INTERVIEW BY MANDINGO WITH PROFESSOR DR. CHARLES SSALI AT HIS RESIDENCE ON
TUESDAY 6TH JUNE 2
Mandingo: Greetings! Ujambo! Dr. Professor Ssali!

Prof. Ssali: Ujambo saana, Brother Mandingo!
Mandingo: Asante saana. And, as an African from Uganda and I am an African from Jamaica, so what we have in common despite the different locations in terms of our birth is our Africanness. Could you tell us when and where you were born and what are your medical qualifications?

Prof. Ssali: I was born in Uganda and I qualified as a doctor in 1961. I later on came to the United Kingdom and did post-graduate study as a surgeon and qualified as a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons – Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Specialist and I went back to Uganda. That is where I was later on appointed Professor of ears, nose and throat at Makerere University. This is my background and it is in Uganda that I started the work of research in various problems that faced Uganda at that time and later on moved to the United Kingdom and stayed in London for 15 years and during this period of my stay in England, I did research that resulted in the discovery of Mariandina Treatment for various conditions including AIDS, HIV, DIABETES, LUPUS and many other diseases. This is now a well established treatment for these conditions.
It is the same subject that I am trying to bring to other people’s awareness in various parts of the world so that all Africans in the diaspora can benefit from this preparation which is based on the knowledge of nutrition.
Mandingo: So, your treatment is based on a knowledge of nutrition?
Prof. Ssali: Yes! For all people to be in good health they must be nourished properly. The food they eat is what makes them healthy or sick. If you eat the wrong food you become sick, if you eat the right food you keep healthy because it is the food that builds the immune system that fights disease. Anyone who has a weak immune system will always have infections, always have diseases, or they fall sick because of a defeated immune system. Take for example, diabetes, which comes because we have eaten the wrong food – taken white sugar instead of brown sugar and we have probably indulged in fast foods, used artificial sweeteners and all things of that nature.
By destroying the nutrients in the food we eat, we begin to lose the sharpness of the immune system to fight disease. That also applies to LUPUS. LUPUS which first comes about because the immune system has been disorganised by vaccination and additional problems like drug abuse or not necessarily drug abuse, but the use of drugs which may be prescribed by a doctor but for too long a period creating a confusion in the immune system.
These other diseases like SICKLE CELL ANAEMIA are genetic. But, people get sickle cell crisis because they have lacked in certain nutrients that is why when you supply those nutrients the crisis – the attacks of pain do not happen in that patient.
So, Nutrition can rectify our illnesses. If you are sick and you take the right food in sufficient quantities, the disease that you may have been suffering from may disappear. And this applies to even diabetes but you can correct your disease condition by supplying the nutrient that you require to kill the viruses or bacteria in your body. This is why herbal medicine is very effective. It just provides the Nutrition that a person needs to fight off the disease. It strengthens. The herbs of various types strengthen the immune system; others provide the nourishing requirements of the body like vitamins and minerals. That is why herbs growing in various parts of the world have different medicinal value. A good example is Ginseng. The Korean Ginseng is different from Siberian Ginseng and Chinese Ginseng is also different from other types of Ginseng. If you do not grow it in the right place it will not gather the right minerals, the right composition of enzymes in its leaves or its stem or its roots. So, that is why the people using all these nutrients are looking for the composition the plant was able to make in a particular location. And this is to provide a nourishing effect of those nutrients to the body so that it can build its own forces of the immune system. This is why Nutrition is so important.
