Avoiding Drugs - Curing Cancer With Herbs - Part 1

Although there is no single herb that can cure cancer, there are various effective ones that are considered to help rid the body of certain types, including the detoxification of the body, and the ability to destroy cancer cells.

However, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) of the U.S.A. states that only "drugs" can cure a disease. Although this belief may be based solely on the fact that their curing powers "do not agree with modern-day scientific understanding."

The following herbs are considered to help either cure, or prevent cancer from developing -

1. Turmeric - is a brightly colored yellow spice derived from the Curcuma longa plant (a close family member to the ginger family), and a herb that has shown an excellent ability to retard breast cancer cells by helping to suppress the production of proteins that are needed for the uncontrolled growth of cancer.

Because of its active ingredient curcumin, that contains powerful anti-cancer and anti-oxidant properties, it has the ability to fight various aggressive forms of breast cancer by targeting the stem cells.

Powered turmeric is often administered in doses of less than 3.6g per day, heated in milk, and with a pinch of black pepper. While purified curcumin is often taken in doses of 1,200 to 1,800 mg per day.

2. Garlic - is known to inhibit the formation of carcinogen (any substance that is directly involved in causing cancer) within the body. Carcinogen is commonly found in pollution that is encountered in many cities, processed foods, char-broiled meats, and household cleaners, etc.

Studies on both animals and cell cultures (a complex process where cells are grown under controlled conditions) have shown that garlic helps reduce the growth rates of cancerous tumors, together with helping kill off cancer cells.

Rich in sulfur, garlic helps to detoxify the body, and has been used successfully to treat stomach, bladder, prostate and colon cancer. Although there is still no exact information on the amount of garlic required in each case.

3. European Mistletoe - being the only type of mistletoe that is safe to be consumed by humans (American mistletoe is highly poisonous) and that is widely used throughout Europe to treat cancer. It has active properties such as, lectins (carbohydrate-binding proteins) which have the ability to poison cancer cells and stimulate the immune system.

In previous studies, mistletoe extracts administered to animals showed they were able to prevent melanoma cancer from spreading to lung tissue by some 80%, and increase the immune system's killer cells by between 5-10%.

It has been effectively used to treat bladder, genital, and digestive tract cancer, and is usually administered through injection; however, mistletoe can also be taken orally, in powder form, or in a tincture (an alcohol-based derivative product of fresh herb) form.

Note: Doses are given only as examples previously used in cancer cases, and are not recommended to be taken as such without prior medical advise being given first.

Other herbs such as: Cat's Claw, Black Cohosh and Green Tea are discussed in "Avoiding Drugs - Curing Cancer With Herbs - Part 2" of this 3-part series.

By Philip Albert Edmonds-Hunt

Herbal Medicines for Cervical Cancer

Description

Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers affecting women. Women between the ages of 30 and 55 have the highest incidence of cervical cancer. Women who have had sexually transmitted disease, and those who have had many pregnancies beginning at a young age, are at greater risk. If you smoke, quit. Cigarette smoking is a suspected risk factor for cervical cancer. Getting an annual pelvic examination and Pap test is the only way to screen for cervical cancer. A Pap test can detect malignant cells before symptoms are present.

Fortunately, cervical cancer is slow to develop. If diagnosed at an early stage, when the cancer is still confined to the outermost layers of cervical tissue, cervical cancer has a cure rate of almost 100 percent. Even in more advanced cases, when the cancer spreads deeper into the cervical wall, the chances of recovery are good. On the other hand, if the cancer is allowed to spread to other organs, the prognosis is not as good.

Signs and Symptoms

Cervical cancer in its early stages usually does not produce symptoms. Later, the most common symptoms are:

Bleeding from the vagna after inter course, between periods, or after meno pause

Bloody  discharge

Conventional Medical Treatment

If you notice any type of unexplained bleeding or discharge, see your gynecologist immediately, who performs a pelvic examination and Pap smear. If the Pap smear reveals abnormalities, your doctor examines your cervix closely (using a device called a colposcope) and takes a tissue sample to check for malignant cells. If cancer is confirmed, your doctor may take X-rays to determine if the cancer has spread to any of the surrounding organs.

