Taken from the Last Chance Health Report Volume 4, Number 5
The Last Chance Health Report is published by the University of Natural Healing, Inc.
P.O. Box 8113, 355 West Rio Road, Suite 201, Charlottesville, Virginia 22906

I did not know what to expect when I interviewed Dr. Dana Myatt, a naturopathic family physician from Virginia Beach, VA.

I Thought I was doing a Laid back interview on castor oil, something that's been around for so long that no-one seems to get excited about it.

But within seconds of starting our conversation, I knew she was a brilliant rising star in the natural healing movement, and that what she had to say was something neither I nor my readers had ever heard before.

In this incredible interview, Dr Myatt explains how medicine has completely overlooked the role of the liver in controlling cholesterol levels. She explains how to improve the liver with castor oil, and trigger plunges in cholesterol so steep they make modern anti-cholesterol drugs look like mere sugar tablets.

This is no mushy discussion we have here, but a crisp interview with specific advice for women who are worried about breast cancer, and for those readers who must have any kind of surgery. Now it's time to turn off the TV, get quiet and start learning.

Dr. Myatt: I was involved in 30-patient research study on the effects of castor oil on the T-cells of the immune system, and we weren't seeing much in the way of results. So I said, " why don't we pull a before and after blood test on everybody just to see if there is a change in some other parameters we are not even looking at." It turned out there was a change-and it was in cholesterol.
Biser: What kind of a response were you seeing? A 10% to 15% drop?
Dr. Myatt: In many cases more than that. For instance, if someone had a level of 200, the numbers came down a little. But the folks who had levels up around 300, they saw a significant drop-down closer to 200. Since the study, I treated a woman who had a cholesterol level that was close to 600.
Biser: 600! I didn't even know the number could reach that high!
Dr. Myatt: Neither did I. I called the lab because I thought it was a mistake. I'd never seen anything like that before. When cholesterol is that high, something can happen any minute. Usually the blood is so thick with blood fat that you get a circulatory system that is compromised. You can draw their blood, look at it in the test tube, and see a layer of fat sitting on top of it that looks like butter.
Biser: I did not know that was possible to see that with the naked eye. Where you able to help this patient?
Dr. Myatt: That's the exciting part. In a month's time I was able to get her cholesterol down to two hundred and small change-without modifying her diet.
Biser: And that was largely from the castor oil?
Dr. Myatt: She used castor oil packs and took her milk thistle.
Biser: We'll get into milk thistle later. What I'd like know is how can castor oil help familial high cholesterolemia-which is genetic?
Dr. Myatt: Yes in fact I believe this women's case was a genetic situation. And I have seen beneficial results in other cases like this.
Biser: If a medical doctor heard about such changes in cholesterol, what would they say?
Dr. Myatt: All I can tell you is that it's awesome. We don't have any drugs that do that. If we did, it would be on the front page of every newspaper.
Biser: Not even experimental drugs?
Dr. Myatt: Not even close! If we use a drug and it brings down someone's cholesterol down twenty or thirty points in a month, we are pretty happy with that.
Biser: But you had only thirty patients in your study!
Dr. Myatt: So what? Medicine publishes results on drugs we get all enthused about, and the work is often done on far less than 30 patients.
Biser: So no one could sneer at 30 patients?
Dr. Myatt: No.
Biser: If castor oil were a drug, would the publicity go out?
Dr. Myatt: Oh, they would go crazy! The medical profession would get headlines in every major newspaper reading: "Medical answers to high cholesterol found. The cure has been discovered."

"It just may be that abnormal cholesterol should be considered a sign of sluggish liver function."