And even Cancer. We get Cancer either because we have either not taken the food that would have prevented that Cancer or we have taken toxic substances that removed the nutrients from our bodies, leaving us liable to Cancer. A good example is Cancer of the Stomach. Cancer of the stomach usually attacks those people who have suffered from Peptic Ulcers. A person who has peptic ulcers is one who does not eat vegetables and fruits in plenty. You do not get peptic ulcers if you are eating the right foods. It is those people who usually abstain from eating greens and fruits, and concentrate on foods that are starchy like potatoes, yams, sugars and things of that nature who are liable to get peptic ulcers. And because they do not eat the right goods they do not heal those ulcers. They lack the healing power of those foods. The absence of those nutrients makes those ulcers cancerous. They become malignant, they change into CANCER. These people think that they developed the Cancer because of some other reason when in fact it is because they were eating the wrong foods. So, to cure that you provide the right foods and the ulcers will clear. I have always treated my patients who suffer from peptic ulcers by advising them to eat raw foods like vegetables and a lot of greens or if they have to cook their greens, they should only cook them or steam them for a short time so that the NUTRIENTS are not killed and we have all to realise that in plants, there is also life and the life in those plants is from the Sun. A combination of the sunlight using CHLOROPHYLL, in the green of the plant and the water and the mineral of the soil will compose in that plant, the nutrients that will form the ‘Spare Parts’ of our bodies.
So, we have to get the nutrients from the plants and the fruits to be able to replenish our bodies, getting them the spare parts, the right enzymes, the vitamins and the minerals from the soil that would provide us with good health.
That is the importance of NUTRITION!
Another point which a lot of people have neglected in Nutrition is the fact that drinking is important. For as long as you drink the right thing. If you concentrate on drinking beer you are not going to provide yourself with the fluids that you need. You need water in its original state. Spring Water or Mineral Water is alright. But if you think you are taking a great amount of water by drinking beer or wine or just taking juices, you are not doing the right thing. You have to drink sufficient water so that the body can rectify its condition as far as Nutrition is concerned. If the body does not get enough water all the impurities and artificial sweeteners and all the preservatives you took in your food will stay in your body. And those artificial sweeteners like those you get in fizzy drinks and chewing gums are detrimental to the body and are a source of disease in our bodies. So, you need water to flush them out. To do this, it is necessary to develop correct habits in using drinking water to cleanse our bodies of impurities. When you get thirsty, the body is crying out for water. But we do not have to be thirsty first before we drink. We must drink water routinely in the morning, at noon and in the evening so that by the end of the day we have drunk at least 2 litres of clear plain water. Then you will know that you are providing your body with enough water and you are not forcing it to store up impurities in your body fat.
Many people become fat because they have impurities. The fat which they have got, will be used as storage depots for these impurities, which they themselves have consumed in their food. This is why it is a bad idea to use things like ‘Diet Coke’ as a slimming or dieting aid. This will only add weight to you because the Diet Coke will create hunger in your stomach that will force you to eat more and more until it becomes a routine. Every time you take a fizzy drink, you are likely to feel hungry soon after that. It is because the artificial sweetener does not provide the glucose that the tongue thinks is being taken. So, the brain thinks you have taken in sugar and then only to find there is no sugar. By doing this, the brain sends out the message for insulin to be made available to handle the sugar when in fact there is no sugar to handle! So you feel hungry because you must have sugar, then you eat something else and that way you get fat or you put on weight. This is the misnomer of dieting.
Mandingo: Thanks very much. What is your advice about drinking water from the tap? Should we boil it first?
Prof. Ssali: Yes, it is important to boil water for as long as it is obtained from a tap because most of the tap water you get has been treated probably insufficiently by the authorities that are responsible for the water supply. So, as you know very well, in many cities the water supply is contaminated by the sewage works of those cities and a lot of other organic matter which is from pesticides in the neighbourhood of the farming areas – this is added to the water that is normally collected for consumption in the cities. So you need to boil it to reduce the risk of contamination by bacteria and the reduction in some of the impurities that you can burn off or can be boiled out. It is even more important to do so to avoid infection which may be carried by water in the tap. This is the importance of our careful consideration of what we drink before we drink it.
Mandingo: So, boiling the water for our tea should be pretty sufficient in terms of the quality of that water?
