I thought I would post about two recent Science Daily articles today, as I continue to read about and research other topics.
The first (http://tinyurl.com/cu7a6x) is titled “Omega-3 Kills Cancer Cells”…intriguing, wouldn’t you say? The article discusses specifically the omega-3 acid known as DHA, or docosahexaenoic acid. It is contained in fish oil but not flaxseed oil (which instead contains alpha-linolenic acid, related to DHA but not the same thing). See this Mayo Clinic write-up: http://tinyurl.com/3c7298 A vegetarian source of DHA is seaweed, as I recall.
Well, it turns out that not only does DHA kill solid tumor cells on its own, it also enhances the killing effects of the chemo drug cisplatin, while limiting its harmful side effects. Chemopreventive, huh? Good stuff!
The Science Daily article is an interesting read, please go have a look. It reminded me that I really must look into maximum tolerated fish oil doses. As of now, I take 2 grams of fish oil (capsule form) a day. The studies I found this morning, after a quick bit of preliminary research, show that much higher doses have been tested and found to be okay. Hmmm. Does anyone here take more than 2 grams of fish oil a day?
The second article (http://tinyurl.com/d2hhuq) tells us that drinking very hot tea—70° or more, Celsius (thanks, Brad)—increases our risk of developing throat cancer. Now, I am not a tea drinker, I confess, but I am sure that a lot of you are, so I thought I would post about this study, carried out in northern Iran, which has one of the highest rates of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, or OSCC, in the world. Hot tea drinking is widespread in that region. While the study findings are not supposed to alarm us (or tea-selling companies, either, I guess…), they do suggest that we let our very hot food and drinks cool down a bit before swallowing. Four minutes is the minimum recommended amount of waiting time.
An excerpt from the SD article: Compared with drinking warm or lukewarm tea (65°C or less), drinking hot tea (65-69°C) was associated with twice the risk of oesophageal cancer, and drinking very hot tea (70°C or more) was associated with eight-fold increased risk. Likewise, compared with drinking tea four or more minutes after being poured, drinking tea less than two minutes after pouring was associated with a five-fold higher risk. There was no association between the amount of tea consumed and risk of cancer.
Well, two studies that give us a bit to ponder over today.
Margaret,
I had read that in Great Britain they prescribe 7 grams of fish oil following heart attacks, and 6 grams of fish oil for autoimmune disease. I believe the rationale is that it lowers inflammation, both in autoimmune disease and of the type that can inflame the arteries, causing coronary artery atherosclerosis. Based on that and my autoimmune disease, about a year ago I started taking 6 gram tablets of fish oil daily. When I started, my c-reactive protein (CRP) was 2 to 3 times the normal maximum. At my last lab test, however, the CRP had been restored to the normal range. Success!!
However, from today forward, I intend to reduce my fish oil dose to 4 gram tablets daily, because of this from the Beloit College Nutrition Database:
http://www.beloit.edu/nutrition/fishoildose.htm, which recommends not to exceed 4 gram tablets of fish oil daily.
P.S. I make sure to take a brand of fish oil that is distilled to remove all measurable traces of mercury and pesticides.
Good post. I should point out, though, that you’ve mixed up Celsius and Fahrenheit. The study says that drinking tea that is 70 degrees Celsius (not Fahrenheit) is associated with an increased risk of cancer. That makes a big difference.
OOOOPPPPPSSSSSSSS! I guess I shouldn’t be doing any reading or research these days, period. Distracted distracted…
Thanks, Brad!
(sheepish grin)
Hi Margaret,
Have you heard any more about methyl jasmonate? Reply only when you have a free moment. Thank you for all of your research that you post.
Our best,
Nicki
P.S. Please note our new email address.
This reminds me of a study that Dr. Martin posted years ago about a guy that used ONLY high dose Omega-3’s to cure his lung cancer. He was friends with a research scientist that was looking into the cytotoxic properties of Omega-3’s and suggested he try them.
This is a truly amazing story. This press release speaks for itself.
Reposted below is Dr. Martin’s essay:
One of the members purchased a copy of the scientific study and sent it to me. To put it mildly, I was stunned.
This 78 year old man (DH) was diagnosed with malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH) of the lungs and given only a few months to live. This aggressive sarcoma is one of the most prevalent cancers of the elderly. It is largely untreatable.
MFH is a prototype for an inflammation related cancer. It is typified by a high level of HIF-1 and NF-kappaB, both bad prognostic signs.
DH refused conventional cancer treatment. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. Fortunately, his neighbor was a scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno who specialized in the biochemistry of omega-3 oils. This close collaboration lead to a most remarkable study and a 93% reduction of a malignant tumor cell mass.
This is the best study ever conducted on the relationship between omega-6 and omega-3 oils and cancer cell growth. And it was conducted in a human volunteer who had a very aggressive cancer. The study is confirmed by CT scan pictures. DH even kept receipts to prove that he purchased these omega-3 oils.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16201843&itool=pubmed_docsum
Currently, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 oils in our diet is about 15 to 1. We are drowning in pro-inflammatory oils such as corn, soy and safflower oils. These oils are precursors of arachidonic acid, the substrate for pro-inflammatory prostaglandins and leukotrienes. The high level of omega-6 oils in our diet is killing us…literally.
