Interesting news about a herb which contains Indirubin in it, Wild indigo is supposed to get around resistance with chemotherapy in some tests.
There is much I am hearing about berries and their effects vis a vis cancer. If one can get black raspberries I would definitely become a huge fan from a preventative standpoint and therapeutic as well.
It may not sound like much, but given the interest from the med community and the number of serious studies there has to be something to it.
All the black fruit may play more than just a preventative role.
I started taking a dark berry juice, dark cherry concentrate, about a tablespoon a day. I get a bad stomach some mornings and this make a difference. I will pass it on to you. I was doing further research and found that Quercetin, which is found in onions and apples has a marked tumour reduction effect when combined with vitamin C. Vitamin C, which the dual nobel prize winner Pauling touted for heart disease and cancer is part of a family of vitamins which includes the bioflavonoid groups, including anthocyanins, catechins, pectins, anthophylls, phenols, quercetin which are found in apples, oranges, citrus fruits in general, as well as onions, tea, and unsweetened chocolate/carob.
Carob and chocolate are used by natives in central america in large quantities and it is found that they have very low cancer and heart disease. The groups you want to look at that seem to have an absence of these diseases are as I have studied, Okinawans, Cretans, Eskimo, Fiji Islanders, French, certain rural Mexicans, other central american tribespeople, Hunzas, and people living in areas where the soil is rich in selenium and sulfur, -- and these groups seem to get lots of sunshine! D3 is the true anti-cancer vitamin of the 21st century. In the last year the med community who used to bleat plaintively about possible D toxicity over say 1500 mgs a day have pulled out all the stops and come right out and said 1000 mgs a day, do it. They have even upped the size of the tabs in all the stores in the last year. The stats on D3 are getting downright scary.
The commonalities of these low cancer groups appear to be rocky mineral soil, closeness to the sea, diet free of insecticides and herbecides, plentiful outdoor air and sun, food low in contaminants, and low food supply in general. We can see other sorts of things they would be heir to. Lack of processed food. Plenty of roots, nuts, berries often. Eskimos contrary to popular belief live in a land full of flowers, bushes, berries etc.. the barrens are replete with all sorts of plant life. There are 20 animals they eat including ground hogs, grouse, bears, seals, 15 kinds of fish, 4 types of whales etc.. (The Northern cold seas are more plentiful of fish and mammals than the tropics. That is where all the oil was formed.. in the cold north seas where the fish were teeming.. Jack Gallagher had the right idea, just 50 years ahead of his time.)
I drink an Inuit tea (cloudberry) and it has about 8 leaves and herbs in it. They used to brew teas for all sorts of effects, with berries and leaves. For sleep, energy, digestion, etc.. they and the north american indian had about 200 effective medicines. I think we use about 5 of them, including willow bark and one luekemia medicine, and there was some anti-biotics too. An Indian told me they has some herb for cancer. It is just an anecdote but he was serious, and he thought that their lore might have had something to it.
This herb which grows in North america may have been blood rootl. It is known to be a potent anti-biotic, and was used on wounds during the civil war to destroy infected tissue! I would not use it at all, as it is highly reactive and potent. Toxic in other words.
Other natives use golden seal a different plant. I don't have much info on that usage. Our science confirms that berberin, its active ingredient does indeed shrink tumours. One can see that Indians trying salves on skin cancers could have come up with such remedies over time as they did willow bark from which we extracted aspirin. In fact Europeans used willow bark tea for pain in the middle ages.
"Goldenseal has both internal and external applications. It is taken orally to alleviate colds and fevers, stop recurrent ear infections, and stimulate the immune system. Its ability to counter microbes and parasites makes it useful in conditions such as vaginitis and urinary tract infections, and digestive ailments such as infectious diarrhea. Herbalists often recommend it topically for its anti-inflammatory and antiseptic actions, which make it useful to clean wounds, reduce hemorrhoids, soothe canker sores, and alleviate skin infections (including ringworm and athlete’s foot). It can also help treat eye infections such as conjunctivitis and blepharitis.
Goldenseal root was used by Native American tribes, including the Cherokee and Iroqouis, as a yellow dye and for health conditions ranging from topical inflammations, debility, cancer, and dyspepsia to whooping cough, pneumonia, diarrhea, fever and sour stomach. European settlers of the 18th century used a goldenseal root wash for eye inflammations. Folk uses expanded during the 19th and 20th centuries, to include inflammations and infections of the mucus membranes (e.g., canker sores and sore gums or throat), skin sores, cancers, bleeding, menstrual complaints, ulcers, gastritis, colitis, constipation, ringworm, acne, genitourinary infections, thrush, and snake bite."
The herb formula may also have been the now famous and medically dismissed Essiac formula which actually had tests in the 60's in vivo which resulted in decrease in tumour mass. It was tested by President Kennedy's doctor. Its formula is given as: " The basic Indian formula consists of four herbs: burdock root (Arctium lappa), Turkey rhubarb (Rheum palmatum), sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella), and slippery elm (Ulmus fulva). All of these things can be found at a health food store. A nurse by the name of Caisse who found a patient with 'cured' breast cancer, who had been treated by this herb combo after having been given it by an Indian shaman. (She may have been given a partial mastectomy earlier and tried the herb as well). There is room for doubt, but a lot of curiousity and the low toxicity of the substances, their related anti-inflammatory properties gives one some hope that experimentation may not be entirely fruitless.
She (Caisse) had been giving it to people but feared the AMA and big pharma (la rip off) so never gave out the ingredients of the concoction in her lifetime. She had worked with doctors by the name of Brusch and Mclure?. She had treated 55,000 patients in her Bracebridge, Ontario clinic, under the aegis of Dr. Brusch. I am sure the rate of remission was not 100%, but if that many people tried it, there must have been some reputation that had spread.
