment of fascioliasis required high or drug multiple doses often with unpleasant side-effect (Farid et al., 1990). In schistosomiasis, praziquantel (PZQ) in use for more than 20 years but was not very effective and was accompanied by potentially severe side-effects.

Well, it turns out that Myrrh and 200 related species does better, has almost no side-effects and is rather cheaper!

Myrrh acts as a natural remedy to treat pain, skin infections, inflammatory conditions, diarrhea, and periodontal diseases. In more recent history, products derived from Myrrh and various other species of Commiphora are becoming recognized as possessing significant antiseptic, anesthetic, anti-parasitic and antitumor properties.

So, the ancients were getting it right!

Very recently, studies have focused on applying clinical trial methodologies to validate its use as an anti-cancer therapy, an antiparasitic agent, and as an adjunct in healing wounds.1

Liver Protection

A study published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology found that myrrh emulsion was able to protect against lead (PbAc)-induced hepatotoxicity.

The authors of the study concluded that myrrh (Commiphora molmol) emulsion is a “powerful antioxidant” that can “protect against lead acetate-induced hepatic oxidative damage and immunotoxicity by reducing lipid peroxidation and enhancing the antioxidant and immune defense mechanisms.2

Antioxidants are thought to help neutralize oxidative stress in the body that is caused by environmental pressures, such as pollution, and other factors.

Generally, our livers need all the help they can get in this toxic day and age.

Cosmetic Value

A study from 2007 in France examined the impact of two types of antioxidant on sebum (a skin compound) and the effect of UV (sun) irradiation. The first type was free radical scavenger (BHT (butyl hydroxyl toluene if you are interested) plus an olive extract. The second type was the essential oil of Myrrh.

The results showed that Myrrh was the most effective in blocking the unhealthy decomposition of sebum, called squalene peroxidation. As a result, the researchers called for sun care cosmetics to include this and similar compounds.

Possible Anticancer Properties

A group of Chinese researchers revealed that extracts and compounds from Myrrh resin may be effective against human gynecologic cancer cells. Their findings were published in the Journal of Medicinal Plants Research.3

Inflammation

Pain is inflammation.

Myrrh has long been used in parts of Asia as a traditional medicine for inflammatory diseases. In 2015, researchers published results of a rodent study indicating that it may help treat inflammation linked to rheumatoid arthritis (RA).4

In 2017, scientists published results suggesting that frankincense and myrrh might help relieve neuropathic pain, following positive results when treating pain in mice with a water extraction of frankincense and myrrh.5

A Very Special Place

Have you heard of “The Land Of Frankincense” Dhofar, in Oman, a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

Harvesting the precious resin in an annual event in March and now thousands of visitors go each year. Myrrh has been grown here too, since ancient times.

At the height of the Roman Empire, Dhofar was exporting immense quantities of frankincense, myrrh and other oils, by ship to Yemen and thence up the Red Sea, and by camel caravan overland to Petra and the Mediterranean. Astride that caravan route, at the southern edge of the vast Empty Quarter, lies the fabled port of Ubar, lost in the desert for over 1,500 years and rediscovered less than 20 years ago by a team led by British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

See? A pain-free visit, even for non-Christians!

Your Wide-ranging Journalist Doctor Friend… Ha ha!

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby

The Official Alternative Doctor

References:

1. J Egypt Soc Parasitol. 2008 Dec;38(3):763-96.

2. Exp Ther Med. 2016 Aug; 12(2): 730–738.

3. Journal of Medicinal Plants Research Vol. 5(8), pp. 1382-1389, 18 April, 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/JMPR

4. Sci Rep. 2015; 5: 13668.

5. Neural Plast. 2017; 2017: 3710821.

In the USA alone, there are 17,000 cases waiting for a liver transplant.

Western Diet Strikes Again!

The Western Diet creates a myriad of problems and fatty liver disease is yet another epidemic that is preventable and reversible!

Roughly 20% of U.S. citizens have this problem.  Many more might not even realize it because unless inflammation is present (which results in long-term damage to the second largest organ in your body) you might not exhibit any symptoms of fatty liver disease!

Until actual damage occurs, you might have no clue and that means your liver could be irreparably destroyed before you know you have a problem.

