Certain phytonutrients found in raspberries can protect us from cancer and can even shrink some types of cancer tumors.
Mango Smoothie
Raspberries contain ellagitannins, one of the most powerful antioxidants known. Ellagitannins occur naturally in over forty different foods, but are found in abundance in raspberries, strawberries and pomegranate. However, red raspberry seeds, and the Meeker variety in particular, appear to be the most concentrated source of this beneficial phenolic complex. Interestingly, the seeds of the fruit contain more ellatitannins than the fruit itself.
Ellagitannins are large flat molecules found in the fruit and seeds of many fruits. Ellagitannins are water-soluble, making them easy for the body to absorb. After consumption, stomach acids convert these ellagitannins into ellagic acid. It is important to know that as such, that ellatitannins should be obtained from food, not as supplemental ellagic acid.
There has been much research into ellagic acid. Its value as a potent anti-oxidant and its value in fighting cancer is widely accepted. Ellagic acid has been shown to keep cancer cells from dividing and multiplying and eventually helps to kill the cancer. Ellagic acid inhibits angiogenesis—a term used to describe the development of blood vessels needed for tumor growth. It also encourages apoptosis (cancer cell death.) Ellagic has been quite successful against esophageal, breast, colon, prostate, and skin cancer. Studies have shown that ellagic acid may help prevent the development of cancer in cells infected with the human papilloma virus, which has been linked to cervical cancer.
Ellagitannins may also support healthy cholesterol levels and have anti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-bacterial properties. Red Raspberry Seed Powder
Ellagic acid works in many wonderful ways:
Powerful antioxidant– it neutralizes cell damaging free radicals
Protects the p53 tumor suppressor gene. The P53 gene causes cell reproduction to cease, and cells to die
Protects DNA from the mutations that cause cancer
Stops cancer cell proliferation
Induces cancer cell death
Lowers inflammation
Slows tumor growth
Targets cancer stem cells: Cancer stem cells not only survive most conventional treatments, but are responsible for recurrent and progressive disease
Inhibits the growth of oral, breast, colon, cervical, and prostate tumor cell lines
Supports healthy cholesterol levels
Has anti-fungal, anti-viral, and anti-bacterial properties
Don’t overlook another amazing type of raspberry—black raspberries
Studies show that black raspberries kill cancer cells and activate tumor suppressor genes.
Blueberry smoothie
The phytonutrients in black raspberries have been found to inhibit cervical cancer cell growth and tumor formation, inhibit inflammation and induce apoptosis in esophageal and colorectal cancer tissues (strawberries are also highly effective against esophageal cancer cells). While it can be challenging to find fresh or even frozen black raspberries, it can be purchased in powder form–and is delicious in smoothies! Black Raspberry Powder
~~If you don’t know your options, you don’t have any~~
Elyn Jacobs is a breast cancer survivor and holistic cancer strategist who helps people make better, healthier, non-toxic choices. She emphasizes the critical nature of addressing the root cause of cancer and not just its presenting symptoms (such as the tumor). Elyn specializes in understanding the role of estrogen in breast cancer and debunks the myths associated. She brings a plethora of knowledge to her practice and will help you think outside the box so you can incorporate every lifeline you may need for long term survival. Elyn is a Contributing Editor for The Truth About Cancer and was creator and host of the Survive and Live Well Radio Show on the Cancer Support Network. She is on the Medical Advisory Board for BeatCancer.Org and is on the Advisory Board to the Radical Remission Project. Contact Elyn via her website, www.elynjacobs.com. Elyn offers consults via Skype, phone or in person.