Biser: Why on earth would castor oil have any effect on cholesterol levels?
Dr. Myatt: Castor oil improves liver function, and, as you know, the liver is responsible for manufacturing and regulating cholesterol. For example, we noticed in our study that in people who had cholesterol levels lower than 160, the numbers cam up. But low cholesterol can be as harmful as high cholesterol. Medically speaking, we are only just starting to acknowledge that maybe when the cholesterol is low that is signifying some problem with the liver since the liver makes cholesterol. It seems that castor oil packs moved cholesterol levels closer toward 180 either up or down, which, in my estimation, is gold standard for a cholesterol level. Many times you'll see a change in the cholesterol level, long before you see a change in liver function test. It may very well be that cholesterol is giving us a very early indication that the liver is burdened!
Biser: How come diets don't always help in lowering cholesterol?
Dr. Myatt: It depends on the reason why the person's cholesterol level is high. Sometimes dietary reduction gives dramatic improvements. But, if the liver is simply mis-behaving or acting sluggish- a dramatic diet isn't going to help. I think this is why conventional medicine doesn't get as vigorous with dietary treatments as it could, because it doesn't help in every case.
Biser: In the study you did, were there any dietary changes?
Dr. Myatt: None. I was not allowed to manipulate their diet or use anything else during the course of the treatments with castor oil packs.

"At a cholesterol level of 180, nobody has a heart attack due to cholesterol problems."

Biser: How exactly do you use the castor oil to lower cholesterol?
Dr. Myatt: In adults, you put the pack on hot and then put a heating pad over top it. It really needs to be left in place for an hour; a half-hour doesn't seem to be long enough to get the full effects. I suppose that's partly because the heat is helping to drive the oil into the system.
Biser: How does the oil get into the body?
Dr. Myatt: It moves through the skin. Basically, that's how a number of medications are delivered today: transdermally.
Biser: How often do you have to change the oil?
Dr. Myatt: Well, if you are pulling toxins out of a system, the pack will become discolored. Sometimes in as little as ten to fifteen applications, it will turn yellow or brown an it'll be pretty obvious.
Biser: I didn't know that could happen!
Dr. Myatt: Oh yes, it'll get nasty. When the color change happens, they toss it. What I believe is happening is that there is a two-way effect from the pack. On one hand, the oil is being driven into the system and is having beneficial effects. On the other hand, the castor oil is drawing toxins out of the system. That is why it's so important to use wool flannel, as I mentioned earlier. If the main benefit you are getting is simply driving the oil into the body, it won't change color. You can use it for fifty to a hundred times. Don't wash it just keep adding oil as it starts to dry out.

"Anti-cholesterol drugs work different than castor oil. They bring the cholesterol level down slightly-but they don't necessarily reduce the cardiac risk"

Biser: How do modern anti-cholesterol drugs differ from the castor oil program?
Dr. Myatt: These modern prescribed drugs may not be doing anything much but driving a number down. They aren't life extending and they do cause other problems. But, with castor oil, we are not artificially changing the cholesterol numbers out of context to all other numbers in the body. We are not giving a medication to block some biochemical pathway. I think what we are doing is improving liver function, which, in turn, is having an influence on cholesterol levels.
Biser: Does orthodox medicine do anything to improve liver function in people with cholesterol problems?
Dr. Myatt: Nothing much. We just don't have anything that treats the liver in conventional medicine. We just watch it to make sure it doesn't get worse.
Biser: You're kidding. All you do is watch?
Dr. Myatt: Yes that's all. If we know the patient has a behavior that creates liver distress, we ask them to stop. For example, if they are drinking alcohol, we ask them to quit. The liver is one of the most important organs in the body.
Biser: That's pretty amazing, that nothing is done. Yet no-one in medicine denies the importance of the liver.
Dr. Myatt: That's true. You can live without a kidney; you can live without a lot of body parts, but you can't live without a liver.
Biser: When I listen to what you have done in dropping cholesterol, I wonder what could be done for people waiting for liver transplant.
Dr. Myatt: In Europe they will use intravenous milk thistle (an herb). It will protect the liver cells from toxic damage. There are things that can be done, but they aren't used in this country.

"Milk thistle and castor oil packs are an outstanding combination for improving the liver's ability to handle cholesterol."