Mild discomfort around the abdomen and fatigue are the most common complaints for the average case.  Inflammation can result in loss of appetite, rapid drop in weight, nausea, and fatigue.  If the fat content of your liver is higher than 10% then you have a fatty liver.

What Causes a Fatty Liver?

There are two primary types of fatty liver disease.

Alcoholic Liver Disease (ALD) is caused by alcohol abuse.  Even a short period of “binge” drinking can lead to acute alcoholic liver disease.

If you have poor nutrition, suffer from obesity, or have hepatitis C – your risks of developing a fatty liver from alcohol consumption are much higher.

Fatty liver is a problem for more than 90% of those who regularly consume alcohol.

Then there is Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), which is essentially too much fat in the liver.  In the United States, this is the most common form of liver disease. 

Though the specific cause for NAFLD is unknown, researchers have been able to pinpoint certain risk factors.

• Family history of liver disease
• Autoimmune disorders
• High cholesterol
• Diabetes
• Persons older than age 50
• Obesity
• Hepatitis
• Poor nutrition
• Acetaminophen use (also known as Tylenol)

How to Prevent This Silent Killer?

Taking care of your liver is essential to your life.  As with most total body wellness, it comes down to choosing the lifestyle that makes every component of you stronger every year.

• Treatment of alcohol abuse or limiting alcohol consumption.
• Maintaining a healthy body weight – focused more on body fat percentage than pounds.
• Controlling blood sugars with a greater emphasis on vegetables, lean proteins, and fiber.

The majority of NAFLD cases don’t lead to liver failure if caught in time and the patients actively work to relieve their fatty liver symptoms by changes in diet and exercise.

If you’d like to know more about the detox centers of your body – the liver and kidneys – and how to keep them in tip-top shape, check out my book “Love Your Liver!” right now! Get your copy today!

Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll find inside:

• Learn to understand the function and workings of these two critical organs (liver and kidneys), how to keep them in tip-top health – what to do and why!
• Eliminate two major causes of early death global wide.
• The #1 threat to your liver (it’s not what you think) accounts for over 50% of cirrhosis cases, alcohol is just 5%!
• Discover 19 super liver feeding nutrients and why they are important.
• Get the top 5 herbal liver supports (and how to make your own in your kitchen).
• Find out where the real toxic sources are coming from in your life and how to eliminate them for a longer life with a healthy liver!

Many of you aren’t fully awake until you’ve had your morning coffee. Some of you might even have family and friends who have learned – for their own safety – not to approach you until they’ve seen you down a cup or two.

Surprising new research has emerged that shows not only can coffee improve your morning disposition; it can also improve liver function and overall health.

This is actual science, not propaganda put out by the shadowy coffee bean cartels.

Ode to the Liver

While not as beloved as your brain, your liver is responsible for more than five hundred bodily tasks. The most important of these is filtering toxins and dead cells from your blood. Every time your heart beats, twenty-five percent of your blood is being cleaned.

Your liver is a crucial organ and is even capable of regenerating itself. A parent can donate half of their liver to a child needing a transplant and both parts will grow back into complete, fully functioning structures.

Many of your body’s most important processes happen in your liver:

• Waste products that your kidneys cannot handle are removed.
• Bile is created which helps break down fats and metabolize crucial fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, F, and K.
• Excess hormones are eliminated and electrolyte balances are maintained.
• Glucose levels are balanced.

Fascinating, you think as you refill your cup, but what does this have to do with my coffee?

The Other Liver Disease

The answer is wonderfully simple science. A new study conducted by the Duke University School of Medicine along with researchers form the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School has indicated that increasing your intake of caffeine can reduce fatty liver in individuals with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease affects between twenty and thirty percent of the population. Untreated, non-alcoholic liver disease can lead to inflammation and scarring of the liver.

The symptoms are similar to its cousin cirrhosis, commonly caused by alcohol abuse. The only cure for a liver this far gone is a transplant.

Avoiding Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Until recently, the only options to treat NAFLD were the old standbys of a balanced, low-fat diet and exercise. The options expanded with the Duke University Study.

Along with improving liver function, coffee and caffeine intake has been shown to reduce the risk of fibrosis in individuals with fatty liver disease.

