Mushrooms Cure Cancer

[Hynter]

Recently my mother passed an e-mail around to my whole family. I'd like to reply to it in an informed a way as I can. Maybe some of the JREF members here can help with some of the details. I've already seen James Randi's excellent and touching video about chemotherapy, which I plan to include in my reply.

In any case, here's her message:

There are cures for cancers. There are many cures. I have listed as many as I have found thus far and the places to go that will help you acquire the nutrition or the information or the machines that do the curing!

I am very sorry that too many believe that chemotherapy, radiation and surgery are the only options!

Cancer is an abnormal growth of cells due to a decline of cancer killing cells in our bodies, due to age and illness. Increase your intake of vitamins A and C, and natural vegetables with no pesticides. Stop eating all processed foods and all white flour and white sugar. Keep your blood alkaline. Contact Health Sciences Institute [she includes a link which I can't post?]

1) The shiitake mushroom grown in Japan stimulates one’s immune system activity by as much as 300% to naturally kill cancer cells. T-cell activity goes up as much as 200%. Our present system of chemotherapy and radiation destroys our immune system in hopes of killing the cancer cells

2) "Graviola" or "Annona Muricata" or Guanabana or Brazilian Cherimoya a plant from tropical zones (Brazil, Haiti, Jamaica, mexico, Panama) has been found to be 10,000 times more effective than chemotherapy (Adriamycin) for colon cancer and for many cancers but does not compromise the immune system. “Write up in the Health Sciences Institute P.O. Box 925 Frederick, MD 21705-9913 – it kills 12 types of cancer cells, breast, prostate, colon, lung, & pancreatic tumors. Doctors of the Amazon used graviola for hypertension, ringworm, muscle spasm, scurvy, insomnia, dysentery, boils, flu, rheumatism, rashes, malaria, diarrhea, neuralgia, arthritis, ulcers, high blood pressure and also as an aid in preventing cancer. It can be acquired from Raintree Nutrition by calling 1-800-780-5902 or [link deleted]. It does not work on leukemia. The National Cancer Institute performed the first scientific research on it in 1976 and tried to keep the information secret for seven years because they could not synthesize it, except for one who revealed the information to the health sciences institute.

Another tree of the same species with a fruit too bitter to eat is even better at curing cancers.

3) Fermented wheat germ helps fight cancer.

4) Frankincense fights cancer

5) The enzyme found in most mammals’ milk that kills cancer cells is lactoferrin

6) Keep eating vegetables and fruits high in the antioxidants. Never eat leftover & cooked twice. Cook vegetables only for @ 15 minutes or eat fresh.

7) Keep up a healthy immune system and it will fight the cancers

8) Ingest lots of antioxidants, vitamin A, C (1000 to 5000 mg) and bioflavonoids (700-2000mg) that increase the production of glutathione which helps with detoxification

Include various nutrients in your diet such as the Alleluia diet recommends.

Mona Vie is rich in antioxidants - it has the acai berry and other fruits.

Frequensea is rich in phytonutrients from the sea and from some plants.

Green tea is high in antioxidants

9) Eat foods high in nutrients & fiber, low in fat, increase the intake of antioxidants such as berries. Commercially processed fats & oils clog arteries, create heart attacks, lowers the voltage in our cells and thus allows cancerous cells to grow. The lack of electron rich, highly unsaturated fats disturb proper cell growth & allow tumors to grow. Eat flaxseed oil which contains alpha-linolenic acid & lignans to prevent cancer, especially prostrate & breast cancer.

10) For prostrate, breast, brain, lung cancer use peptide therapy

11) Vitamin K can slow the growth of breast, ovary, colon, stomach & kidney cancers

12) Olive Oil seems to halt estrogen-sensitive breast cancers

13) Tomatoes and watermelon contain lycopene that reduces prostate & other cancers

14) Check boron levels for those with prostrate cancer

In 1947 Virginia Livingston M.D. isolated a cancer causing microbe, every cancer sample contained it. It’s a microbe, a bacteria that secretes a special hormone protector that short-circuits our body’s immune system to grow unchecked.