Biser: How can reader benefit from the milk thistle you just mentioned?
Dr. Myatt: Milk thistle is taken internally and the castor oil packs are placed externally over the liver. Milk thistle protects the tissue of the liver and makes it more resistant to poisonous substances.
Biser: The orthodox approach is all or nothing: either zero treatment or a liver transplant. Nothing in between!
Dr. Myatt: That's right. Either leave it alone or cut it out. I can recall two times when a patient was having what we call upper quadrant pain [Editor: near the liver] that was pretty severe. On the blood test, their liver function test were quite elevated and before we really had a diagnosis, I sent them home to do a castor oil pack-because is usually relieves pain. And if the pain is coming from the gallbladder, or from passing a kidney stone, the castor oil pack will relieve the pain in addition to whatever else it is doing. The castor oil packs work so reliably for relieving pain, especially over the liver, that I use it diagnostically. In most cases, it's kind of like, "take a castor oil pack and call me in the morning." I sent these two patients home, and the packs didn't help. I now realize that is castor oil doesn't work, it is an "Uh oh", because these two patients later proved to have advanced liver cancer.
Biser: In other words, if castor oil does not relieve liver pain, then something serious is going on?
Dr. Myatt: That' right you could be in big trouble. Castor oil is usually so potent in relieving pain that if it does not, I suspect we may be dealing with a far more serious situation than we originally suspected. By the way, castor oil helps with hepatitis.
Biser: Even in severe hepatitis?
Dr. Myatt: Yes. If someone has chronic active hepatitis, we don't have any treatments. There is interferon and that is a bust; that is not proven to do anything.
Biser: So we are impoverished in terms of treatment!
Dr Myatt: Right, we just really don't have anything in western medicine to treat the liver.
Biser: It's an enormous blind spot in medicine.
Dr. Myatt: Yes, and if the liver was one of those things that they could cut out when it was diseased, then I'm sure we would be doing it. But you can't cut it out. Another thing that amazes me is when someone's liver is in distress, they will do a biopsy- a punch biopsy on the liver
Biser: For what?
Dr. Myatt: That's exactly right for what? Once you've done the biopsy, you've traumatized an already-stressed organ. It does not matter what the liver biopsy shows because we just don't have any treatment for it. What's the point?
Biser: If someone had cancer, would you rule out the use of castor oil?
Dr. Myatt: No, not at all. In fact, if I have a patient who has cancer or a life threatening illness, we are really serious in trying to get the immune system to maybe pick up and overcome this. So I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a castor oil pack. I have a patient right now who has pancreatic cancer with metastasis to the liver. In our conventional thinking, this is a death sentence. Yet she gets some pain relief from the use of the castor oil packs.
I have only been seeing her for a couple of weeks, and it is too soon to say if we are going to be able to pull enough resources together here to prolong her life. But at least she is getting some pain relief that she was not getting from morphine and other "creative" things that we do. I have the comfort of knowing that, at the very least, we are giving her some sympathy relief. At the very most, we might be actually improving her immune system, improving her liver function, and giving her some hope. And that is not true of everything we do, medically speaking.
Biser: How did you start working with castor oil?
Dr. Myatt: It began when I was twelve years old. In fact, it's because of my own experience with castor oil that I began to study non-conventional medicine. I remember waking up in the middle of the night with severe abdominal pain. My mom thought it was probably appendicitis, because it was on the side of the appendix. My mom was a closet Casey person [Editor: Edgar Casey, the famous sleeping prophet] and she had his black book and got it from under the bed, read about the castor oil packs, fixed one up, put it on my belly, and the next thing I knew, it was morning and I was fine.
Biser: It took care of the pain-just like that?
Dr. Myatt: Yes. Overnight the castor oil pack was virtually the one thing that gave me relief during my monthly cycle. Whenever I had episodes of endometriosis, I had come to the habit of getting a castor oil pack when I first started having pain. If I got it in time, I would be o.k. That was my discovery in the gynecological department. I think if I had not been introduced to the castor oil pack I wouldn't have started in the direction of natural medicine. I would have probably been an M.D. doing all the straight western stuff.

