An African Healer Goes to Roots
To Get Our Blood Right
by Frederick B. Hudson
Irene Nassambra had given up. Although she came to the United States in
1999 looking for opportunity her health had steadily failed. She was born
with the sickle cell disease but had no symptomatic problems with it in her
native Uganda.
But since coming stateside she experienced tremendous bouts of weakness
and pneumonia. Doctors in Massachusetts treated her with hidroxurea, a common
drug recommended for the malady; this only resulted in further weakness and
her hair fell out. After she became so weak that she could not hold a glass
of water, physicians suggested that she move into a nursing home.
Ms. Nassambra saw this as a death sentence. She reasoned that if she were
dying, she would rather expire near a friend who would know how to contact
her family in Africa for a proper funeral. She moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma this
October. She heard of a clinic there that had experienced remarkable success
in treated cases like hers.
Then the miracle came. Dr. Oji Agbai had started his Natural Health
Research institute after he noticed that sickle cell clients who were
aymptomatic in Africa and Jamaica often suffer severe painful crisis such as
those experienced by Ms. Nassambra within a few months after arrival in the
U.S. What was the cause?
"What I found was nutritional differences. Food that is eaten here is
very different from what is found in Africa. I began to link it to diet."
What he found was that African and Jamaican people consumed many foods
rich in a natural substance called thiocyanate, an anti-sickling agent found
in African staples such as the African yam, cassava, millet and sorghum.
Holder of a Ph.D in biochemistry and nutritional science from Clayton
University in Clayton Missouri as well as a Doctor of Naturopathy from the
Clayton College of Natural Healing in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Agbai's work
received national and international attention in 1986 when his solutions were
published in the Journal of the National Medical Association. The native of
Nigeria has since spoken at many national forums promoting his continued
research.
But back to Ms. Nassambra. Within a few days of treatments with oral
doses of dioscovite, a substance containing both thiocyanate and iodine and
adherence to a diet prescribed by Dr. Agbai that featured foods rich in the
miracle substance, she has regained her strength and is looking for
employment. In the tradition of the African village, Dr. Agbai did not just
treat her as a patient-he took her into his home as cared for her as a member
of his family.
Sickle cell anemia is an inherited predisposition in which large
proportions of red blood cells began to change. The sickle cell trait
carrier produces an abnormal form of hemoglobin, the component of red blood
cells responsible for transporting oxygen from the lungs to the tissues. The
abnormal hemoglobin, called hemoglobin S, distorts red blood cells after they
release oxygen in the tissues.
 These distorted cells are called sickled cells because of their resemblance
to the sickle, a type of crescent-shaped cutting blade used in agriculture.
The sickled shape makes it difficult for these cells to pass through tiny
blood vessels, resulting in intensely painful blockages that prevent vital
oxygen and nutrients in the blood from reaching organs and tissues, impairing
their function. As a result, sickle-cell patients are also vulnerable to a
number of infections.
Dr. Agbai's recent book, Sickle Cell Anemia: A Solution at Last, features
the case of a 29 year-old female sickle cell anemic client who had been
almost given up as hopeless by traditional medical practice. Prior to Agbai's
nutritional therapy, the patient was near death because she was not able to
receive any blood transfusions in the hospital because she was incompatible
with all blood units due to antibodies she had built in response to other
past transfusions.
After five days of consumption of the special recommended foods and juices
the patient's hemoglobin rose with from 3.0 to 6.8 grams %. The normal value
of this indicator is 12-17 grams %. Her weight had improved, her appetite had
been restored, and her health begin to recover dramatically.
Agabi's work is not merely conjecture and self-serving testimonial-he
cites many peer reviewed studies in biochemistry to support his findings as
well as his own scientific methodologies in testing his hypotheses.
The book makes the point that the sickle cell hemoglobin gene evolved as
a protection against malaria which once was a devastating trait in warm
climates. Agbai cites the universal wisdom from his Igbo heritage that nature
similarly provides nutritional thiocyanate to protect sickle cell clients
from anemia symptoms. In the words of many Sunday morning preachers: "the
Lord doesn't give you anything you can't handle!" Anthropologists have
frequently noted that other cultures outside the Western Hemisphere have used
time not to rush through life, but to reflect with hope that all problems
have solutions.
This brother has taken the treatment of a serious malady to task. To home.
To victory. To our roots. We are indeed what we eat.
For further information about this research, please contact the National
Health Research Institute at 918-583-3842.
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