15) Cesium chloride, a naturally occurring alkaline mineral stops cancer by making the body less acidic. Dr. Keith Brewer added DMSA (dimethyl sulfoxide) to directly target the cancer cells & tumors & stop pain within 24-48 hours. Tumor cells need lots of glucose and get it by pumping sodium-potassium in 20X faster than normal. It pumps sodium out and more potassium in, but cesium blocks the channels through which potassium leaves, the cesium builds up and kills the cancerous cell. Cessium chloride is given at 1 to 6 grams/day with vitamin C and extra potassium and food. The kidneys excrete the cells through uric acid – monitor the buildup. Low doses .5g/day enhance the tumor growth by making the cell more acidic, but not enough to kill it. Purchase at: [link deleted]

16) Oxygen – buy edible 35% hydrogen peroxide, place 3 drops in 8 ounces of water & drink to deliver H2O2 which splits to give your body extra oxygen.

It does this by increasing oxygen and hemoglobin disassociation, thereby maximizing the delivery of oxygen from the blood to the cells, according to a prominent doctor best known for treating AIDS patients with a holistic protocol that includes oxygen therapy

17) Eggplant contains cytotoxic alkaloids with anticancer properties. The eggplant can get into skin cancer squamous cells and kill them by destroying their lysosomes. Dr. Cham created Curaderm BEC-5. Get it at [link deleted] or call Dr. Cham 602-490-8030.

18) Ntense-2 from Raintree Nutrition is an anti-cancer formula that may help prevent leukemia relapses by stimulating the immune system. With cat’s claw, vassournha…

19) Simaruba contains dehydroglaucarubinone (a quassinoid) which inhibits the growth of lymphocytic leukemia

20) Anamu attacks malignant cells, enhances the immune system, increases the production of the protein interleukin-2. It contains coumarin & thins the blood.

21) The Brazilian peppertree, or mastic tree or Jesuit’s balsam works against bacteria & viruses and cancers of the throat & esophagus.

22) The Chinese Happy Tree, Camptotheca acuminata, TCM, of China & Tibet. The bark & stems of the tree contain camptothecin that inhibits the DNA enzyme topoisomerase I to stunt cancerous tumor growth. But, the tree is being over harvested.

23) Juzen-taiho-to – a strengthening tonic for the ill & elderly contains

Astragalus root – an antiviral agent & immune enhancer, lowers blood pressure, improves circulation & prevents heart disease.

Atractylodes Rhizome – a thistle from Inner Mongolia for digestive problems

Chuanxiong (Cnidium Rhizome – promotes blood circulation & relieves pain

Cinnamon bark (Cinnamomi Cortex) – for diarrhea, flu, parasitic worms, stimulates appetite

Dong quai (Angelicai Radix) – relieves hot flashes, regulates blood sugar & pressure

Panax ginseng (Ginseng Radix) – for digestion, better lung function, calming, strengthens immune system

Hoelen – a diuretic, sedative, moderates high blood sugar

Licorice (Glycyrrhizae Radix) – is anti-inflammatory, anti –viral, cough suppressent

Peony Root (Paeoniae Radix) – a blood tonic against poisoning, anemia, poor circulation

Rehmannia root – lowers blood pressure & cholesterol, improves blood flow to the brain

24) A sick body becomes overtaken by sodium. Hippocrates said: let food be our medicine. Max Gerson in 1920 developed the diet to return health. Daily drink 13 glasses of fresh raw carrot/apple, green-leaf juices from fresh organic fruits & vegetables.

25) HZ stops cachexia

26) Devour these veggies with gusto. They're commonly called the mustard family - mustard, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, cabbage and brussels sprouts.



For every 2,000 women who received mammograms over a 10-year period, only one would have her life prolonged, but ten would be harmed. Mammograms can actually increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer by as much as 3 percent per year by irradiating the breast cells and triggering breast cancer. Test for the protein marker in saliva.



Chemotherapy and radiation achieve remission in about 7% of cancer patients +15% have a marginally prolonged life. 98% does not work or may cause the cancer to grow.

In many primitive societies there is no cancer.

Leukemia thrives on iron, those cancer cells contain 1000X more iron than normal cells.

Tumors are voracious glucose guzzlers, and cutting off the sugar supply starves malignant cells.