Cancer treatment hasn’t changed much in the past 40 years. Drugs come and go, but still the “cure’ eludes the medical community. While drug therapies in some cases help patients to live longer, this is often at the expense of a sharp decline in quality of life, and most often results in recurrences requiring further treatment. While we know cancer is a big business, could well-meaning doctors be over-looking the reason for failure? Several years ago, researchers discovered a clue. They found that not all cancer cells are the same, that some of these cells, known as cancer stem cells, are not only resistant to chemo and radiation therapies, but that they are actually stimulated to grow by these therapies–chemo and radiation make cancers grow faster and more virulent.[i] Stem cells are also the only cancer cells that can metastasize to other parts of the body. Cancer mortality is directly related to cancer stem cell activity (metastatic and proliferative).[ii]
As stated by Brad Weeks MD in Cancer Control Society Controlling the Cancer STEM Cells, “Treatment which fails to address the toxicity of cancer stem cells is futile and irresponsible. Do not be misled into thinking tumor reduction means you are making progress. “[iii] The cancer stem cell theory has been around for quite some time—therefore the ignorance of the majority of the medical field to blatantly ignore the research does indeed make such action irresponsible. That said, in order to successfully treat cancer using the standard of care, including use of the ‘kinder and gentler’ IPT, a viable protocol must include adjunctive care to minimize cancer stem cell stimulation and to “re-educate” confused cancer stem cells so they can be transformed into more differentiated and more targetable, treatable, cancer tumor cells. Please view the following video:
In the video, Weeks quotes Daniel Haber MD:
“If the cancer stem cell hypothesis is true, treating the majority of dividing cancer cells will shrink a tumor but won’t cure the cancer unless we can target the cancer stem cells themselves. That would explain why tumor shrinkage—the gold standard for measuring a drug’s effectiveness—doesn’t always translate into longer survival for patients.“ Daniel Haber, MD and Director Mass General Hospital Cancer Center
Should tumor shrinkage be the gold standard or goal of treatment? Sometimes shrinkage is necessary, but given what we know about the limitations of chemo and radiation, it would seem prudent not to ignore the very cells that lead to metastasis and challenge mortality. Targeting stem cells might be as simple as prescribing the drug Metformin or an anti-inflammatory drug, so a conventional doctor arguably has the tools—and thus no excuse. (Metformin is cheap and has very few side effects, but few doctors understand that this diabetes drug can reduce the risk of metastasis). However, there is a vast array of remedies available in nature and stress modifying activities that he or she may not be aware of that can do the job without the negative effects of drug treatment, and collectively might be even more effective.
“Cancer mortality is directly related to cancer stem cell activity (metastatic and proliferative).” Brad Weeks MD
For the full story, view Cancer Control Society Controlling the Cancer STEM Cells video above. For more on Cancer Stem Cells and what we can do to target them, read Cancer Stem Cells—Could They Be the Key to Metastasis?
So what is a patient to do if chemo or radiation has been recommended? Dr Weeks shared with me the five questions that he encourages his patients to ask their oncologists:
What chemo-sensitivity testing will you do to determine which chemotherapy agent to use?
How will you nourish and protect my healthy cells while you’re poisoning my cancer cells?
What will your proposed treatment do to my cancer STEM cells? (That’s really the game changer. If the doctor says, “What do you mean cancer stem cells?” you’re in the wrong office.)
How are you planning to interrupt the interleukin 6 and interleukin 8 SOS message, which my targeted and dying cancer tumor cells will emit in response to your chemo therapeutic radiation? (Admittedly, you’re going to be probably kicked out of the office by the time that sentence rolls off your tongue.)
And if the oncologist is still in the room at this point……
Would you give this same conventional treatment to your wife or children, and if not, what would you give them? Would you take it yourself?
For more information, advocacy and educational services, please visit Dr Bradford Weeks at http://www.weeksmd.com or contact him at md@weeksmd.com.
Cancer stem cells are not just an issue if you have chemo or radiation –which is why we recur even if we just have surgery. Distant metastases are often in place and undetectable when we have our surgery. For more information on cancer stem cells view these videos: Breast Cancer Stem Cell Regulation and Cancer Stem Cells with Professor Max Wicha MD.
Elyn
~~If you don’t know your options, you don’t have any~~
Brad Weeks MD completed undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College (major: Political Philosophy) then, prior to medical school training at the University of Vermont, Dr. Weeks worked in the Harvard system doing two years of research at Massachusetts General Hospital’s mineral metabolism unit working on osteoporosis (calcium, magnesium and vitamin D). In addition, he studied nutrition (including macrobiotics with Mishio Kushi in Brookline, MA), acupuncture, massage (shiatsu), music therapy (Tomatis method, power of chant), Anthroposophical medicine and classical homeopathy. Medical school at the University of Vermont was followed by medical internship (1 year) and psychiatric residency at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (3 years). He is a specialist in psychiatry and developed the field of “corrective medicine and psychiatry”.