Prof. Ssali: Yes. When you boil water for tea you are sure that most of the bacteria have died during the boiling, but you have also to remember that the cup you use for the tea must also be clean, the spoon must be clean. All things that you are going to drink should be clean. One or two bacteria getting into you stomach will not cause any problem because of the immune system. As long as you are feeding yourself properly. Eating or a few bacteria is not going to be that harmful. It will be handled by the immune system and is not going to cause disease in you. It is when the immune system is defeated as occurs in AIDS which is Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome then the person will be infected by very simple bacteria including fungi and candidiasis which can affect you in the mouth because the body has no defence against even the weak bacteria, or fungi or viruses. That is why people die of AIDS because they begin to get infections from very simply organisms which normally do not infect people. And because they are not normally considered infectious, they are very difficult to treat because the antibiotics normally used against the other bacteria will not be effective against the simple organisms which we call commensals or which just inhabit your skin but are always around you and you do not have to worry about them. We have no antibiotic against them but they can kill an individual whose immune system has been weakened. All these bacteria can live with us as commensals or just parasites. You can benefit from them and they can benefit from you. Some of them can manufacture some vitamins for us in the gut and the antibiotics you take for other diseases cannot kill them, so they stay in your gut. But if your doctor starts prescribing antibiotics which are so sophisticated and with such a broad spectrum that they can include (in their spectrum) the commensals, those useful bacteria that normally benefit the body, and you kill them with long usage of antibiotics, then you will become sick because you needed the bacteria you killed off in the gut. Then you will fall victim to other invading bacteria which were being kept off by the friendly ones in the gut.
Mandingo: Before we deal with the question of AIDS and HIV what about the problems of Prostate and Testicular Cancer especially amongst African men as it is being stated in the European Press? Could you also offer some advice about Breast Cancer?
Prof. Ssali: Yes. Prostate Cancer is becoming a problem in modern Africa because we have adopted the lifestyles of Western countries where prostatic cancer and prostatic enlargement were a common problem in medical circles. The reason why it is increasing in Africa is because we have come off the traditional foods we used to eat. For instance Yams contain zinc – a lot of zinc – and this zinc is a mineral which is very vital in the formation of a powerful immune system. It is processed by the thymus gland in the neck and all the lymphocytes which are at the forefront of our defence are processed through the thymus gland using zinc which is necessary for an enzyme like the thymocin hormone. So all these important points which we have neglected in Africa are relevant. We have started to cook our food too much, killing off all the nutrients in our diet. We have started taking white sugar instead of brown sugar or raw sugar. (Do not take brown sugar because it is brown, because some of these brown sugars are just coloured with caramel and they are not really nutritious. You must take raw sugar, raw cane sugar because that is what has got all the nutrients we call molasses when we separate them from the crystallized sugar. The molasses which carry the necessary vitamins and minerals. Zinc, selenium, copper and iron are all in the molasses and vitamins A, B, D and E are all in the molasses which, by the way, we give to the pigs to feed them so that they grow properly. We need them more ourselves.
However, we do not know how much damage we do to ourselves by eating white sugar. And not only do we develop diabetes with it but we also develop cancer. This is because those minerals are responsible for fully forming what we call anti-oxidants in our bodies. The molasses and vitamins in food such as vegetables and fruits are all full of anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants are valuable in that they clear from the body the free radicals that will damage our body cells. These body cells damaged by free radicals can change into cancer or die off and become aged. We grow old because of those free radicals damaging our body cells so that they can no longer reproduce themselves in the same state as they were, so they produce a poor quality cell when they reproduce. That makes it an older cell than the one which was there before.
Mandingo: What are these free radicals that are so important in the ageing process?
Prof Ssali: The free radicals that are most important – for example – hydrogen peroxide: Hydrogen Peroxide that is produced in the body is the same as the one you use to bleach your hair! But the hydrogen peroxide, when produced in the body cells as a by-product of metabolism when we burn sugar using oxygen which we breathe in, helps to generate energy. When we make hydrogen peroxide as a by-product of our metabolism we also produce nitric-oxide and carbon-dioxide and many impurities. All these can be got rid of if we have the nutrients from the foods. If hydrogen peroxide stays in position for a long time, without it being cleared away, by the use of the nutrients like Vitamin C or Vitamin B complex or any other vitamin then the hydrogen peroxide starts to cause damage to the body tissues including the cell that produced it and that leads to a leakage of the enzymes that are contained in those little structures that we call mitochondria. When the enzymes leak out because of the damage, which by the way is equivalent to iron rust, because oxygen is released from the hydrogen peroxide and it is that free oxygen which leaves water because the hydrogen peroxide is H202 When you remove one oxygen, you remain with H20 and that is water. So, the other oxygen which is free to fly around will cause the rusting in the body cells that will cause a damage similar to iron rust that you get in everyday experience when you add water to iron and then add oxygen. That same rusting effect will damage the body cells from the same oxygen and the oxygen there is called the free radical or reactive oxygen intermediary because it is released and it damages the body cells causing ageing. The ageing process happens because the cells are so damaged that for the lack of the anti-oxidants which would have removed those free radicals the body cannot have the nutrients that it requires to build new viable cells. So, it produces poor quality cells as a replacement. That is, an older cell looks older. This is the reason why people with HIV/AIDS grow older very quickly and they show signs of wasting and thinning and the skin roughens up and the hair falls out and then they become emaciated and they lose appetite, feeding even less and in that way they find themselves at the verge of death. This is because their immune system is so depleted that every disease infection can attack them and it kills them in the end.