Most humans are NOT able to get proper amounts of oxygen in their cells and tissues -- due partly to poor air quality, poor breathing habits and oxygen-depleting activities. More importantly, the human body is NOT always able to deliver oxygen to the cells and tissues.


What's the best way to talk to a family member who swallows all this nonsense? I fear that if she ever becomes sick she will not seek out effective treatment.

[technoextreme]

Oxygen – buy edible 35% hydrogen peroxide, place 3 drops in 8 ounces of water & drink to deliver H2O2 which splits to give your body extra oxygen..
Ooo god. Ooo god. Your mother might even kill herself with some of the suggestions before she can die of cancer. Hydrogen peroxide is dangerous stuff.
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/2006/ucm108701.htm
Most humans are NOT able to get proper amounts of oxygen in their cells and tissues -- due partly to poor air quality, poor breathing habits and oxygen-depleting activities. More importantly, the human body is NOT always able to deliver oxygen to the cells and tissues.
There is such a thing as too much oxygen. If you were to breath too much oxygen in you will die.

[Chris Haynes]

Send her this comic:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1162

It explains that cancer is not just one disease, but many (which she seems to realize). Remind her that some cancers can be reactions from viral infections (like hepatitis b and HPV). Also, that some cancers are regrettably genetic (BRCA genes, send her this link of a very engaging lecture by a researcher of that gene: http://www.gs.washington.edu/wednesdays/2007/speakers/king.html )

There are several dubious diet recommendations in there, especially the controlling if the body is acid or not. One thing that struck me was this: "Daily drink 13 glasses of fresh raw carrot/apple, green-leaf juices from fresh organic fruits & vegetables." It reminded me of this essay, The Orange Man. (http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=185)

[marting]

Chemotherapy and radiation achieve remission in about 7% of cancer patients +15% have a marginally prolonged life. 98% does not work or may cause the cancer to grow.

Gaak! What has happened to our schools? The Woo that wrote this is extremely innumerate. When stuff is made up it really helps to make it somewhat internally consistent.

[kellyb]

Gaak! What has happened to our schools? The Woo that wrote this is extremely innumerate. When stuff is made up it really helps to make it somewhat internally consistent.

For real!

[MatildaGage]

These people sell the products they claim cure everything, don't they?

FDA has several web pages devoted to Kevin whatshisname who is a convicted felon and was ordered not to do his infomercials anymore because they were deemed fraudulent. That organization seems to be using his taglines--"Cures THEY Don't Want You to Know About". Wonder if this is just one of his businesses? If so that would seem to be fairly convincing, even to a naive person.

You could also ask your mother to independently verify their claims. I'm betting she won't be able to verify a one.

I hate people who prey upon cancer patients with their fake cures. If there was a Hell, they'd deserve a special place when they arrive.

[GreenLines]

I hate people who prey upon cancer patients with their fake cures. If there was a Hell, they'd deserve a special place when they arrive.

Homeopathic medicine diluted in sulpheric acid?

[Belgian thought]

This looks very similar to the bogus "Cancer Update From John Hopkins Hospital US" e-mail - http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cancerupdate.asp .

[hokie]

I was listening to an interview on NPR a month or two ago, and the doctor in the interview stated that one of the big lessons in cancer treatments is that the body's immune system cannot be boosted to fight cancer. The cancer cells appear very much to be self. The immune system does not treat the cancer cells as it would an infection.

[technoextreme]

These people sell the products they claim cure everything, don't they?

FDA has several web pages devoted to Kevin whatshisname who is a convicted felon and was ordered not to do his infomercials anymore because they were deemed fraudulent. That organization seems to be using his taglines--"Cures THEY Don't Want You to Know About". Wonder if this is just one of his businesses? If so that would seem to be fairly convincing, even to a naive person.

Actually he still does infomercials and you can still buy his books. Worst yet is that some of his health information is so twisted and wrong that it could lead to injuries like blindness. Oddly enough he also mentions Mercola.

[soylent]

There is such a thing as too much oxygen. If you were to breath too much oxygen in you will die.

Indeed. Oxygen gas is a nasty poison; when the atmospheric concentration of this toxic wasteproduct began to increase it led to the first known mass extinction event.