" I am now very rarely inspired to do any kind of gynecological correction without the use of the castor oil packs."

Biser: Did your own problems ever go away completely from using castor oil?
Dr. Myatt: No, it didn't, because I didn't realize how serious my problem really was. I only used castor oil for pain relief at my monthly time. I would have used it more diligently if I had known better. Many years later, they finally decided to open me up because I had a cyst the size of a grapefruit that ruptured. The doctor said it was one of the worst cases he had ever seen. He told me, "I don't know how you are up and walking around with this. How did you manage to have a life?" It was probably because I knew about castor oil packs all those years and didn't know what else to do, and nobody else who examined me knew what it was. Now, since, I have worked with women with gynecological difficulties (such as endometriosis problems, cysts, or even carcinoma or dysplasia of the cervix). If you use a castor oil pack -not for symptoms but for normalization of the immune system, you will see much faster improvements than if you were doing what the standard treatment would be.
Biser: Are there beneficial changes in women who have carcinoma?
Dr. Myatt: Yes, there are. Of course, in circumstances like that where we have severe dysplasis, a castor oil pack is not the only thing I am doing. I'm not that brave. For example, if I had a patient who has cervical dysplasis and I'm treating the problem locally with some kind of herbal enzyme formula, an escharotic treatment to get the disease cells to slough off, I expect them to recover more quickly if I also have them using a castor oil pack while they are undergoing treatment.
Biser: Has castor oil ever helped a woman who had problems with her breasts?
Dr. Myatt: Oh yes. Edgar Casey indicated that castor oil was working to normalize lymphatic cells in all the lymphatic channels. Because the breast is filled with glandular tissue surrounded by lymph tissue, there is great potential for success there. Another reason castor oil can be so beneficial to the breast, and to the immune system in general, is that when castor oil packs are applied, they also appear to stimulate an area near the liver called Peyer's patches.
Biser: What are Peyer's Patches?
Dr. Myatt: Peyer's Patches are a bit of lymphatic tissue in the small intestines. Na anatomist named Dr. Conrad Peyer identified them in the 1660's. This tells us that castor oil packs are available to stimulate the lymph system at the same time they are being used over the liver. Once in a while, you'll find the patches mentioned in a medical textbook, but doctors don't talk much about them because we really don't understand them fully. All we really know is that they are made up of lymph tissue.

"How castor oil can help reduce excess estrogen levels in a women-and thereby reduce her risk of cancer."

Biser: Could castor oil help prevent breast cancer by normalizing the liver's control of the hormone estrogen?
Dr. Myatt: A definite possibility. As you know, excess estrogen can incite cancer in a woman. There's been a lot of research done on this. In the female, the liver is responsible for taking estrogen and changing it into water-soluble form that will be excreted by the body. So, if the liver is not working up to par, you can also have an elevation of the female hormones.
Biser: I would think that if a women was worried about cancer, this is something she would want to do a couple of times a month?
Dr. Myatt: As a preventive measure, I recommend to my patients that they do a series of three castor oil packs, one each night on consecutive nights, once a month. You do it to help with our lymphatics, and to help with your liver functions. You can't do enough for your liver in this day and age. We give more challenges to our livers in our current way of living than the liver was probably designed for. And it still manages to hold up its end of the string. But we shouldn't be surprised when we are seeing people with breakdowns in their immune systems, chronic fatigue syndrome, and all that. Maybe it is because the liver, as wonderful as it is, is being asked to do so much-that it is not able, any longer, to do it's full job.

"Almost any pain in the body can be safely and quickly relieved with a castor oil pack."