So that is the free radical effect.
And in order to avoid that we can consume the nutrients of which Vitamin C is one of the most important but we must remember that it must be the natural Vitamin C not one that has been genetically engineered. Because the one that is genetically engineered like that which we find in some genetically engineered foods – that type will be unusable because it is made the wrong way. It is only a ‘mirror image’ of the right type because when you pass light through Vitamin C which is made by genetic engineering, it will turn light to the left but if it is natural Vitamin C, it will turn light to the right. This is the difference.
A lot of people buy vitamins from health shops that are not guaranteed to be from natural products in which case they cannot benefit from them. These can even prove to be toxic to them. It is better to look out for natural vitamins.
Mandingo: What are the sources of Natural Vitamin C? Also, is it possible to obtain molasses or real sugar whilst in England or the USA?
Prof. Ssali: The source of Vitamin C is Citrus Fruits and vegetables like Broccoli, Cucumber and all Cabbage. They are all full of Vitamin C – nearly every fruit has Vitamin C. However, the most important source of this vitamin are all citrus fruits eg. lemons, oranges etc and mangoes and tomatoes. The colour of the tomatoes is very important. It is the same colour found in carrots. That is known as Beta Carotene which is important in the body as a vitamin. It is from this you will get Vitamin A. And that is very important as an anti-oxidant. It defends the body. A person who eats a lot of carrots will not usually develop cancer because Vitamin A is Anti-Cancer. It will prevent the formation of cancer cells. This is because cancer cells are those which cannot break down sugar using oxygen in what we call a Metabolic Process using Krebs Cycle. That is if sugar is in the body cell, it is banked using oxygen and energy is generated. That is the normal process we call Metabolism. But where the free radical we talked about – hydrogen peroxide – has been neglected, the person has not been taking nutrients and/or the person has been using drugs, smoking, using contraceptive pills, using alcohol in excess.
Mandingo: So, contraceptive pills are dangerous?
Prof. Ssali: Yes, yes they are dangerous because many of our sisters who use contraceptive pills routinely or Dep-provera Injections are likely to develop Cancer of the Breast and Cancer of the Womb because these are “foreign� hormones. Because when they are put in the body they take up a lot of the nutrients that would have prevented the cancer from forming. So, that leaves the free radicals that go and damage their body cells. When the body cells are damaged then they damage those little compartments we call Mitochondria where the metabolism takes place where sugar is being burnt to produce energy using oxygen. Then the production of those hydrogen peroxides as by-products continues because the person has used up the anti-oxidants which would have removed them. In that way, the free radicals remove the rusting.
Mandingo: Please tell us about Ferric Oxide.
Prof. Ssali: Yes. For iron the by-product is ferric oxide. In the body the damage is reflected in the body cells. And the damage is done to the Mitochondria which kills the enzymes that would help you to fight disease and destroy it. And the enzymes that you need for body metabolism to convert sugar into energy using oxygen are damaged. In which case the cell is left without any means of generating energy. So it resorts to fermentation.
