Oxygen and Oxygenation

Many cancer patients have poor oxygenation of their blood. Low hemoglobin, clumped red blood cells (rouleau), infections, and toxicity can affect oxygenation, vitality, and health. The picture to the left vividly demonstrates how impossible it is for the red blood cells to circulate and transport oxygen. From a health perspective, this condition is an accident waiting to happen.

 

Symptoms:

The symptoms of poor oxygenation include pallor and fatigue, poor circulation to the extremities (cold hands and feet), and sometimes dizziness or mental fuzziness. The psychological symptoms are subtle: lack of fortitude, an easy sense of defeat, conviction that the effort needed to do something cannot be made, vulnerability, and perhaps even some disorientation.

Cellular Respiration

It is generally understood that cancer cells do not have normal cellular respiration. In simple terms, this means that they derive their energy from fermentation—break down of tissue—rather than oxygen. In the absence of oxygen, cells weaken or die, or they may mutate into something more primitive that can survive without oxygen. Initially, the tissues that are lacking sufficient oxygen may be cooler, but as the "terrain" becomes more compromised due to deficiency of the requisite oxygen and nutrients, the devitalized tissues may break down. The area may then become acidic and hot. It is not unusual for the site harboring a malignancy to be several degrees warmer than a healthy part of the body.

Causes of Oxygen Deficiency

There are many reasons that tissues become oxygen deficient:

• the air breathed may be devitalized;
• the individual may not breathe deeply enough;
• there may be too few red blood cells;
• the red blood cells may be too clumped together to circulate properly;
• the erythrocytes may be too compromised to perform the work of transporting oxygen

Deformed, infected, and hemoglobin deficient red blood cells are incapable of proper oxygen transport.  If you watch live blood in a microscope, you can observe countless conditions that would account for the oxygen deprivation experienced by various tissues of the body.

	Rather normal sample.  Note that no red blood cells are clumped together.  All are quite round and approximately the same size.  None are deformed or misshapen.  This is not a perfect example of healthy blood, but it is definitely "not bad."  This photo is not from a cancer patient.
	This patient was undergoing chemotherapy, but the picture was taken during a pause between rounds.  Nevertheless, you see how irregular the red blood cells are.
	This patient also had breast cancer, but she had a severe fungal infection inside the red blood cells. She had surgery for the cancer.
	Yet one more breast cancer patient.  She had mold in her plasma (and in her home).  She also has a condition of malnutrition of the red blood cells (shown by bull's eyes inside the cells).
	One more breast cancer patient.  She had toxic metals and fibrin, some clustering of red blood cells, a few weak cells, but no real infection. She had opted for an entirely natural approach to her treatment, one involving mainly homeopathic remedies.

It has taken me years to develop the eye that sees what to address in the blood so I do not expect everyone reading this to have a sudden "ah, ha" experience and attain instant enlightenment.  This said, many people are more visual than literal so pictures speak to those people; and I am sure that given a choice, most would prefer blood that looks more like the top photograph.

To understand the need for high quality blood, keep in mind that the red blood cells transport nutrients as well as oxygen to all tissues of the body.  Then, they collect waste materials and carbon dioxide and discharge this payload in the lungs.  Obviously, this makes the lungs highly vulnerable to disease.

Red blood cells circulate in plasma, a straw-colored liquid that should be a bit alkaline.  Plasma is 90% water and 10% dissolved substances, mainly protein plus some electrolytes and hormones—all crucial to health. It's important to understand that the quality of the plasma corresponds directly to what is ingested, including medicines, herbs, supplements, and food. Plasma becomes more acidic when breathing is shallow or slow. My observation of live blood suggests that erythrocytes are acutely sensitive to chemical changes, toxins, and other substances and life forms in the plasma.  Harsh chemicals can cause damage to both the red and white blood cells, but the red blood cells are practically helpless when they cannot escape a hostile condition in the plasma in which they are suspended.