After serving his patients for twenty years using “centsible” (safe, effective, and cost-effective) corrective care protocols, the Washington State Medical Board (MQAC) shut down his medical practice in March 2013. He is appealing what he and his attorney maintain was a vindictive, unjustified assault on his practice (and those of other holistic medical doctors in Washington State) as well a tremendously unfortunate deprivation of his patients’ rights to the care of their choice.
Please understand that Dr. Weeks considers this to have been politically motivated, as there were no patient complaints, no allegations of harm to any patients, and the Medical Commission attorney in charge admitted that it was a “self-generated” investigation. More information about this case is available upon request.
Elyn Jacobs is a breast cancer survivor, professional cancer strategist, speaker, and the Executive Director for the Emerald Heart Cancer Foundation. Elyn empowers women to choose the path for treatment that best fits their own individual needs. She is passionate about helping others move forward into a life of health and well-being. Elyn has been featured on CNN Money, Talk About Health, and Breast Cancer Answers and has written for the Pink Paper, Breast Cancer Wellness, Integrative Oncology Essentials, Surviving Beautifully, Body Local and more, and writes the Options for Life column for the Natural Healing-Natural Wellness Magazine. Elyn hosts the Survive and Live Well Radio Show on the Cancer Support Network. She is on the Medical Advisory Board for BeatCancer.Org and is on the Advisory Board to the Radical Remission Project. Elyn lives in New York with her husband and two young boys. https://elynjacobs.com/about/
Cancer Stem Cells–a missing link in the war against cancer. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are at the center of a theory that seeks to explain why cancer can sometimes return, despite apparently effective treatment. Cancer stem cells not only survive most conventional treatments, but are often responsible for recurrent and progressive disease.
Research has shown that cancer cells are not all the same. The stem cell theory proposes that among all cancerous cells, a few act as stem cells that reproduce themselves and sustain the cancer, much like normal stem cells normally renew and sustain our organs and tissues. Cancer stems cells have been found in many types of tumors, including leukemia, myeloma, breast, prostate, colon, brain, lung and other cancers. Cancer cells that are not stem cells can initiate cancer, but they cannot metastasize. CSCs have the ability to regenerate the primary tumor, and to move to other sites in the body causing metastasis. Unlike early stage primary tumors, metastasis is the primary cause of death in most cancer patients.
The majority of cancer drugs, while killing the bulk of tumor cells, ultimately fail to work long-term. Cancer stem cells don’t actively renew themselves through cell division like other cancer cells do, so existing treatments that target cancerous cells (like radiotherapy and chemotherapy) aren’t effective against these cells. What normally occurs is that the treatment selectively kills the less harmful populations of cells, the non-stem cells, increasing the ratio of CSCs to benign and/or less malignant cells which have or develop resistance to the agent, enabling them to come back even stronger with time. According to Dr Tony Jimenez, in each 1 cubic cm of a tumor there are one billion cancer cells, but 99% of those cells are non-stem cells; it is the 1% of the cells that are CSCs that are resistant to treatment, and which are more active and dangerous. So just because you get an 80% reduction in tumor bulk, you are not targeting the most dangerous of the cells, the cells that are immortal and are strengthened by chemo and radiation–these therapies actually stimulate CSC’s. The reality is that the chemotherapy, even though it can reduce tumor volume, can actually make cancer more malignant.[i]
As written by Sayer Ji, Founder of www.GreenMedInfo, a study titled,” Vitamin D compounds reduce mammosphere formation and decrease expression of putative stem cell markers in breast cancer,” brings to the forefront the role of breast cancer stem cells (BSCs) in breast tumor formation and their progression towards malignancy and treatment resistance. For many decades it was assumed that cancer results from DNA-damaged cells succumbing to fundamentally chaotic processes ‘going rogue’ and reproducing clonally (making identical copies of one another), without an acknowledgment of the different types of cells that comprise tumors. The most salient difference is between the cancer stem cells (sometimes referred to as ‘mother’ cells) which are capable of theoretically infinite self-renewal and produce all the differentiated ‘daughter’ cells in a tumor colony, which themselves are not capable of living indefinitely. It is actually the existence of the much smaller number of cancer stem cells which causes cancer recurrence, as they are not only resistant to conventional chemotherapy and radiation, but their Therefore, any cancer therapy that ignores the cancer stem cell subpopulation in favor of killing the non-tumorigenic daughter cells in order to ‘debulk’ the tumor (i.e. shrink it), will not result in destroying the root of the cancer. To the contrary, it can generate the illusion of ‘remission’ while in fact making the remaining tumor colony far more malignant, setting up the conditions for aggressive recurrence years later.” [ii]
And by the Stanford School of Medicine, Ludwig Center….