However, though caffeine is good to treat NAFLD and improve liver function, the delivery system is crucial. One of the jobs your liver performs is cleaning out toxins such as the chemical dyes and artificial sweeteners found in sodas.

There are literally hundreds of studies attesting to the dangers of sodas to your overall health – whether they are diet or not.

Coffee and tea, especially green tea, are excellent choices. They’re natural and contain few artificial ingredients. The goal is to help your liver, not to give it more work.

Consider your morning coffee a dose of daily medication. You take it for your liver. Having a fatty liver is linked to obesity and increases your risk for type 2 diabetes. All you’re doing is protecting yourself.

That’s what you tell anyone who dares question you.

Your morning cup of java can serve as far more than an eye opener. It can aid in keeping many dreaded medical conditions away and improve liver function.

Of course, coffee alone isn’t the answer to staying fit. Healthy diet choices and exercise are important and necessary to living a longer, stronger life.

We won’t discuss these things until after you’ve had your coffee.

Your liver normally has fat in it, but if that fat level rises above 5-10% of the liver’s weight, you may be diagnosed with fatty liver disease.

Alcohol was long thought to be the sole cause of a fatty liver disease but recent studies have shown that other factors – including diet and genetics – raise your chances of developing this disease.

What Causes Fatty Liver Disease?

Could you have fatty liver disease? 20% of the population in the western world does. Our sedentary lifestyles and poor nutritional choices have a great deal to do with it. Prescription drugs and painkillers are difficult for your liver to metabolize and can be a contributing factor as well.

If you’re concerned about your liver, consult with your doctor.

He may order a liver function test, an ultrasound, or refer you to a hepatologist [a liver specialist]. The appearance of certain symptoms may warrant a visit with your physician.

• Nausea and indigestion

• Fatigue

• Inability to lose weight

• Excess abdominal weight

• Excessive sweating

• Hyperthermia (overheating of the body)

• Pain in the area of the liver

While none of these warning signs is definitive of a fatty liver, if you’re experiencing more than one – especially if they are not going away – you should consider making an appointment.

What can you do if you suspect you have fatty liver disease?

If you drink regularly and/or heavily, this is the first habit to confront. Alcohol has been proven to damage liver cells and cause inflammation. While one or two glasses of wine a day have proven health benefits, you should consider avoiding hard liquors.

Watch your carbs! If you’re on a healthy diet, the chances are high that you already avoid processed foods, white bread, and anything packed with preservatives and refined sugars. A diet rich in carbohydrates can cause fatty liver disease by converting simple carbs into fat.

Start reading those food labels! Flour-based foods contain many carbohydrates so consume them in moderation. Foods to keep in mind as high-carb selections include breakfast cereals, rice, pasta, bread, chips, and fries. Even if the food you’re eating isn’t made of flour often, it’s mixed with or coated with it.

Your mother was right: eat your fruits and veggies! They’re some of the most powerful healing and cleansing foods and are crucial to liver health.

The liver is your body’s filter but even it can get overwhelmed. Think of a dirty filter in your car or vacuum cleaner. Fruits and vegetables help clean and repair your liver so that it can remove toxins from your blood more efficiently.

In my book Love Your Liver, I’ll share with you 19 super liver feeding nutrients and explain why they are important (but of course…you don’t need to take all 19 at once!)

There are many ways to add fruits and vegetables to your diet. Try raw vegetable juices. It’s a great addition to your breakfast!

You need fats and protein! Natural proteins such as meat, eggs, nuts, and seafood stabilize your blood sugar, reduce hunger, and aid in weight loss. You can easily cook these up in healthy fats like olive or coconut oil or consume them with raw nuts or seeds.

Deep fried foods are bad for your total body health and have been proven to contribute to fatty liver disease. Along with your liver, your entire system will thank you for limiting fried foods – or eliminating them all together.

The liver is your chief “detox” organ. It eliminates environmental poisons. If your liver didn’t continually remove metabolic trash and toxins from your blood, you would be dead in a matter of days!

No matter how you look at it your liver is a mighty organ and crucial to a healthy life. Click here to find out how to love your liver today.