Biser: Is the castor oil pack's healing abilities limited to the abdominal region?
Dr. Myatt: Not at all. It can be applied in just about any case-to any visceral area or extremity. It can be used for someone passing a kidney stone, in case of indigestion, ulceration, and headaches. And of course, the castor oil pack is doing a lot more than just healing the pain.
Biser: What about the joints?
Dr. Myatt: Yes. The feedback from my own patients shows that many people have used it in a way not prescribed and found that the castor oil has helped a lot. A great example is my own dad-who is not particularly inspired in the direction of natural therapies. He was having a lot of problems with his knees and nothing was giving him relief. He decided to give castor oil a try. It really helped-it took away the pain. Now my mother uses the pack for just about everything.

"Castor oil packs saved one of my patients from a miscarriage"

Biser: Can castor oil be used safely on pregnant women?
Dr. Myatt: Oh, yes. In fact, let me tell you a story about J.J.-the castor oil baby. I had a 42-year old patient in California who consistently miscarried at three months when pregnant. She had seen every OB specialist in the Los Angeles region, had gone to Texas for fertility studies, and no one could find a genetic reason for her miscarriages. It was just some kind of incompetence in the lining of the uterus. She was pregnant again and figured this was her last chance to have a baby.
Biser: What could you do for her?
Dr. Myatt: I made a few slight modifications in her diet she was basically doing everything right. The only thing I prescribed was castor oil pack, to be applied continuously over her uterus, without heat. Her obstetrician prescribed total bed rest for her, so that made it easy for her to keep the pack on. At her six month mark, the obstetrician told her, "You're out of the woods-you don't need the castor oil pack anymore." So, she stopped the castor oil packs.
Biser: Things had been going fine up to this point and she stops without consulting you?
Dr. Myatt: Yes. And at six months she started to go into premature labor. She goes to see the midwife and the obstetrician and they sent her home to lay flat. They told her she was probably going to lose the baby. She called me up, frightened about losing her child when she'd come so close. I asked "Are you still using the packs?" "No," she said, "The obstetrician said I don't have to use them anymore." I told her, "Get back on those packs!" She got back on them and the labor pains ceased. She carried the baby to full term-a healthy, bouncing, eleven-pound baby boy.
Biser: Did her OB have anything to say about all this?
Dr Myatt: I'm sure he did. I'll bet he uses castor oil packs now for his other patients.
Biser: Have you recommended this treatment for other women in similar situations?
Dr. Myatt: Yes. Oh, Yes. And I've had very good results. I recommend the pack without heat for pregnancy, when miscarriage is a concern.

"After surgery, castor oil packs can help prevent internal scarring that would otherwise cut off the blood supply to our vital organs."

Biser: You told me that castor oil could help prepare people for surgery. What about after surgery?
Dr. Myatt: It will shorten the recovery time. It can also reduce or eliminate the scars resulting from surgery. And if you get a castor oil pack over the incision soon after surgery, you will prevent adhesions.
Biser: What are adhesions?
Dr. Myatt: Adhesions are basically scars that act like a stitch under the skin. The epidermis, dermis, and connective tissue that overlie the muscle tissue are designed to slide over each other. However, after the surgical knife slices through all those layers, the white blood cells go in and do their "clean-up" job-inadvertently forming adhesions. The adhesions hold the layers together instead of letting them slide freely, one on top of the other.
Biser: How common are adhesions?
Dr. Myatt: Adhesions are extremely common after any injury to the skin, but especially a deliberate injury with a knife.
Biser: How does a patient know he has adhesions? How will he feel them?
Dr. Myatt: They can be experienced in a number of different ways. If the surgery is more superficial, mostly between the skin and the underlying tissue, it can simply be slightly uncomfortable in the area. It's almost as if you were making a cut in a coat and sewing it back up without adding more material- the skin draws together, and you may have some muscular-skeletal pain because there is a "tweak" in the skin. The bigger the danger is with internal surgery. If adhesion occurs on the internal organs, the scarring will disrupt normal circulation. This can lead to problems later on. I have a patient who had an operation for an intestinal obstruction. It was life threatening, and the surgery saved him -but, then he developed adhesions from the surgery. Those adhesions created a stricture in the intestines creating a different circulatory pattern which caused a second obstruction. The surgeon had to go in and do a second surgery.
Biser: What could castor oil have done for him?
Dr. Myatt: If he could have applied a pack to the surgical area, the oil may have helped ease those adhesions away preventing further surgery.
Biser: So castor oil packs help relieve the damage done, both internally and externally?
Dr. Myatt: Right. For those people who have had lots of surgeries, and lots of knife cuts into the body, they will have areas where the skin doesn't slide anymore. A little tuck here, a little tuck there. That tweaks out the entire anatomy. I may look like a subtle difference, but you are going to have a different alignment of the spine because the body is making little compensations everywhere depending on how severe the cuts.

