The Tribune

By DR KENNETH D KEMP

GROWING up on a remote family island with limited access to traditional western medicine led many indigenous Bahamians to find alternative natural cures for their medical ailments. Colloquially, this natural alternative in both topical and oral formulations is referred to as “bush medicine” and in many instances, relying on the knowledge of which plant treated which illness could mean the difference between life and death and battling a prolonged and critical illness or enjoying a quick recovery.

For many Family Islanders, what grew on the bush and was boiled or steeped to make tea was not a casual power drink but a matter of survival. Today, even with the unfettered availability of traditional medicine in island inhabitants, bush medicine is still readily used throughout the Bahamian diaspora particularly among the older generation.

One such patient, hereafter referred to as Cecily, has consumed bush medicine since she was a child. Now aged 90, she attributes her strength, energy and good health to the bush tea that she consumes daily.

Cecily lives on one of the Family Islands and in fact when I called around 5.30pm to interview her for this report, she told me she wouldn’t be available until after ten that night because she was about to walk out the door to meet with some friends.

Cecily has no medical problems, is not on any medication and has never undergone surgery. She has an incredibly active social life and tells me she has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.

Cecily’s older sister is 96 and she also consumes bush medicine daily. Their grandmother was born in 1861 – the year the Civil War in the United States started.

Growing up, they spent a lot of time with their grandmother so the tradition of making bush medicine was indoctrinated into them and passed down from one generation to the next. Never a fan of the bitter taste of bush medicine, Cecily prefers a less potent form referred to as bush tea and she drinks a cup made from sugar cane leaf daily.

The difference, as I’ve been told, between bush medicine and bush tea is in the preparation. Once the appropriate leaves are collected, Hibiscus, Fever-grass, Five-fingers, Neem, Cerasee and Moringa being among the more popular varieties, they are washed.

For tea preparation, boiling water is poured over the leaves and it steeps for at least five hours but preferably overnight.

Bush medicine is stronger and notably more bitter so its preparation requires that the leaves be placed into a pot with water and slowly brought to a boil. Once it begins to boil, the pot is removed from the heat and then steeped for approximately ten minutes before consuming.

Proponents of bush medicine and teas suggest that among many other benefits, the various preparations aid in blood sugar regulation as well as helping to control blood pressure and cholesterol. Soursop has long been touted as a treatment for cancer, papaya for wounds and sugar cane leaf for liver disease, improved digestion and to fight infection.

To the best of my knowledge, no formal long-term scientific studies have ever looked at the effect of bush medicine on various conditions.

Unfortunately, until a well-respected institution leads this study and publishes positive findings to the effect, regardless of the universal growing appetite for more natural therapies, bush medicine will likely never be considered a mainstream treatment option across the globe.

Should it occur, a private-public partnership to establish a bush tea industry will benefit all parties involved. It will, for example, limit this country’s reliance on imported pharmaceuticals and ease the burden on the healthcare sector by offering at home natural low-risk treatment options for a population ripe with co-morbidities.

A theory in medicine, more popular in Canada than the US, suggests that the acid-alkaline PH balance of the body is the absolute most significant factor in determining one’s health. I believe that bush medicine throughout the Caribbean has stood the test of time because what it’s essentially doing is detoxifying the acid in the body and making the PH more alkaline, thus allowing the body to fight various illnesses more effectively.

Researchers suggest that to maintain optimum health, the body has to be in a slightly alkaline (7.4) PH balance. This is the perfect environment for organs to function at maximum efficiency and best produce hormones for immunity to fight disease. The PH scale runs from 0 to 14, where 0 is extremely acidic, 7 is neutral and 14 is extremely alkaline (or basic). Each number is ten times higher or lower than the next. The acid in a car battery has a PH of 1 so, for comparison, it is 10 times more acidic than PH 2 and 100 times more acidic than PH 3. Coke soda has a PH of 2.5.

Therein lies the problem; everything that we eat can alter this delicate PH balance. Our body naturally adjusts and tries to maintain a perfect acid/alkaline balance environment primarily via the lungs and the kidneys.

Unfortunately, those organs and buffer system become overwhelmed when we consume too much acidic foods like sugar and artificial sweeteners, soda, fried foods, coffee and msg (found copiously in Chinese food). Conversely, the most basic/alkaline foods, among others, include apples, berries, spinach, kale, cucumbers, salmon, almonds, decaffeinated green tea, sweet potatoes, avocados and broccoli.

So, imagine a Bahamian who drinks two cans of soda daily, eats a donut, downs it with a cup of coffee laden with sugar, then gobbles fried food for lunch, and ignores or eschews the fruits and vegetables that would at a minimum help to neutralise the acid ingested.

Diseases thrive in a system that is feeding them exactly what they need without the healthy alternatives that would at least help to counter the impact.

The acid-alkaline theory has been intently debated in medicine for years with detractors stating that it has a negligible effect on disease occurrences or the severity thereof. Nonetheless, if there is even the slightest merit to the argument, it will help explain the effectiveness of bush medicine in the treatment of various illnesses.

As alluded to earlier, bush medicine has equally been met with criticism from members of the medical community. The dilemma and uncertainty exist in the absence of scientific evidence based on studies of the impact of bush medicine on different groups of subjects, its relevance, if any, in combating, averting or lessening the severity of certain conditions or diseases, and whether there are variances according to age, gender, genetic predisposition. Nor has a study ever been conducted on dosing.

With the benefits of improved health and successful ageing come disadvantages, not the least of which are emotional.

Cecily has outlived her beloved parents, husband, two children, countless friends from her youth and 12 of her 13 siblings.

She thinks of them daily and mourns their loss profoundly but the greatest manner in which she can honor their memory is to enjoy life and celebrate the happy times that they shared. So that’s exactly what she does. When others see her, they’re reminded of all the people that Cecily has lost and they begin to share stories about her loved ones. While listening to those stories, she experiences the same warmth in her chest that she gets from drinking hot tea and it makes her smile.

So, patients like Cecily don’t care about formal studies and dosing investigations. What she cares about are what her parents and grandparents have taught her. She doesn’t know exactly how or why bush medicine works or what properties in it help to improve her health but, in her own words, there’s something in the tea that makes her better and that’s all she needs to know.

This is the KDK Report.

• Nicknamed ‘The Prince of Podiatry’, Dr Kenneth D Kemp is the founder and medical director of Bahamas Foot and Ankle located in Caves Village, Western New Providence. He served as the deputy chairman for the Health Council for ve years and he currently sits on the board of directors for the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation in his role as co-vice-chairman.