It may get boring, being right ALL the time! But then, you want to be able to trust what I say, I suppose?

So what am I feeling smug about this time?

Liver health; non-alcoholic liver disease (NAFLD). It’s getting worse, as I predicted. Thing is, if you heard me speaking, introducing my essential liver health guide, you might remember I teased a little by saying that alcoholic cirrhosis accounted for only about 6% of liver disease and deaths.

There was something that killed many more people and many more people were doing it to themselves…

Well, the secret answer was obesity and NAFLD. I quoted a statistic that over 50% of mortality from cirrhosis was caused by obesity leading the liver damage. That’s pretty grim.

But a brand new study shows it is MUCH worse than the figures I had available. In data presented at the International Liver Congress in Berlin, an analysis of responses from 39,500 adults, researchers found that by 2005-2008, this proportion had risen to 75.1%.

Also, the results showed that, as it stands today, the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease has doubled from 5.51% to 11%. If that trend continues for another 20 years, the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is expected to increase by 50% by 2030.

That means 1 in 7 of the population gambling away their health and destroying their livers.

“Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is fast becoming one of the top concerns for clinicians due to the obesity epidemic and its potential to progress to advanced liver disease, which significantly impacts on overall liver-related mortality,” Mark Thursz, vice secretary of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, says in a news release. “This data highlights a serious concern for the future, and the enormous increasing health burden of NAFLD.”

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is associated with obesity, insulin resistance (prediabetes) or diabetes, high blood pressure, and elevated blood fats.

Thursz says there is a need to continue to inform the public of the risks of obesity and the importance of diet and exercise. Well, I’ve done that, in the form of a compelling eBook laying it all out for you in simple terms.

I’ve covered just about everything relevant you can squeeze between two covers.

You can learn more and get yourself a copy of the “must have”: information here:

http://www.informed-wellness.com/liver-kidneys

(It’s packaged together with an equally great book on kidney health)

[SOURCE: International Liver Congress, Berlin, Germany, March 30-April 3, 2011].

Fatty liver is a common liver condition that occurs in over one-third of adults in the U.S. and with similar alarming frequency elsewhere in Western societies with poor diets. In some cases, the condition is mild and causes no noticeable symptoms, but in other cases it can lead to permanent liver damage or liver failure.

Fatty liver is frequently associated with alcoholic liver disease, but it may also have non-alcoholic causes.

You do NOT want a fatty liver. You need to get me eBook on liver health: “Love Your Liver”. It’s coupled with a similar super eBook about kidney health (kidney disease is arguably the 4^th leading cause of death). More on that at this page: Liver and Kidney Health

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)

Contrary to belief, alcohol is NOT the main cause of liver failure (only 6%); NAFLD is (over 50%)!

Moreover it has now emerged that fatty liver will likely trigger an even bigger killer: diabetes. Diabetes, I have often said, is really “speeded up aging”; that’s pretty much the effect is has on your body.

In a study to be published next month (Apr. 2011), researchers found people with fatty liver disease were significantly more likely to develop the disease within five years than those with healthy livers. Fatty liver, as diagnosed by ultrasound, strongly predicts the development of type 2 diabetes regardless of insulin concentration.

Researchers say fatty liver often occurs along with other risk factors for diabetes, such as obesity and insulin resistance, which has made it difficult to determine whether the condition itself is a marker for diabetes risk.

But in this study, the researchers found that even among those with similar insulin concentrations, those with fatty liver were still 200% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

This was a large study carried out in Korea andpublished in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Over the space of five years (2003- 2008), researchers looked at the relationship between fatty liver and diabetes risk in 11,091 adults.

At the start of the study, 27% had fatty liver, as diagnosed by ultrasound. Nearly two-thirds of those with fatty liver were also overweight or obese compared with 19% of those without fatty liver.

In addition, almost half of those with fatty liver had seriously raised insulin levels, a marker of insulin resistance (pre-diabetes), compared with 17% of those without fatty liver.

During the follow-up period, less than 1% of those without fatty liver developed type 2 diabetes compared with 4% of those with fatty liver.

[SOURCE: Sung, K. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, April 2011. Pre-publication]

This article is also posted at www.alternative-doctor.com