"Avoid these mistakes when using castor oil."

Biser: Are there any mistakes people make when using castor oil?
Dr. Myatt: It is important to use soap and water. Remember the pack my pull toxins out of the body and in the case of old scars, pulling old material out of the body and allowing a healing process to begin. Soap and water will remove the toxins when you are done with the packs. A lot of people will get a rash when they don't wash the skin carefully. They think they are allergic to the oil or the wool. What actually happened is when they pulled the toxins out, they deposited them on the surface of the skin and caused a skin irritation. If you don't wash it off, you will probably re-absorb it.
Biser: You mean the toxins go right back in the body?
Dr. Myatt: That's right. Back in. The skin is a big organ of elimination so as things go out, other come on in. That's why you've got to clean the skin.
Biser: Is castor oil the only oil a person could use for these packs?
Dr. Myatt: Castor oil has certain properties that other oils don't. It has a very high viscosity and a specific gravity that make it more stable than other oils. Most oils tend to go rancid after a while. Castor oil remains stable for long periods. You could use different oils. I've tried many but found that nothing really has the same exciting physiological effects.
Biser: Why does castor oil work
Dr. Myatt: We don't really know. I can only guess. Castor oil may be affecting some energy fields of the body. For example, we know the body is an electrical field. What the EKG measures is the electricity. It shouldn't be a big stretch of the imagination to say, "gee there are other force fields. We know there are. We know that every electrical field contains an associated magnetic field, but we don't have a machine to measure it around the body."
There may be so many other effects that we can't talk about yet simply because we don't have the equipment or the machinery or the subtlety to be able to measure them. The way I get feedback is by listening to what my patients are telling me they are experiencing. Some patients have reported that when they use it before bedtime, it seems to facilitate sleep. People will crash right out after using the castor oil packs. A lot of folks report to me that not only is their sleep improved, but they seem to remember their dreams better or are having more of them. Again, I am not sure what is going on. Castor oil is affecting the lymphatics, the circulation, the aura-I just don't know. But that shouldn't stop anyone from using it.
Biser: Is there anything else you want to tell our readers before we wrap up for today?
Dr. Myatt: Yes, there is. For me, castor oil has such a broad variety of uses. It really is like a natural aspirin, only better than aspirin because it is not just treating symptoms, it seems to have a curative benefit. We don't have all the placebo control, double-blind studies yet accomplished with the pack. The evidence we have, which is every bit as scientific, is clinical evidence. Things don't survive for hundreds, and even thousands, of years if they don't work. When the natives and ancients tried something, if it didn't work, it died. So the mere fact that castor oil has been a part of the folk world tradition for so long, and so well-known in a lot of European families, says something strong.
Biser: Modern people think that if someone lived 400 years ago, they were stupid. Just because someone didn't have color TV didn't mean their brain was missing, or that their observations were wrong.
Dr. Myatt: That's exactly right. For example, one of the old historic civilizations found that if they took a piece of moldy bread and put it over an infection, it seemed to heal a lot faster, and we all know where that observation ended up…penicillin. I think the same will become true of castor oil.