DH removed all omega-6 oils from his diet. The only oils that he used were canola and olive oil, both low in omega-6 oils. He also consumed copious amounts of omega-3 fish oils, EPA and DHA. He did not consume flax oil.
DH managed to get his omega-6/omega-3 ratio down to 0.73.
DH’s lung tumors were quite large, 18 and 12.9 cm. After three years of high omega-3 oil consumption, they shrunk 93% to 1.2 and 0.8 cm, respectively.
DH consumed 15 grams of omega-3 fish oils a day.
DHA 8,160 mgs
EPA 6,840 mgs
He took 19 capsules of high potency fish oil concentrates containing 240 mgs of DHA and 360 mgs of EPA per capsule
Most important, he also took 18 capsules of Neuromins 200, an algae oil, that contained 200 mgs of DHA per capsule. Algae synthesize DHA but not EPA oils. Fish oil contains much more EPA than DHA. The addition of DHA capsules was important in increasing the DHA/EPA ratio. DHA is a MUCH more potent anti-cancer oil than EPA.
VitaCost sells all of these oils.
Product NI 005017 NSI Mega EFA omega-3 EPA and DHA capsules. 240 capsules. $21.99. Each capsule contains 400 mgs of EPA and 200 mgs of DHA.
Product SN 006541 Neuromins DHA. 60 capsules. $19.64. Each capsule contains 200 mgs DHA.
Product NI 001644 NSI DHA Essential Fatty acids from Fish Oil. 60 capsules. $6.99. Each capsule contains 225 mgs DHA and 25 mgs EPA.
The latter is a better value than the Neuromins DHA product.
Keep in mind that DHA is the essential anti-cancer oil. Flax oil cannot substitute because it must be slowly converted to EPA and DHA. This is not possible in all tissues of the body. Also, the anti-cancer effects are dose dependent. When DH took 12 grams of fish oils daily, one of his tumors continued to grow. When the dose was increased to 15 grams daily, this tumor began to die.
So take your fish oils, standardized flax and acetaminophen (Tylenol) and be happy. These three compounds can put a nasty dent in ANY cancer or leukemia load.
Stay tuned…
Grouppe Kurosawa, Medicine in the Public Interest
As a follow up, at end of year ’08, his tumors were 98% gone and shrinking…
Lovely article, Margaret,as they all are. I was particular pleased
to read the comment about seaweed being a vegetarian source
of DHA.
Here in South Wales we have such a seaweed; it is called
“laverbread”. Old wives would say that “it is good for you”,
and that is the general consensus (although I eat it because I
like it). I get some from the fishmonger each Friday with the
fish order (oily and wild of course); enough for two teas on
toast, and I’m delighted to learn from you of its therapeutic
properties.
Do you remember Richard Burton the celebrated Hollywood
film star? (twice wed to Liz Taylor?).Well he was from Wales
and he liked laverbread. In fact he called it “The Welsh
Caviar”. With all his wealth he still enjoyed this humble
food!
Now to learn more about DHA.
Thank you again,
With every good wish,
Old Bill.
Nice one, first i would like to thank you for your blog – you got a lot of interesting and important info here. I’m an admin of polish glioblastoma forum and apoptoza blog, i’m mainly interested in glioblastoma and alternative forms of treating it – mainly for the forum, but info about other cancers (blog) concerns me too. I bump into your blog thanks to a friend of mine who was looking some info on curcumin. I was interested mainly in a Bioavailability of curcumin. I have translated most parts of info on Bioavailability of curcumin from your blog (of course i had put a link to a source), because here in Poland there is no such place where you can lern so much about Bioavailability of curcumin.
Yesterday i bump on an very interesting reaserch on curcumin. I remember when you said “it’s a shame we can’t take it intravenously!” in Bioavailability in general section.
Well here’s a good one, fresh study on curcumin posted 11 February 2009:
Curcumin blocks brain tumor formation:
http://tinyurl.com/curcumin
“We show that a soluble formulation of curcumin crosses the blood–brain barrier but does not suppress normal brain cell viability. Furthermore, tail vein injection, or more effectively, intracerebral injection through a cannula, blocks brain tumor formation in mice that had already received an intracerebral bolus of mouse melanoma cells (B16F10)”
As to the omega3 check out the thedcasite there lot of interesting info on that gathered in one place, there as well you can find a nice talk about the MAAI pathway (regarding DCA), and there folks discuss anticancer activity of high dose omega3 (or more precisely EPA/DHA) – very interesting. Btw. acording to FDA study maximum dose of omega 3 is 300mg/kg.
Hi Margaret,
From a VERY HOT green tea drinker, THANK YOU!!! I drink 4-5 cups of very hot tea every day…love it. Starting tomorrow I will let it cool!
Mariee