Treatment for cervical cancer depends on what stage it is in. If it is caught early, laser surgery, freezing, or cauterization may be used to remove the malignant cells from the outer layer of tissue. If the cancer has advanced into the cervical wall, radiation may be performed. (See "Conventional Medical Treatment" in the "Bladder Cancer" entry for more information on radiation therapy.) Your doctor also may recommend a hysterectomy, an operation in which the cervix and uterus are removed.

Complementary and Alternative Treatments

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Acupuncture Acupuncture may be used as an adjunct treatment during the early stages of cervical cancer to boost the body's immune system and improve the flow of chi to diseased cells.

Acupressure Acupressure may be useful in alleviating the pain of cervical cancer and the stomach upset caused by conventional treatments.

Chinese Herbal Therapy Garlic has been shown to inhibit the growth of cancer cell while promoting the production of healthy cells, which may account for this herb's popularity in the prevention and treatment of all types of cancer, including cervical. Ginseng also is known for its immunity-boosting, anti-cancer properties.

By Robin Brain

Skin Cancer - Types, Risks, Symptoms And Treatment

Obviously, the topmost layers of the skin are the first to be affected; the three major types of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma (rodent ulcer), squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma, all develop in the upper layer of the skin known as the epidermis. Basal cell carcinoma, the most frequent of the three, causes local erosions of tissue if neglected, while squamous cell carcinoma may spread if untreated. Fortunately, both these types can be successfully treated in nearly all cases. Squamous cell carcinoma sometimes occurs on the vulva in women after menopause and may be more difficult to deal with.

Melanoma, the least common of the three, occurs more frequently in sunny countries. Although a certain amount of sun on the skin is beneficial because it forms vitamin D, too much is dangerous. The danger has increased now that high levels of ultraviolet A radiation are reaching the earth's surface from the sun due to depletion of the ozone layer by flurocarbon chemicals from widespread use of spray cans. Melanomas are the most serious of the three skin cancers, once it starts to grow, it can spread rapidly. If detected and treated early enough, melanomas may be cured in about 75 per cent of cases.

The lighter your skin and eye colour, the more easily you will sunburn and the more likely you are to develop skin cancer. This likelihood increases with exposure to sunlight over both short periods - sunbathing on the beach to a point of, say, blistering - and long periods - pursuing an occupation, such as farming, in which many activities take place outdoors. Even moderate sunbathing after summer increases the odds that you will get skin cancer. The damage to the cells accumulates over time, so that people in their middle or later years are more likely to develop the disease.

The simplest way to avoid skin cancer is to reduce the exposure of you skin to the sun's cancer causing rays. Protect you skin by limiting your time in the sun and wear full clothing, those parts of the skin that are still exposed apply a good quality sunscreen to. The chemical composition of sunscreens block most of the sun's harmful rays.

Basal and squamous cell cancers have similar symptoms, while melanomas have their own special set of warning signs. What all skin cancers have in common, however, is change. That is what you should be on the lookout for. Basal and squamous cell cancers may start out small, rough patches of skin that are redder or paler that the surrounding skin. They can also start as tiny lumps or as small sores that bleed easily and seem to heal very slowly or not at all. If left untreated these tiny spots will soon grow and spread to surrounding tissue. Melanoma usually indicates its presence by altering the colour or appearance of a mole. Since melanoma involves cells that produce brown or black pigments, you should be aware of changes in dark spots or patches or moles and be on the lookout for new moles, moles that bleed, or any dark spot, new or old that changes colour, shape or size. Melanomas can be cured if treated in its early stage; those that go untreated may spread to other parts of the body, where they may attack vital organs.

Since skin cancer grows on the surface of the body, the first step in diagnosing them involves visual examination by a dermatologist. An experienced dermatologist can often determine whether a growth on the skin is or is not cancerous just by looking at it. If he suspects skin cancer he will remove a small sample and send it to a laboratory for examination under a microscope. There a pathologist will determine if the cells are skin cancer forming cells. If the samples reveal skin cancer, the dermatologist will remove the growth in one of a number of ways. Certain pre-cancerous skin problems may be treated by the application of a skin lotion containing anticancer drugs. In the case of basal or squamous cell cancer at an early stage, doctors remove the growth either surgically with a knife or by freezing it with liquid nitrogen. Melanomas, which are potentially more dangerous, are nearly always removed surgically together with surrounding tissue. Remember if the melanoma spreads to other parts of the body, other kinds of treatment such as chemotherapy - may be required. Radiotherapy, unfortunately, does not seem to be effective in treating melanoma. The key to treat this type of skin cancer is early detection.