The idea that cancer is primarily driven by a smaller population of stem cells has important implications. For instance, many new anti-cancer therapies are evaluated based on their ability to shrink tumors, but if the therapies are not killing the cancer stem cells, the tumor will soon grow back (often with a vexing resistance to the previously used therapy). Another important implication is that it is the cancer stem cells that give rise to metastases and can also act as a reservoir of cancer cells that may cause a relapse after surgery, radiation or chemotherapy has eliminated all observable signs of a cancer. [iii]
Targeting Cancer Stem Cells
So to prevent relapse and metastases, it’s essential that we address the stem cells. According to Dr Tony Jimenez, Director of Hope4Cancer, while our powerful immune system (if fully functioning) is often able to seek and eliminate cancer cells, CSCs have a protein surrounding them that hides these cells from our immune system. However, natural compounds such as the ellagic acid in red and black raspberries help de-cloak the cancer stem cells of the protein they that hides them from our immune system[iv] (you want the ellagitannins from berries, not the supplement ellagic acid). These berries have many anti-mutagenic and anti-carcinogenic properties. Raspberry phytonutrients help lower oxidative stress, reduce inflammation and encourage apoptosis. Black raspberries are noted for their extremely high ORAC value and provide a good source of Vitamin A, and provide an excellent source of the flavonoid rutin – a phenolic compound which metabolizes into quercetin. Both red and black raspberries inhibit the growth of oral, breast, colon, and prostate tumor cell lines. While eating a cup of freshly picked raspberries or black raspberries might not be feasible, there are pure-food supplements like Freeze Dried Black Raspberry Powder and Raspex Raspberry Seed Powder / One Pound Jar) that are easy to find and delicious as well.
Other natural substances that are highly effective against CSCs are Curcumin (turmeric)[v], sulforaphane[vi] (broccoli sprouts are especially good), quercetin (apples, onions, red grapes and red wine), green tea, resveratrol, genistein (fermented soy) and black pepper. Eat these foods daily and in substantial amounts to get the most benefit; take them together for the power of synergy. You can also take the drug Metformin, which is an inexpensive off-label drug that has many anticancer properties, including targeting cancer stem cells (see multiple references below, but also consider berberine). And don’t forget to get some sun! As mentioned in the Vitamin D study above, vitamin D may target cancer stem cells as well. Of note is that these substances which target stem cells do so without harming healthy cells and which have other anti-cancer properties. Conventional treatments poison both the unhealthy and healthy cells, often resulting in the patient dying from the treatment, not actually the disease.
Are targeting cancer stem cells the cure for cancer? No, of course not. But they are an important piece of the puzzle. You still want to implement a protocol that meets your needs and change the overall cancer environment:
Build the immune system via stress reduction,moderate exercise and yes, daily hugs
Exercise daily
Detox your liver and your life (toss out toxic cleaning and personal care products)
Maximize nutrition with whole foods and targeted supplements
~~If you don’t know your options, you don’t have any~~ Elyn Jacobs is a breast cancer survivor, professional cancer strategist, speaker, and the Executive Director for the Emerald Heart Cancer Foundation. Elyn empowers women to choose the path for treatment that best fits their own individual needs. She is passionate about helping others move forward into a life of health and well-being. Elyn has been featured on CNN Money, Talk About Health, and Breast Cancer Answers and has written for the Pink Paper, Breast Cancer Wellness, Integrative Oncology Essentials, Surviving Beautifully, Body Local and more, and writes the Options for Life column for the Natural Healing-Natural Wellness Magazine. Elyn hosts the Survive and Live Well Radio Show on the Cancer Support Network. She is on the Medical Advisory Board for BeatCancer.Org and is on the Advisory Board to the Radical Remission Project. Elyn lives in New York with her husband and two young boys. https://elynjacobs.com/about/
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