Structure of Red Blood Cells

Let's look at these cells.  They have an outer membrane whose quality is affected primarily by the oils ingested because this membrane is comprised mainly of lipids.  In experiments with patient groups in Europe, I found that changing the oil made a visible difference in the red blood cells in as little as 24 hours.  My impression is that ghee is the best form in which to ingest lipids.  Unfortunately, I have not had an opportunity to study all oils.  Most European patients are quite oil conscious and they were generally using extra virgin olive oil, often with flax oil as a supplement.  The work of Johanna Budwig is widely known in the German-speaking world so many patients were consuming quark with flax oil.  A few were also taking black cumin seed oil.  When I proposed switching to sunflower oil or ghee, all exhibited improvements.  The red blood cells were rounder, less vulnerable to bacteria and tiny parasites, and they seemed to move better.  It would be wonderful to be in a situation in which such observations could be made over longer periods of time, but the opportunity has not yet presented itself to me.

 

Thanks to the ability to observe the blood before and after various dietary and supplement changes, I have some thoughts that are not readily found elsewhere.  For instance, the Ayurvedic theory is that the first tissues to be affected by food and medications are the liquid components of the body.  This makes implicit sense.  We know that alcohol goes into the blood stream fast.  However, if you want to gain (or lose) weight or increase muscle mass, you expect the changes will take longer.  Likewise, you know that even after tipping the bottle a little too much, you will probably recover in a few hours.  In fact, I have seen changes in the blood in as little as 20 minutes following ingestion of a remedy.  Moreover, even someone with blood in the condition seen on the bottom picture can improve extremely rapidly with just a juice fast.  The improvement is practically immediate, and the blood will tend to look quite marvelous in three days.  For those who are curious, try juicing predominantly fresh green (organic) vegetables.  If the appetite is weak, strain the juice so there is very little fiber but lots of nutrients.  Be sure to consume the juice within minutes after juicing.  Drink as much juice as you like, but do not eat any normal food.  Be sure that your bowels are working properly.  You can be very creative with juices.  Use a little basil because it contains O7 which breaks down in separate oxygen molecules.  Parsley and ginger stimulate the stomach to perform its work better.  Cucumbers are cooling, too cooling for some people, but they are cleansing.

When the patient is parasitized, there can be anemia due to the amount of blood consumed by the invaders.  Body chemistry can be severely affected by parasites, but once you see them eating, you have a completely new appreciation for the word "anemia."  Likewise, mold tends to lyse red blood cells.  People with severe mold infections may be cold and deficient in the nutrients needed to maintain health.  Only after you have seen this live can you really appreciate some of the factors undermining the tendency of the body to heal itself.

Infection is a little different.  It tends to disturb the membranes of the red blood cells so the cells stick together.  If you watch this in live blood, you see the white blood cells cleaning the surfaces of the red blood cells.  The red blood cells will sometimes turn as if to say, "Lick me here, now here."  Then, they move off and another asks for help.  They move much better after the white blood cells have rendered this service so the last thing one wants to do is compromise the ability of the white blood cells to perform their work efficiently.

I have developed tonics for virtually every condition I have observed, but I prefer to provide these through practitioners who are monitoring patients and making sure that they are taking what they need.  This said, there are some readily available blood tonics that you can find in some health foods stores.  Floradix makes a tonic called Iron + Herbs.  It's very fine quality but a little slow acting.  Tang Kwei Gin is a traditional Chinese tonic, very fast acting but not quite so superb.  When I make a comment like this, I am referring to the quality of the herbs used and the processes used to make the tonics.

I formulated one very general tonic using Tibetan goji berries.  These have been researched in conjunction with cancer, including patients undergoing conventional therapy.  I added herbs that are known to be effective with chemotherapy:  milk thistle to protect the liver, hawthorn berries for the heart, astragalus for immunity, galangal for digestion and assimilation, and cinnamon bark for taste and stimulation of the secretion of gastric juices. Most people have been ordering the dried berries, but I believe these are much harder to assimilate than the tonic.  Other people are ordering Tang Kwei Gin, which is inexpensive, but sometimes very difficult to source.

I have another very general formula for supporting the rebuilding of hemoglobin.  It contains yellow dock and uses molasses as a carrier because molasses contains so many trace minerals and almost nothing improves the appearance of red blood cells like good quality minerals.

Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2006