Veronique

Three days ago, a friend of nearly 30 years died. This friend was a 100% raw foodist, grew much of her own food , and was very active. Amongst her peers she was considered as exemplary in her lifestyle. She was 60 years of age.

This is the story of her passing as I know it. About ten days prior to he death she developed, strong pain throughout her whole body. She then decided to drink only vegetable juices for a few days. As after four or so days no change had occurred, she then decided to drink water only. There was still no change till eventually she was so incapacitated that she was unable to care for herself in any way, and no-one was available to assist her she was hospitalized.

The hospital could find no cause. They were consulting with others worldwide to try to find a solution. One hour prior to her death, she was diagnosed with Lymphoma of the Bone. They claim that it only developed in the last few weeks – that is that it only manifested itself in that time.

For a few weeks prior to her death she had been eating raw cacao beans, which to my knowledge, she had not been doing previously. At the time she commented to a friend that she was not feeling so well and must have over-done it on the cacao beans, and would require to eat lightly for a while.

It is my considered opinion that the eating of the cacao beans, whilst not being the only factor involved, was sufficiently harmful to push her over the edge.

For a further insight into the factors that may well have contributed towards her death at this early age, it might be of interest to note that she was heavily into social drugs for many years of her early adult life, and at one stage had cancer of the lungs, which she successfully survived. She was a single mother, and estranged from her only son, as well as being estranged from her parents . they still being alive. The path she had chosen in life was not an easy one, yet through it all I never knew her to be depressed, or essentially unhappy. I am sorry that I was unable to be with her at this time, as we lived over three thousand miles apart. Her passing was/is a sad loss of a dear friend who was always there to assist whenever needed.

Knowing her, I feel sure she would wish that we should be happy for her, that her suffering was short and brief, and to hold a wake being joyful and happy for having known her, and had the pleasure of those, only too short years.

Exercise and Heart Disease

New Evidence: Exercise Helps Heart Disease, Increases Survival Better than Angioplasty

by S. L. Baker, features writer

(NaturalNews) At the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation meeting recently held in Barcelona, Spain, new heart research was presented that shows one treatment in particular can provide remarkable help for patients with certain forms of serious heart disease. It's not a new drug or surgical procedure. Instead, it's a natural therapy -- plain old-fashioned regular exercise.

In fact, in several studies just presented at the meeting, exercise reduced the markers of heart disease in patients following coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). What's more, it improved indications of disease in people with heart failure, a condition usually thought to be incurable and often just treated with symptom-relieving drugs. But the news that's perhaps most likely to make some interventional cardiologists' hearts skip a beat or two was the evidence presented that showed that exercise improved cardiac event-free survival in coronary patients better than angioplasty with stents.

Also called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), angioplasty is commonly used to help people with coronary artery disease whose arteries are narrowed and even blocked by a build-up of sticky plaque. By threading a thin tube through a blood vessel in the arm or groin, interventional cardiologists perform angioplasty to restore blood flood through a clogged artery. A tiny balloon at the end of the tube is inflated when it reaches the exact spot of blockage. That pushes the plaque outward against the walls of the artery, restoring blood flow. A small metal device called a stent is also carried by the tube and deployed at the site of the blockage in order to prop open the artery.

This approach to treating heart disease is a huge business. A report in Bloomberg News last fall noted that about 800,000 angioplasties are performed each year in the U.S. at a cost of about $10 billion annually. And, although many cardiologists consider angioplasty to be the "gold standard" of care in most types of acute coronary events such as heart attack, the procedure's long term benefits have been questioned by many doctors. In addition, the role of angioplasty in treating other kinds of coronary disease, like angina, isn't clear.

To help shed light on this issue, researchers at the University of Leipzig in Germany conducted a study to compare the event-free survival rate in 101 stable angina patients. Research subjects with the condition were divided randomly into two groups. Each group was treated with either a regular exercise program or with angioplasty.

The results, just presented at the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation meeting, showed that after five years of follow-up, the study participants who went through exercise training had a better event-free survival rate than those treated with stent angioplasty. In the exercise group, 63 percent of patients had survived, free of cardiac events. However, only 40 percent in the angioplasty group had survived without cardiac problems (which included heart attack, stroke and death).

Two other studies released at the Barcelona conference also back up the idea that exercise can often help even patients with very serious heart problems. Research by Dr. Tomasz Mikulski and colleagues from the Medical Research Centre in Warsaw, Poland, showed that aerobic training using an exercise bike not only improved the physical fitness of cardiac patients following bypass surgery, but also reduced their cholesterol levels and markers of inflammation (which are associated with heart disease).

Dr. Marcus Sandri from the University of Leipzig presented data showing that a moderate exercise program daily for four weeks improved the function of endothelial cells in patients with heart failure. This is important because endothelial cells, which line the circulatory system, are associated with the progression of heart disease and heart failure when they don't function properly.

No improvement was noted in the control group of heart failure patients who did not exercise. Dr Sandri noted in a statement to the media that the beneficial effect of exercise was seen as much in older subjects as in younger. "The effects of exercise were not diminished in our older heart failure patients which suggests that exercise as a treatment might be just as effective in older patients as younger," he explained.