Determination of the natural and artificial radioactivity of a selection of traditional Mexican medicinal herbs by gamma spectrometry

Knowledge of the Stress-Health Link as a Source of Resilience Among Mexicans in the Arizona Borderlands

Mexicans who migrate to the United States endure significant stressors related to the migration process and social and environmental conditions of life in the United States. Given that chronic stress exposure has been linked to the onset of health conditions, these ecological factors may expose them to increased risk for poor health. However, Mexicans have many positive health outcomes compared to those monitored nationally, making it crucial to understand possible sources of resilience in this population. Here, we investigate Mexicans' lay health knowledge in response to stress as a possible source of health-related resilience. Health knowledge is considered a central facet of practical and traditional knowledge as well as adaptive modes of intelligence and has a tangible impact on health. Using an ethnographically grounded community-based participatory research design informed by the theory of embodiment, our hybrid team of bilingual university and community-based researchers interviewed Mexican-origin residents (N = 30) living in rural southwestern Arizona about how they experienced and responded to stress and incorporated it into their etiological frameworks. Thematic analysis revealed that participants paid close attention to how stress presented itself in their bodies, which informed their understanding of its potentially harmful health impacts and motivated them to employ multiple stress reduction strategies. Our results highlight the breadth of Mexicans' lay health knowledge, thereby challenging dominant narratives about low rates of health literacy in this population. Findings can be harnessed to optimize potential health protective effects in home and community settings as well as to inform preventive and clinical interventions.

The maintenance of mexican traditional medicine practices among mexicans in southern Arizona

Mexicans in the United States have been reported to maintain practices of Mexican traditional medicine at comparably higher rates than most other populations, including other Latino sub-groups. In this cross-sectional study, we examined the pre- and post-migration traditional medicine practices of first-generation immigrants from Mexico living in southern Arizona. Our objective was to assess how migration affected Mexican immigrants' ethnomedical practices and to better understand the mechanisms and motivating factors for the post-migration maintenance of practice. We designed a survey instrument based off prior qualitative data on traditional medicine practices and translated it into Spanish. The survey measured the rates and frequency of six domains of lay healing practices: herbal medicine, healing foods, self-medication with over-the-counter medicine, and three types of specialty healers (curandero/a, and sobador/a, or partero/a), and asked questions about knowledge sources, reasons for maintaining practice post-migration, and to what extent participants believed the remedies were effective. The research team fielded the telephone-based survey from April 2022 to February 2023 to 300 first-generation adult Mexican immigrants residing in southern Arizona. A series of proportions tests were conducted to examine differences in reliance on lay healing pre- and post-migration as well as to assess differences between women's and men's lay practices. The data indicate a general, but moderated decline in lay medical practices post-migration, with the usage of expert healers declining at much higher rates than the three self-care domains. Women tend to use herbal medicine and healing foods at higher rates than men post-migration. This cross-sectional quantitative study confirms prior research indicating that traditional medicine practices are heavily relied upon by Mexican origin people both pre- and post-migration. These findings suggest that public health messaging and medical providers should better address and harness Mexican immigrants' lay medical practices in order to optimize health in this population.

Santos Remedios: How Mexican Immigrants Use Authoritative Healing Knowledge to Survive Migration

Mexicans living in the United States frequently rely upon popular healing to address a broad spectrum of physical, psychological, and spiritual ailments. They practice Mesoamerican healing ways including using herbal remedies, employing nutritional health promotion and illness remediation, over the counter pharmaceuticals, prayer and religion, and visiting expert healers. In this article, we utilize Brigitte Jordan's theory of "authoritative knowledge," to show how Mexican immigrants' ancestral and ecological-based healing knowledge travels with them through migration. Based on original ethnographic research in the Southwest borderlands, we expand an understanding of the factors that support the continuity of authoritative knowledge spatially and temporally. Mexicans' healing knowledge persisted north of the border because it (1) incorporated a wide array of healing techniques and materials that remained accessible post-migration, (2) enabled immigrants to heal according to Mesoamerican worldviews that privileged natural modalities and a holistic approach to body, mind, and spirit, and (3) remained relevant by allowing immigrants to remedy daily health stressors inherent to Mexican migration, including the border crossing, detention and deportation, and daily fear provoked by undocumented status. While lay practices have often been interpreted as problematic by medical professionals, we conclude that Mexicans' authoritative healing knowledge serves as a survival mechanism during the challenging circumstances of binational migration.

Measurement of age-dependent radiation ingestion doses due to gross alpha and gross beta exposure from medicinal plants

This article presents the results of a study conducted to measure the gross alpha, gross beta activities in medicinal plant samples collected from different districts of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. The ASC-950-DP gasless high-speed counter was used for the measurement of gross α/β activities. Measured activities have been used to assess age-dependent annual effective doses for infants, one-, five-, ten-, and fifteen-year-old and adult people. For a medicinal plant consumption rate (MPCR) of 1.8 kg a^-1, the average gross alpha and beta annual committed effective dose (ACED) delivered to one-, five-, ten-, fifteen-year-olds and adults fall below the WHO recommended level (290 µSv a^-1) and that reported in the UNSCEAR 2000 (0.3 mSv a^-1) report. Results obtained for the current study show that the radiological hazard related to the consumption of natural radionuclides in medicinal plants is inconsequential with exception of the ACED delivered to infants at an MPCR of 1.8 g a^-1 and higher values.

Radiological evaluation of Ra-226, Ra-228 and K-40 in tea samples: A comparative study of effective dose and cancer risk

Activity concentrations of tea samples were determined using high resolution gamma spectrometry.The values ranged from (421.00 ± 17.00) to (732.00 ± 30.00) Bq.kg ^-1 for K-40 and from (3.00 ± 0.80) to (27.00 ± 3.00) Bq.kg^-1 for Ra-228. The values for Ra-226 were below 27.00 Bq.kg^-1. The committed effective dose was estimated at 4.74-78.89 μSv.y^-1 for adults and 13.55-445.84 μSv.y^-1 for children. The cancer risk was higher for females. However, results showed that the tea consumption do not represent a radiological health risk to the population.