Fermentation is the process used in beer brewing. This beer-brewing is not suited for the body. So, when the body cells start to ferment, for energy purposes – to generate energy by fermentation – then it is changing into a cancer cell. All cancer cells use this process form (except on a very small scale) to do metabolism using oxygen and sugar. However they can grow without the normal metabolism that is why they can outgrow all other cells by the use of fermentation as well as metabolism of oxygen and sugar. Using this method they outstrip the other normal cells in energy production and thereby outgrow and kill the other normal cells. This is what we call CANCER.
In order to reverse that process, in our research we used Herbs and Nutritional Supplements called Mariandina A and Mariandina J. And in this way we repair the damage done by the free radicals. And we remove, with those nutrients, the free radicals that would be circulating in the body to create more damage and in that way we allow those cells to recover their original function of metabolism so that they revert back to the production of energy using oxygen. In this way we cure Cancer!
So many cancers can be treated and cured that way because the principle is: “You restore the function of the body cell from fermentation to metabolism using oxygen and sugar for energy production�. These herbs we have put in Mariandina J and in Mariandina A are anti-oxidants and they can do all this and they can also prevent other viruses from attacking the cells like Hepatitis B can be stopped by Mariandina J in one (1) week. We have surprised some hospitals in this country Britain where the doctors were observing some people with Hepatitis B and they thought they were going to die, then we gave them Mariandina J and then they recovered within one week, the jaundice disappeared and their liver function restored and they returned to normal to the surprise of the doctors because they had never seen anyone recover so rapidly from Hepatitis B and this is also true for other conditions where we have used Mariandina A including Lupus.
Lupus is a condition where the body is being attacked by its own immune system. The immune system which has been confused by vaccination starts to attack the very person it is supposed to defend by destroying his kidneys, the heart, the body cells and skin and hair and all these structures start to degenerate. So the person dies early.
Mandingo: But when you see Mariandina A, then you find that the body’s immune system is restored to normal and Lupus is defeated. Am I right in saying that Metabolsim and Fermentation are opposites whereby Metabolism is a natural health breakdown of food while fermentation is destructive decay?
Prof. Ssali: Yes, they are 2 different processes. Both of them can produce heat as energy as a product of that process. In the 2 processes you produce heat like when you brew beer and you ferment it using yeast you always produce heat and even wine is produced like that by fermentation. So the same process can take place in a body cell.
It is the sugar (glucose) which you ferment to get alcohol. So the same process takes place in the body which lacks in the necessary enzymes to breakdown glucose by using oxygen because this is a long process – we call Kreb’s Cycle – it is a long process of enzymes that are required called ATP changing into ADP – Adinosene Tryphosphate to Adinosene Diphosphate. This is Metabolism.
But this does not take place in fermentation. It is a different process and this is why it is producing abnormal cells in a body. It is destructive in that it gives generation of cells that are not behaving normally in the body and it produces lactic acid cancer.
Mandingo: Where in England can we access molasses or the real sugar that we need because it is sometimes difficult to get the right sugar?
Prof. Ssali: Yes you can access the right sugar in Britain. But, as I said beware. Do not just buy brown sugar. Once you see that it is crystalline, in the same shape as white sugar, then that is coloured sugar but the raw sugar is very fine crystals which are not the same crystal size as the white sugar.
That is the difference and that raw sugar has all the vitamins and minerals. You do not go for the molasses because they do not taste good. You can take them, you can eat them if you mix them but they will taste somewhat metallic because of the loads and loads of minerals in them. Iron is in there so you can take molasses but it is better to take the sugar cane.
Mandingo: So, when we go to the supermarket, the right sugar to look for is the fine-grained brown sugar as opposed to the large-grained brown sugar which is similar to white sugar? Is that the distinction we should know about to be able to choose correctly?
Prof. Ssali: That is the main difference. Also the colour is somewhat different. The raw sugar – the real raw sugar – is more brownish/yellowish colour or orange colour as opposed to the brown caramel colour which you find in the supermarket brown sugar. The brown sugar that is not real will flow freely from a bag whereas the raw sugar does not flow from its container. So that the crystals are very fine and they stick together. The unreal sugar is course crystals of white sugar which have been made brown by artificial means. So that is the difference and by using this other sugar, you are not benefiting at all. You have the same problem as one using the white sugar. And this is dangerous.
