126 Achieving pH Balance to Treat Specific Ailments
Christina’s life took an unexpected turn for the better thanks to a
chance encounter. Sitting in the waiting room of her doctor’s offi ce, a
fellow patient told her about a folk remedy for asthma used in the rural
areas of Puerto Rico: grapefruit juice mixed with peeled and fi nely
chopped aloe vera, a cactus-like plant found in supermarkets and gro-
cery stores in Hispanic neighborhoods. Christina was open to this
suggestion, she said, because the side effects of the anti-infl ammatory
steroid hormones she was taking—painful joints, the swelling of her
entire body, and dizziness—were worse than the drowning sensation
she felt when she was having an asthmatic attack and couldn’t catch
her breath. The same day she was told about this herbal concoction
Christina made a fi ve-gallon container of it. She has not had an asth-
matic attack since she began drinking the aloe vera mixture sixteen
years ago.
Before she began using aloe vera, Christina, like most people with
asthma, used antispasmodic inhalers when she had trouble breathing.
Just a few sprays open up the air passages in the lungs. But those asthma
patients who rely most heavily on inhalers run twice the risk of dying.
Two studies conducted in New Zealand and Canada documented the
dangers of bronchodilators.^1 These statistics became real to me when
Jacob, a friend, died from overuse of an inhaler. Jacob pulled his inhaler
out of his pocket whenever he wheezed. One day it didn’t open up his
breathing passages. He had used it once too often. With no one around
to rush him to a hospital, he died.
The high mortality rate of regular users of inhalers indicates they
can lose their effectiveness. The inhaler (bronchodilator) is also dan-
gerous because it gives sufferers a false sense of wellness. Relieved when
the inhaler has given them their breath back, they don’t realize that
their bronchial tubes and alveoli (air sacs) are still infl amed.
Doctors have become increasingly concerned about lung infl amma-
tion that is chronic in individuals who have frequent asthma attacks.
Not only does infl ammation make the lungs more prone to future
attacks, but it eventually causes lung tissue to deteriorate. This has
changed the medical profession’s perception of asthma from a disease
that strikes periodically and is largely a problem during childhood to
one that is chronic and lasts a lifetime. The current practice is to rec-
ommend medication—corticosteroid hormones—on a continuing basis
for moderate and severe asthmatics.