Essiac is of course Caisse spelled backwards. I had heard about this formula when I was in high school, but it was reputed to be quackery by the usual in the known types. Others were not so sure, but the secrecy and lack of major tests led to it fading away with her death in 1978. (we hope not from cancer!) Brusch was still writing about Essiac in 1990.
The four herbs of Essiac themselves have individually variously liver anti-toxic, anti-scorbutic (cures scurvy), ani inflammatory, and wound healing properties that are well documented by conventional medicine. There is no argument there. They are also part of conventional European folk and herbal medicine. Burdock root has been used as a fair treatment for arthritis and inflammation, as well as this: "Burdock root has many other qualities, but perhaps the most germane is its reputation for tumor regression, for which it has long been used in macrobiotic diets." You have to wonder about that last phrase from a herbology manual. The secret ingredient so to speak. I had heard a handful of Indians in my time mention a bark or plant part which they traditionally used for cancer. These people were from Ontario, and they did not know what that substance was. On such slim evidence however many voyages have been made and landfall was usually the result. Willow bark we owe to the natives, as well as the cedar bark cure for scurvy,
There are over 3000 herbs with some Anti-cancer/anti-inflammatory properties. Amongst these is the lowly cattle feed, alfalfa!!
amazon.com
If you can get past the ancient european herbology crapola there is much useful info in this book.
They used Acacia for nausea and stomach problems, and it may work
Latin Name: Acacia greggii or constricta Common names: Catclaw, Whitethorn, Huisache
Juniper tea, saw palmetto, and yerba mansa can also be used for stomach problems etc..
The relatively cancer free population groups appear to have very high Selenium, Vitamin E, Magnesium, Vitamin C and certain Bioflavonoids circulating in their blood. All groups got high vitamin C from some food source. Just about every one of those food sources of vitamin C, had with it some 400 bioflavonoids. With the French, it is got from fruit, with the Eskimo from whale blubber, (Muktuk) which has 50 times more vitamin C than an orange. We know that selenium, natural E with tocotrienols, and C form an anti-oxidant complex that cures inflammation, which seems to be the precursor to many diseases.
The sun provides plentiful vitamins D3 which researchers have found only a few months ago in a landmark British group of studies protects not only against the common cold and heart disease but massively against cancer. A group of women on D3 were found to have 40% less breast cancer at the end of a 5 years study on osteoporosis! the message appears to be, get out in the sun and have fun, it is good for all that ails you. Barring that, get a box with D3 in it and take the stuff.
Let's see where these people got their minerals and vitamins
Vitamin A: liver, carrots, kale, spinach. eggs, broccoli, apricots, pumpkin
Vitamin D3: sunshine, fish cod liver oil, salmon, salmon, egg,
cheese.
Selenium: nuts, north sea fish, whole wheat grown in certain
soils, wheat germ, eggs, turkey, tuna
Magnesium: fish especially north atlantic, walnuts, brazil
nuts, hazelnuts, soybeans, brown rice.
Vitamin E: many foods, wheat bran, wheat germ, almonds,
soybeans, tofu, corn, mango, turnips peanuts.
Bioflavonoids: Citrus fruits, berries, walnuts, chocolate,
carob, apples, citrus fruits and 'cane' berries (rasberries,
blackberries, etc), blue berries, pomegranate
Vitamin C: whale blubber, citrus fruits, camu-camu, pine bark tea,
pine needle tea, rosehips, acerola berries, oysters, liver, peppers,
purslane, guava, brussles sprouts, many vegetables.
The cranberry extract has those anthocyanins in it too. They have found it has a stomach coating effect that promotes settling, and works on ulcers, as well as its bladder anti-biotic effect. I used it because of the large number of supplements and vitamins I take. It seems to help.
"In January 2007 the US Food and Drug Administration approved a Phase I toxicity trial to determine the safe dosage of intravenous vitamin C as a possible cancer treatment for "patients who have exhausted all other conventional treatment options."[72] Additional studies over several years would be needed to demonstrate whether it is effective.[73]"
Pauling tested C for 5 years with the US army as an anti cancer med. It was also tested in 1955 by a Scottish Doctor, (source Ruth Adams, Vitamins) and it supposedly doubled to tripled survival time with high dosage (5000 mgs a day and up). It was also supposed to relieve pain markedly. If taken with quercetin and certain anthocyanins found in limes, lemons, and berries it is up to 15 times more anti-oxidant!! Pauling and subsequent vitamin C researchers have not used this fact. I would think it highly important to supplement with bioflavonoids such as quercetin, pectin, and anthocyanin as they are important amplifiers. You can do the pick up, then filter the stuff thru a pre amp, and finally a power amp. Bioflavonoids are the 200 watt per channel power amp of the anti-oxidant business.
I drink a tea of orange peel, rose hips, and green tea. All the ingredients are in there and highly bioavailable.
Bioflavonoids were found by the Szent-Gyorgy in 1936. He was given the Nobel prize for finding their connection with vitamin C's activity. It was these plant colour agents that were the active ingredient in de-oxidation of free radicals that cause cell damage. They were up to 1000 times as powerful than vitamin C pound for pound, and it is thought that without them, C has limited activity. Bioflavonoids are best in berries that are fresh, osmotically dried, or frozen. Fruit that is too old is not that high in anti-ox ingredients.
Pauling took 18,000 mgs C a day!!! He died by the age of 96. It is obviously fatal in those quantities eventually.
'Although every plant contains some enzyme or the other, some Indian herbs and plants like mint, tulsi, the thorny babul (Acacia Arabica) and gokhru (Tribullus terristris) have sufficient amounts of anti-cancer enzymes, Sharma said.'
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