Natural Health

Cleansing virtue of the common cold

Kavita Mukhi

Often I would have sneezing fits. At other times my nose and eyes would itch and I would sniffle making life very difficult, if not impossible. Although my family wasn’t given to pill-popping, and doctors were kept at bay, I don’t know how I discovered this modest little pill that made me feel well in a matter of minutes.

Subsequently as I grew older and wiser and read about alternative medicine, I realised that if I built my immunity I would become resistant to allergies. All I needed to do was get to the root cause of the problem and then find the solution. It also dawned upon me that if an acute illness’ root cause rather than symptom is treated, it won’t develop into a chronic problem.

Easier said than done, especially when there are conflicting opinions on what is the root cause. Blaming germs, viruses or heredity rather than taking responsibility for one’s indiscreet habits is the easy way out. Therefore if after 23 years of study and lifestyle changes, I have once again resorted to popping Avil, I can’t help but attribute it to Mumbai having become more polluted than when I was a teenager.

Recently the company I work for rented additional space to accommodate extra stock. I was meant to use that office for research and writing and to be closer to the workshop. This was post the July 26 floods in Mumbai and hence the walls were still damp. Therefore we left the fans on, windows open, and plastered on a fresh coat of paint. All seemed well until few days after I began work in the new office, I found that four feet from the ground upward, the walls had turned black. The next day the black patch developed into a mouldy fungus. Each time it was cleaned, it would reappear. A week later, after years without allergy attacks, I became the girl with the handkerchief all over again.

Anyway this went on for two weeks. Everytime I couldn’t tolerate the allergy (about once in two days) and felt frustrated about not being able to give my best at work, I would pop the pill, against my better judgement. At the end of two weeks, the allergy gave way to a full-fledged cold and whatever may have been irritating my respiratory tract was finally able to find a way out.

This sequence of events culminating in a full-fledged and most welcome cleansing reminded me that catching a cold every once in a while is beneficial and sign of a healthy body, a body that is concerned enough to cleanse itself. Indeed I am convinced that if a child does not catch a cold at least a few times a year, she will be prone to asthma and/ or other respiratory ailments. Which fits in totally with the belief of symptoms being a signal for cleansing and prompting us to acknowledge the body’s simple and natural needs. If we don’t heed such messages then symptoms become complicated chronic problems which need complicated medical treatment.

In any case the best defence against allergies is to build immunity. Being intolerant of shell fish, eggs and certain types of mushrooms is a real problem because these foods are ubiquitous. When people say they have been tested for or know that they are allergic to foods like sweet lime or tomatoes, i.e simple fruits and vegetables, improving health enables the same foods to be tolerated better. Just as no germ or virus can make you ill, so too simple foods should never be a problem.

Similarly, latest research by a team at Manchester University, UK, indicates that the longer a child is breastfed, the lower the risk of her becoming intolerant of gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. It might be that a child is merely exposed to less gluten during weaning if he/ she is being breastfed. Alternatively, breastfeeding protects by preventing gastrointestinal infections in an infant, which can weaken the lining of the bowels and allow gluten to pass deeper into the gut than usual. Of course the immune cells from the mother found in breast milk may be also what protects against gluten intolerance.

It is good to know outcomes of important health research. But isn’t it already clear, as in all things, that nature’s way is always the best? Breastfeeding is the best and only sensible way to feed your infant, be it for nourishment, immunity, intelligence or emotional bonding.

In sum, even the simple cold with all its mess and ugliness is a blessing in disguise and inevitable in a stress-filled life. If we acknowledged it as such, we’d welcome it and live with it, at best trying to abate its symptoms with home remedies. As is well known, a cold lasts seven days with medication and a whole week without. Doctor Keki Sidhwa, a natural hygiene doctor in the UK says if nothing works better than aspirin… take nothing!

(Kavita Mukhi is a Mumbai-based eco-nutritionist and director of Conscious Food)