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Tuesday 9 May 2017

'Cancer-fighting' berry in Australian rainforests: EBC-46

World-first human trials of an extract from a berry found in Australian rainforests that is thought to help cure cancer.  Doctors have begun human trials after promising results from tests on animals.
'Cancer-fighting' berry in Australian rainforests
Thursday, 18 August 2016 3:28PM
The seed extract was found to eradicate different types of cancers within seven days.
Denise Powell is one of the cancer sufferers who has joined the trial in Queensland.
She has a tumour in her armpit which is getting progressively worse.
“My cancer surgeon said, ‘I can take that one out, if you get any more you might lose an arm.”
Doctors injected the trial drug directly into the tumour.
“In less than 20 minutes the tumour had gone purple then black,” Denise said.
“Then within a couple of days the tumour just kind of shriveled up and dies.
When EBC-46 is injected it triggers and immune response, activating white blood cells to attack the tumour and shrink it to nothing.
“If this rainforest remedy is found to be safe and effective, it could offer a whole new treatment option for cancer patients, especially the elderly who can’t face another round of chemo or go back under the knife,” Channel 7 medical expert Dr Andrew Rochford said.
The company developing the trial, QBiotics, said the tumour types successfully treated so far in animals included mast cell tumours, melanomas, squamous cell carcinomas, adenocarcinomas, soft tissue sarcomas, myxosarcomas, nasosinal facial ulcerations and equine sarcoids.

https://thewest.com.au/news/cancer-fighting-berry-in-australian-rainforests-ng-ya-273188?r=1



Nature’s Solution
Nature’s Solution

I am a regular general veterinary practitioner who has found herself in an exciting situation, where I have been asked to be involved in a new method of treating cancer.

I have no oncology training, but I have certainly seen many animals treated with current chemotherapy and radiation techniques.

The EBC 46 may never replace these proven cancer-fighting methods, however, I believe it will certainly play an important role in the treatment of certain cancers, suffered by not only dogs and cats, but other animals as well.

I was very sceptical when I was first approached regarding running small animal trials. However, my doubts as to the validity of the EBC 46 were squashed almost immediately.

As with all experimental trials, a new drug/compound cannot be trialled on animals with the option of current standard therapies. So, especially in the initial stages of the trial, we were treating on animals that had already had surgery and chemotherapy, and animals that had inoperable tumours. Many were at the end stage of their disease, and the option was either euthanasia or to trial this treatment.

Because of these beginnings, my first impression was the incredible improvement to the quality of life experienced by animals treated with the EBC 46. Not all animals had a significant reduction in tumour size, but nearly all the animals experienced an improved zest for life.

If this was the limit of the EBC 46’s abilities then, with this effect alone, I believe it will play a huge role in palliative care.

However, as the trials went on and more animals were being treated, I was witnessing more and more impressive results.

Whilst I would never say that this is going to cure all cancer, I will say I have seen some incredible, almost unbelievable results.

As cancer is such an emotive issue I feel it is important that it is understood that all cancer-fighting treatments have limitations. At this stage EBC 46 has only been used on cutaneous, sub cutaneous oral, and nasal tumours. We have not treated metastatic (distant) disease, so in these cases it would be used more as a palliative therapy. With the primary masses, the hope is always complete resolution of the tumour, but we consider any improvement in quality of life a success.

My hope is that veterinarians around Australia have the EBC 46 on their drug room shelf by the end of 2011. It would be great to know that we have yet another effective anti-cancer compound available to use in our fight against cancer.

For all those other sceptics (remember I was one initially also), imagine how easy it would have been to discount Fleming and his discovery that mould could be used to kill bacterial infections. Amazing things come from nature.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/a/7385485/nature-s-solution/#page1


Nature s Solution
Nature's Solution

Over the years of reporting about health and wellness I have become a little bit sceptical of what are called "breakthroughs".

Things which are presented are often not "break throughs" and it has become so important to base my comments on the solid evidence which surrounds a health development.

When I heard of a couple of CSIRO scientists living on the edge of a rainforest on the Atherton tableland who had discovered a medication from the rainforest which attacked cancer cells but left normal cells alone, I was doubtful.

My attitude changed when I met Dr Victoria Gordon and Dr Paul Reddell at their home and laboratory, just on the edge of the tropical forest. They were aware that for over a decade, an international drug company had searched the forest for potential medications, spending millions of dollars in so doing and had come up with nothing.

They were concerned about conservation and that the ribbon of rainforest was all that remained of a jungle which had successfully evolved over one hundred million years.

A rainforest which had not only allowed plants to survive but had encouraged them to constantly evolve. Dr Reddell described it as the "Pharmacy of the Future".

Sadly, farmers had cut the forest away and transformed the jungle into treeless pasture, not only obliterating the huge variety of plants but the equal number of animals which used the wet foliage as home.

Unlike the pharmaceutical company in the past, the two scientists became eco–detectives, learning as much about the forest and its tricks of survival as they could.

Amongst many things they discovered was that when the fruit of the brushwood tree fell to the ground, it was collected by a marsupial, taken away to a safe place and eaten.

The nut was discarded away from its parent tree, it seeded and grew into another plant but far enough away it didn’t rob its parent of nutriment. Both became jungle survivors.

They wondered why the marsupial didn’t like the nut so they tested it. Its taste was unpleasant and inside they discovered 500 chemicals. Each was studied chemically and can you imagine their surprise when one morning they discovered that a chemical they called EBC-46, dissolved tumour cells when left over night in a petri dish.

EBC-46 has been highly refined and is now being tested on tumours of animals that are so old that surgical removal is not indicated and may actually kill them - and the results have been excellent.

EBC-46 works this way. Cancer forms all the time in our bodies and if we are healthy, our defence or immune system attacks the tiny abnormal cells and destroys them so we stay cancer free.

Cancer develops when the power of its cells hone down the cascade of immune cells and chemicals which allows the cancer cells to multiply.

EBC reverses that and reinvigorates the white blood cells trapped in the tumour, and what's more, creates what is called "a neutrophil storm", dragging powerful white cells from outside the tumour and into the cancer cell to devour it.

The amazing fact is that all normal cells are left alone and there are no apparent side effects on them.

In normal chemotherapy and radiotherapy for cancer, both normal and cancer cells are destroyed and it's a delicate equation to decide how much of the therapy to use so that an excess of cancer cells die.

Both therapies have side effects.

I have seen the results from animal studies for myself and I was so impressed I asked a Cancer Specialist who manages the biggest cancer therapy unit in Australia, to assess this new discovery.

He too was also impressed by the animal trials but says human cancers may be different to those which animals suffer.

The only way to appreciate the effect of EBC-46 on human cancer cells is to carry out clinical trials over many years and carefully assess the results.

None the less, the discovery of EBC-46 not only indicates the importance of conserving our forests for the future so that more medications may be discovered, but offers hope that there will be a new option for humans with cancer.

Despite the interest in EBC-46 it's so important not to offer "false hope". Human studies, planned to begin next year will take time and will be rigorous and it will take 5-7 years to develop.

Nonetheless, all journeys start with the first step but that step has already been taken.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/a/7391633/natures-solution/#page1
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Could the rainforest hold cure for cancer?





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