It took a long while before creatures that could not just tolerate an oxygen atmosphere but put this wasteproduct to use in cellular respiration evolved. This feat requires all sorts of DNA repair mechanisms to cope with the huge level of free radicals produced by aerobic metabolism(thousands per day per cell!), it requires cells to kill themselves if they detect that things have gone badly wrong(apoptosis) and it requires an immune system to detect cancerous cells which have failed to kill themselves.

The great irony here is that oxygen gas is just about the most pervasive carcinogen there is. During aerobic exercise you're creating a huge amount of these carcinogen free-radicals; yet it seems to reduce cancer incidence, possibly by stimulating repair mechanisms to operate at a hightened level for longer than the exercise lasts. It's entirely possible that eating large amounts of antioxidants increase the rate of cancer incidence rather than reduce it; you can't know a priori without careful testing(evidence is weak that they do anything useful at all at this moment. Evidence that eating vegetables is good for you is much stronger).

[soylent]

I was listening to an interview on NPR a month or two ago, and the doctor in the interview stated that one of the big lessons in cancer treatments is that the body's immune system cannot be boosted to fight cancer.

I think there's a selection bias at work here.

The immune system is believed to kill some of the deffective cells that could progress to cancer if left alone. If macroscopically detectable pre-cancerous tissue changes or cancerous tumours appear, it is safe to say that these cells cannot be detected by the immune system because if the immune system could detect them it would have got rid of them long before it reached this stage.

[bigred]

What's the best way to talk to a family member who swallows all this nonsense? I fear that if she ever becomes sick she will not seek out effective treatment.

I would simply ask her how she knows any of this is true, ie where is the proof/evidence of any kind? And sites like "www.IM-sellingU-miraclecure.com" don't qualify.

I also would like to know what I'm missing re. saying to "get more oxygen" in one's system and pimping antioxidants at the same time :boggled:

[Skeptical Greg]

Have we been Spammed ?

[Ducky]

There's so much ******** in the OP's quoted letter it's hard to know where to start, but this made me laugh:




Chemotherapy and radiation achieve remission in about 7% of cancer patients +15% have a marginally prolonged life. 98% does not work or may cause the cancer to grow.

Someone get a calculator please?

[Eos of the Eons]

Indeed. Oxygen gas is a nasty poison; when the atmospheric concentration of this toxic wasteproduct began to increase it led to the first known mass extinction event.

It took a long while before creatures that could not just tolerate an oxygen atmosphere but put this wasteproduct to use in cellular respiration evolved. This feat requires all sorts of DNA repair mechanisms to cope with the huge level of free radicals produced by aerobic metabolism(thousands per day per cell!), it requires cells to kill themselves if they detect that things have gone badly wrong(apoptosis) and it requires an immune system to detect cancerous cells which have failed to kill themselves.

The great irony here is that oxygen gas is just about the most pervasive carcinogen there is. During aerobic exercise you're creating a huge amount of these carcinogen free-radicals; yet it seems to reduce cancer incidence, possibly by stimulating repair mechanisms to operate at a hightened level for longer than the exercise lasts. It's entirely possible that eating large amounts of antioxidants increase the rate of cancer incidence rather than reduce it; you can't know a priori without careful testing(evidence is weak that they do anything useful at all at this moment. Evidence that eating vegetables is good for you is much stronger).
That is one very cool and informative post, Thank you!

[ChrisC]

1) The shiitake mushroom grown in Japan stimulates one’s immune system activity by as much as 300% to naturally kill cancer cells. T-cell activity goes up as much as 200%. Our present system of chemotherapy and radiation destroys our immune system in hopes of killing the cancer cells

If you're interested, Stamets gives a rundown of research conducted up to around 1999 in Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms 3rd ed. (10 Speed Press). There's a a long list of references, but I've not looked at most them and I'm not really qualified to judge them anyway. It looks like certain compounds found in many fungi have potentially useful effects in the lab, but I have no idea if they are of any value in practical applications. Various polysaccharides are often named as the beneficial compounds.

[AndyD]

1) The shiitake mushroom grown in Japan stimulates one’s immune system activity by as much as 300% to naturally kill cancer cells. T-cell activity goes up as much as 200%. Our present system of chemotherapy and radiation destroys our immune system in hopes of killing the cancer cells

But Simonici says cancer is a fungus and must be destroyed with sodium bicarbonate! And all the alt-med gurus quote him positively. Surely eating mushrooms of any kind is just asking for cancer!