By Michael Russell

The Cancer-Test Kid

After a family friend died of pancreatic cancer, high school sophomore Jack Andraka invented a diagnostic strip that could detect the disease in its early stages:

In the spring of 2011, 15-year-old Jack Andraka had a lot on his mind. A close friend of the family, a man who was like an uncle to Andraka, had recently died of pancreatic cancer. Reading up on the disease, the then high school freshman discovered that around 85 percent of pancreatic cancers are diagnosed too late, when patients have less than a 2 percent chance of survival. The reason, Andraka learned, was that the best tools for early detection are both expensive and woefully inaccurate.

“I was like, ‘There has to be a better way than this really crappy test,’” says Andraka, currently a sophomore at North County High School in Glen Burnie, Maryland.

A typical teenager might have left it there, but Andraka dove deep into the scientific literature. He learned about a popular biomarker called mesothelin, a protein in the blood that’s overexpressed in patients with several types of cancer, including pancreatic cancer, even in the earliest stages. Andraka was also thinking about carbon nanotubes—tiny cylinders, around 1/50,000 the diameter of a human hair, with amazing mechanical and electrical properties, which he describes as “the superheroes of materials science.”

Then, while learning about antibodies in biology class, Andraka was struck with an idea. “I thought maybe if I lace mesothelin-specific antibodies into a network of carbon nanotobes I would have a network that reacts only to mesothelin [in a blood sample] and would change its electrical properties based on the amount present.” As the mesothelin proteins attach to the antibodies, the gaps between nanotubes widen, weakening the network’s conductivity—a signal detectable with a simple ohmmeter.

Andraka wrote up a detailed research proposal and e-mailed it to scientists at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the National Institutes of Health. He received a raft of rejections—and one maybe, from Anirban Maitra, a pathologist at JHU. “It was remarkable because he sent a very specific, 30-page protocol including reagents and pitfalls and everything,” says Maitra, who, after meeting (and grilling) Andraka, invited the teenager to work in his lab.

Almost every day for the next 7 months Andraka’s mom picked him up after school and drove him to JHU, where he often worked long into the evening. It was a steep learning curve, and there were tearful moments—not least when a month’s worth of cell-culture samples exploded in a centrifuge. But by January 2012 Andraka’s dedication was beginning to pay off. In a series of pilot studies, he demonstrated that his dip-coated filter paper test strips—hooked up via electrodes to a $50 ohmmeter from Home Depot—were capable of measuring mesothelin levels in the blood of transgenic mice with human pancreatic tumors, and in a limited number of human serum samples.

COURTESY OF JACK ANDRAKA“It’s important to note that this is still very much at a preliminary stage,” says Maitra. “We have to do a larger series of patient samples, and we have to prove that in human serum, where you have low levels of mesothelin in early-stage patients, you can still detect it.” Andraka is not the first to coat carbon nanotubes with antibodies. In fact, researchers have already developed similar tests for breast and prostate cancer. But Andraka’s is the first attempt to use the method to diagnose early-stage pancreatic cancer—and, if all goes according to plan, he could be the first to demonstrate that the approach is sensitive enough for such purposes.

Nevertheless, Maitra says, “it’s extremely impressive for a 15-year-old kid to come up with such a cogent idea and then to work through it in the lab with such dedication. He’s a very bright kid, but he had to work hard, and he never gave up.” Maitra also notes that this was all Andraka’s own work. “I gave him a corner of my lab, with a postdoc to supervise him—because he’s a kid, so that’s required by law—but he truly did everything on his own. This is not someone else’s project that he piggybacked on.”

Andraka’s work won him the grand prize at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh, which comes with $75,000 in scholarships. “It was a dream come true,” says Andraka, who was cast into the national spotlight with a subsequent appearance on ABC World News Tonight. He has since delivered six TED talks, sat on a panel of luminaries at the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, and attended the recent State of the Union Address as a guest of President Obama. Andraka seems to be taking his newfound fame in stride. “It can be overwhelming at times, but I’m enjoying it,” he says. “I have to balance it with being a normal high school student.”

For now, Andraka will continue to do just that. But Maitra says he’s sure his young protégé will achieve great things. “He’s a remarkable kid,” Maitra says. “Whatever he goes into, he will excel, but hopefully we can keep him in biomedical science.

Courtesy:the-scientist.com