The experiment has been carried out many times when mice were fed crystalline white sugar and within a few weeks they died. And those that were fed with raw sugar did not die. So that is the difference.
People who work on sugarcane plantations do not develop diabetes when they eat sugarcane. But those that take the white crystalline sugar are the ones that develop it. So the absence of molasses can cause diabetes. If they are present then the diabetes does not develop.
Mandingo: Yes, thanks for that and as you said earlier, in terms of cancer – prostate cancer, testicular cancer and other forms of cancer, the eating of yam and what other food products is very good in avoiding cancer?
Prof Ssali: If you generally eat vegetables which are not overcooked you will avoid cancer and you will avoid many diseases depending on where you live. If you live in the West Indies, you have loads and loads of fruit. Eat those fruits. Whether they are mangoes, pineapples or citrus fruits like oranges, any type of fruit is beneficial to the body and what the Creator ordered. He said “Eat of the fruits of the trees and the vegetables thereof�. This is the way the Creator wanted us to eat. He wanted us to eat food as he made it. Not with sweeteners and additives. All these are mistakes we have made ourselves. By adding additives like preservatives to our food we depreciate our own immune system.
Mandingo: To make money?
Prof. Ssali: Yes, to make money and most of these fizzy drinks have been designed to generate thirst and hunger so that the people are tempted to take more, increasing the amount of artificial sweeteners and preservatives in their bodies. People are becoming more and more aware of the dangers that lie in taking too many fizzy drinks. They are reverting to drinking just plain water and natural fruit juices. They are nutritious and can be consumed in plenty with water to help flush out impurities from the body.
Naturally-growing foods contain minerals which are needed in our bodies.
Our bodies appear to have the same composition as the earth: There are minerals, water and organic material in the soil in the same way as they are in our bodies.
Mandingo: And of course there are 2 sides, the good and the bad side, according to how we treat the soil?
Prof. Ssali: Well, let us just say if a human being was made from the soil, he was well made from the good soil!
We are the ones causing damage! Good soil combined with water. The sun produces good plants which can regenerate life. People should nourish their bodies and increase their lifespan. We have reduced our lifespans by our own stupidity.
If we look at the example of monkeys. The monkeys have the same viruses that we are now dying from. SIV40 will be found in monkeys and the claim is that the virus came from the green monkey, which I doubt very much. The monkeys do not die of AIDS. They have had this virus for years. This is because they eat green leaves and fruits all the time!
We, on the other hand, tend to confine ourselves to eating sandwiches, hamburgers, hotdogs! Foods that have been over-processed. We, sometimes, eat the most revolting types of foods:-
1. over-cooked;
2. devoid of all nutrients due to radiation;
3. full of additives, colours and preservatives; and,
4. grown with chemicals and artificial fertilizers, with pesticides sprayed all over it.
These all add up to the prescription of our own destruction!
Mandingo: Could you please tell us about the danger of genetically modified (GM) foods?
Prof. Ssali: It is extremely important to avoid Genetically Modified foods. By genetic engineering, we alter the nature of the food. Anything genetically engineered is not made-to-measure for consumption and use by the body. Some of the genetically engineered foods were not originally seedless. Now they are, like some citrus fruits. They were not designed so originally.
These genetic changes can make a human being sterile! Because of your original understanding of their composition, you are given a false sense of security about them. When in fact they are inadequate in their composition and therefore contribute to a reversal not a promotion of your productive health.
This is what we call the TERMINATOR GENES being incorporated in food such as peas and beans (corn) and maize. When you incorporate a Terminator Gene in maize, it will not grow again after the first crop is produced. If you plant what you have harvested it will not grow! So, you have to go back (to Monsanto) to buy more seed!
This is commercialization of a natural product which was meant to be freely available. Now it can only benefit a few greedy individuals who have decided to hoard the Regenerative Gene! It is a gross injustice to genetically modify food in this way!
Anyway, when you eat the Terminator Gene and it gets incorporated in your body cells, and even into your Reproductive System, it will terminate your genetic progene and you cannot or can no longer reproduce yourself. If you do get children of your own, you will not be able to get grandchildren. Your children will have been rendered sterile!

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Professor Charles Ssali