[Hynter]

Thanks for all the comments and help. I especially liked the comic that Hydrogen Cyanide linked.

Overall, I fear there's simply too many claims for me to respond to all of them, so I'll mainly have to argue the overall point that the burden of proof lies on the claimant. Meanwhile, I was hoping to at least sort these into different categories, based on strength of evidence and possibility of harm. The hydrogen peroxide one seems to stand out in the harm category (thanks technoextreme). She throws out a lot of quick claims which take me a while to research. For example, she says "HZ stops cachexia," but the NCI reports:

Four randomized controlled trials were done in the 1990s. A randomized trial is a study in which the patients are assigned by chance to separate groups to compare different treatments; neither the researchers nor the patients can choose which group. These trials compared hydrazine sulfate with a placebo (an inactive substance that looks like the treatment being tested). The results showed that hydrazine sulfate was not effective in treating cancer. In some cases, it was found to be harmful.

And the amount of time I took me to look up just that one makes me despair of trying to answer all 26. Some of them seem like complete nonsense to me (don't cook food twice?!?). Worst of all, these "cures" make a game out of blaming the victim (got colon cancer? you should have eaten more brassicales).

[Hynter]

these "cures" make a game out of blaming the victim

Thinking about this a bit more, it's like Blame-the-victim-Bingo. I-23? Not enough olive oil! You lose!

Actually, the thing that it most resembles is the rules for keeping kosher. What matters here is the ritual purity, not the evidence and not the medicine. We've got an arcane list of dietary and behavioral rules and prescriptions, and a group of people empowered to judge us as clean or unclean according to their rules.

Of course chemotherapy gets dismissed out of hand! How can a therapy known to induce nausea be considered clean?

[Ducky]

Thanks for all the comments and help. I especially liked the comic that Hydrogen Cyanide linked.

Overall, I fear there's simply too many claims for me to respond to all of them, so I'll mainly have to argue the overall point that the burden of proof lies on the claimant. Meanwhile, I was hoping to at least sort these into different categories, based on strength of evidence and possibility of harm. The hydrogen peroxide one seems to stand out in the harm category (thanks technoextreme). She throws out a lot of quick claims which take me a while to research. For example, she says "HZ stops cachexia," but the NCI reports:



And the amount of time I took me to look up just that one makes me despair of trying to answer all 26. Some of them seem like complete nonsense to me (don't cook food twice?!?). Worst of all, these "cures" make a game out of blaming the victim (got colon cancer? you should have eaten more brassicales).

Encouraging patients away from chemotherapy when warranted by their oncologist is in the harm category.

I sat next to a lady in an oncologist office who was reading the Kevin Trudeau book. She asked what I thought of it when she caught me looking at it with disdain.

She asked specifically "Do you trust everything this oncologist says? This book may save my life. There is a lot of information here that the doctors never told me about."

I responded to her by saying:

"Only if you use it to fend off invading hordes of klingons dressed in purple tutus will that book ever save your life."

Here's the deal, and it's the simplest response I have come up with:

Being an oncologist is a thankless, horrible and downright depressing job. Being the one to treat people who will likely not survive much longer is painful and takes a very very special type of person. My oncologist isn't someone greedily fingering stacks of cash from ill-gotten big-pharma gains in the back room while gleefully planning a new way to torture or speed people's deaths. This is a person who has spent the better part of a decade studying and practicing just to *start* their career, and they do so because they are passionate about helping people. Passionate enough to take on more debt in education than the average house costs, passionate enough to sacrifice social lives for the better part of a decade to just begin the career, and passionate enough to seek out the most proven knowledge over and over, ready to abandon therapies proven less effective when shown evidence, and they do all of this every day while having to deal with people who are confused, frightened and angry -- who curse, scream, cry, shout, blubber and every other emotional response you can think of.

I would, any day, prefer someone who cares enough to tell me the truth about my disease and say "I'll do my best, and here's what humanity's best can do right now" than someone trying to sell me a cure-all.

If something sounds like "lost knowledge" or a conspiracy theory it's most likely *********. If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. And if you tell me that legions of doctors for the past couple of centuries haven't learned more about the human body than has ever been learned before and done so while also having to give the hardest answers possible to sick and dying people I'll tell you that you're full of ****.

Scam artists don't care that much. They don't wait around for the aftermath. They don't see things through, and when it goes south they blame the patient for not doing enough, believing enough, or caring enough to want to be healed - which is patently ********. *EVERY* *CANCER* *PATIENT* *WANTS* *TO* *BE* *CURED*. Any treatment that is hinging on force of belief would never fail, yet constantly Hulda Clark or some other quack blames their patients for not wanting it enough.

You can't win a point for point argument against piles of ******** miles high made up by people willing to prey on desperate and dying patients. You can't win that because it is an intentionally stacked game.

You can, however, point out their hypocrisy when compared to actual doctors.

[Ambrosia]

There are cures for cancers.
I am very sorry that too many believe that chemotherapy, radiation and surgery are the only options!

I firmly believe there are cures for cancers, we just don't know what they are yet, but "cancer" is an imprecise definition

Stop eating all processed foods and all white flour and white sugar.

"processed foods" - all food we ever eat is processed in some way shape or form. There's nothing inherently bad about white flour and white sugar. It's eating unbalanced diets that are based mainly on refined carbohydrate that don't do your body any favours

6) Keep eating vegetables and fruits high in the antioxidants. Never eat leftover & cooked twice. Cook vegetables only for @ 15 minutes or eat fresh.

Eating fresh fruit and veg is part of eating a balanced diet. There's nothing wrong with cooking food twice. In fact if you eat some foods that you cooked previously without 'cooking' them again (technically reheating them past about 65C) you'll wind up poisoning yourself. If you cook most vegetables for 15 minutes by say boiling them for 15 minutes, you've pretty much destroyed lots of the nutritional value in them in any case.


9) Eat foods high in nutrients & fiber, low in fat, increase the intake of antioxidants such as berries.

In a nutshell, eat more fibre, eat less salt, eat less fat, eat less sugar, have been healthy eating guidelines for as long as I can remember.


Commercially processed fats & oils clog arteries, create heart attacks, lowers the voltage in our cells and thus allows cancerous cells to grow.

Rubbish. Olive oil is a commercially processed oil, it's pretty good for you. Cold pressed nut and seed oils are thought to be *very* good for you.

The lack of electron rich, highly unsaturated fats disturb proper cell growth & allow tumors to grow. Eat flaxseed oil which contains alpha-linolenic acid & lignans to prevent cancer, especially prostrate & breast cancer.

Er flaxseed oil is a "commercially processed oil" aka linseed oil. The "anti-cancer" lignans are in the seeds not in the oil you get from them. Linseed oil goes off very quickly and rancid oil is thought to be a carcinogen.



12) Olive Oil seems to halt estrogen-sensitive breast cancers


Which is a "commercially processed....." Olive oil being mono-unsaturated is thought to do lots of other good things for you like help to lower cholesterol.


13) Tomatoes and watermelon contain lycopene that reduces prostate & other cancers

As of the moment there is insufficient evidence to draw this conclusion. It's thought that lycopene from tomato sauces, along with using primarily mono-unsaturated Olive oil as opposed to poly-unsaturated oils, as well as the less sedentary lifestyle means that Italy is amongst the top European countries for life expectancy.

There is a great deal we don't understand about how our food can effect us. Some things might well turn out to be counter intuitive. e.g. research now suggests that artificial sweeteners could be a major contributor to obesity.

While it's highly likely that some foods will turn out to have a greater effect on our health than we presently believe, promoting lots of foods on the back of very limited reserch to date as a cancer cure is, well, wrong.


Tumors are voracious glucose guzzlers, and cutting off the sugar supply starves malignant cells.

True!! - shock horror. Sadly this means you will die of starvation as every cell in your body needs sugar.

[fls]

And the amount of time I took me to look up just that one makes me despair of trying to answer all 26.

That may be what you need to say in response. Tell her you looked up one of the claims, it turned out to be wrong, and it took a lot of time to discover that. Tell her that you think it's unlikely that she has taken the time to make sure this isn't just made-up. If she wants to claim that she has, then ask her why she included information that was wrong and potentially harmful? That way it only takes one example, rather than a refutation of each statement.

Linda