Guest guest Posted May 29, 2007 Report Share Posted May 29, 2007 Hi Tony, I had the opportunity to give Sutherlandia a try with HIV+ patients. At the time there was no published evidence supporting its use in these patients. Today a single in vitro study showing some activity against HIV is the only published evidence that exists. Just about everything inhibits HIV in vitro, thus there's not much to go on. Still, I decided to give it a try based on some un-authored cases I found on a web site which suggested huge activity. I'll say that an un-authored case is something I would normally give little credence. What could possibly be the reason to have no author or source? It's very shady and I'm pretty sure I read them on the web site that was selling the stuff. Still, if there was a possibility that it could help my patients I felt it was my duty to find out. I looked into the safety first and felt reasonably satisfied on that count. I tried it in about 20 patients that either hadn't started HIV meds and were looking to avoid them for as long as possible or in patients that were taking a drug holiday and wanted the break to last as long as possible. In both cases this means keeping those CD4 cells up and the viral load down. I didn't keep official track of the patients, but rather I have an impression. Often a number of factors interfere with an objective evaluation, such as stopping and starting HIV meds, not taking the sutherlandia regularly, not having lab work available to see if there was indeed a short lived benefit, patients not following up. I never saw any clear benefit from Sutherlandia. Certainly nothing resembling the supposed case reports I read. I had developed regimes that would clearly boost CD4 counts and typically reduce viral loads in drug naive patients. In patients on drug holiday these regimes also seemed to be effective at extending holidays, but less so than in the former group. Yet, Sutherlandia was a complete dud in my experience. As far as cancer goes I couldn't say. However, I would be suspect of natural therapies that have little to no objective evidence and a lot of hype. Case reports can be very persuasive. In reality they can be some what misleading. For example, what if 100,000 people use a " natural " therapy for cancer and 20 people survived their cancer with this treatment. It would be incredibly impressive to hear 20 consecutive testaments. However, the 999,980 patients that had no benefit and died with this treatment can not speak to tell their story. ~Michael Thanks for your post - I will for sure take a look at Ribose. I would also suggest that everyone here take a look at the new secondary herbal ingredient in the oleander based OPC product: sutherlandia frutescens, the South Africa Cancer Bush (there is an informational site at http://www.sutherlandia.org). It appears to work wonders by itself on HIV, Cancer, Hep-C, Diabetes, etc - and those are all conditions that can leave the victim greatly diminished in energy, appetitite and immune function. --- In oleander soup , Preferred Customer <commonsense2265 wrote: > > Tony: > It came thru on my mail but I deleted it anyway. We are here to help oursleves heal. I suggest people form their own groups when they want to get on other subjects that is what has chat groups for. Then you can all talk to your hearts content about anything you wish. > Has this group looked at Ribose . . . . ------------------------------- www.DoctorUzick.com ------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 29, 2007 Report Share Posted May 29, 2007 Your points are well taken. I am not pesonally familiar with Sutherlandia, but I have read some impressive information at the Sutherlandia Org site. Have you taken a look there? Here is a link to the published literature and you can navigate around the site: http://www.sutherlandia.org/literature.html The report I get from South Africa is that S. Frutescens has been substituted for the cat's claw, pau d'arco and agaricus blazei mushroom extracts that make up 20% of the oleander based OPC supplement and that results are equal or better than the original formula. The researcher and patent holder for OPC is doing a doctor's thesis on the use of oleander and s. frutescens. I look forward to seeing the results, and hope that part of his studies and trials will involve comparing the results of using oleander alone with oleander used in conjunction with s. frutescens. I agree completely that lack of objective results make it difficult to judge natural treatments. That is why I am so impressed with the results over the past three years with OPC. 350 out of 350 HIV/AIDS patients still alive and well, and 72 out of 80 cancer patients either cancer and tumor free or with their cancers in remission and tumors shrinking. Of the 8 that did not make it, 5 were literally in their final days and could not hold down the oral supplement and another 3 succumbed to organ failure as a likely result of prior chemo. Now those results are pretty quantifiable, and if such results continue with S. Frutescens I will have to conclude that either it is pretty effective or else it is the oleander by itself that is so incredible. Regardless of the prior or present formulation, the patent holder for OPC has been quick to give most of the credit to oleander. Thanks for the input - I am always glad to get good information from experienced and qualified folks like yourself. oleander soup , " Michael Uzick, N.M.D. " <druzick wrote: > > Hi Tony, > > I had the opportunity to give Sutherlandia a try with HIV+ patients. > At the time there was no published evidence supporting its use in > these patients. Today a single in vitro study showing some activity > against HIV is the only published evidence that exists. Just about > everything inhibits HIV in vitro, thus there's not much to go on. > Still, I decided to give it a try based on some un-authored cases I > found on a web site which suggested huge activity. > > I'll say that an un-authored case is something I would normally give > little credence. What could possibly be the reason to have no author > or source? It's very shady and I'm pretty sure I read them on the web > site that was selling the stuff. Still, if there was a possibility > that it could help my patients I felt it was my duty to find out. I > looked into the safety first and felt reasonably satisfied on that count. > > I tried it in about 20 patients that either hadn't started HIV meds > and were looking to avoid them for as long as possible or in patients > that were taking a drug holiday and wanted the break to last as long > as possible. In both cases this means keeping those CD4 cells up and > the viral load down. > > I didn't keep official track of the patients, but rather I have an > impression. Often a number of factors interfere with an objective > evaluation, such as stopping and starting HIV meds, not taking the > sutherlandia regularly, not having lab work available to see if there > was indeed a short lived benefit, patients not following up. > > I never saw any clear benefit from Sutherlandia. Certainly nothing > resembling the supposed case reports I read. I had developed regimes > that would clearly boost CD4 counts and typically reduce viral loads > in drug naive patients. In patients on drug holiday these regimes > also seemed to be effective at extending holidays, but less so than > in the former group. Yet, Sutherlandia was a complete dud in my experience. > > As far as cancer goes I couldn't say. However, I would be suspect of > natural therapies that have little to no objective evidence and a lot > of hype. Case reports can be very persuasive. In reality they can be > some what misleading. For example, what if 100,000 people use a > " natural " therapy for cancer and 20 people survived their cancer with > this treatment. It would be incredibly impressive to hear 20 > consecutive testaments. However, the 999,980 patients that had no > benefit and died with this treatment can not speak to tell their story. > > ~Michael > > > > >Thanks for your post - I will for sure take a look at Ribose. I would > >also suggest that everyone here take a look at the new secondary > >herbal ingredient in the oleander based OPC product: sutherlandia > >frutescens, the South Africa Cancer Bush (there is an informational > >site at <http://www.sutherlandia.org>http://www.sutherlandia.org). > >It appears to work wonders by > >itself on HIV, Cancer, Hep-C, Diabetes, etc - and those are all > >conditions that can leave the victim greatly diminished in energy, > >appetitite and immune function. > > > >> > > >--- In > ><oleander soup%40>oleander soup , > >Preferred Customer > ><commonsense2265@> wrote: > > > > > > Tony: > > > It came thru on my mail but I deleted it anyway. We are here to > >help oursleves heal. I suggest people form their own groups when they > >want to get on other subjects that is what has chat groups for. > >Then you can all talk to your hearts content about anything you wish. > > > Has this group looked at Ribose . . . . > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------- > www.DoctorUzick.com > ------------------------------- > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 29, 2007 Report Share Posted May 29, 2007 Hi Tony, If you look at the " published literature " page on sutherlandia.org, with respect to the notion of some kind of clinical effectiveness for any kind of condition, what you have there is a bunch of nothing. The first reference is " anonymous. " Which is pretty bad. Then there are number patents which are referenced. If you don't know, there are a huge number of patents claiming a huge variety of substances to treat an even greater number of conditions. Sometimes clinical information is included in a patent. None of this clinical information is verified in any way. It's not reviewed for methodology, statistics, accuracy, common sense, etc. For example, you and I can apply for a patent today on the use of a combination of Uncaria tomentosa and L-arginine for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. We could make up some phoney cases of successful treatment and viola! We have a patented formula. We could also be very dubious claim our formula has a published clinical trial and then reference the patent. The majority of the population not knowing any better would be very impressed. With the right Internet marketing, you and I could be rolling in quite a bit of dough. This is done all the time. While I suppose technically clinical information included in a patent could be referred to as published, this is certainly not what anyone with basic knowledge of research would refer to as a published clinical trial. The latter refers to a peer reviewed study in humans published in a medical or scientific journal. Anyway, of the references listed on the page you mentioned, only two of them are studies published in some kind of journal. One of them is looking at pinitol a compound found in the leaves of some other plant. Perhaps sutherlandia also contains pinitol and that was the best they could come up with. The other study is looking at a combination of 5-FU (a chemotherapeutic agent) and L-canavanine - I assume for the treatment of cancer - in cell culture and animals. L-canavanine seems to be a component of sutherlandia. So, as far as their reference sections goes, I would say it's lacking and honestly an embarrassment. In actuality there is a bit more research looking at sutherlandia than this poor reference section suggests. Just not a hell of a lot more. I've been meaning to ask about this study in HIV and cancer that you've referred to. Obviously this isn't something that's published in a medline indexed journal - or I would have noticed it. So where does this information come from? Is there any way to review it? ~Michael At 08:14 PM 5/28/2007, you wrote: Your points are well taken. I am not pesonally familiar with Sutherlandia, but I have read some impressive information at the Sutherlandia Org site. Have you taken a look there? Here is a link to the published literature and you can navigate around the site: http://www.sutherlandia.org/literature.html The report I get from South Africa is that S. Frutescens has been substituted for the cat's claw, pau d'arco and agaricus blazei mushroom extracts that make up 20% of the oleander based OPC supplement and that results are equal or better than the original formula. The researcher and patent holder for OPC is doing a doctor's thesis on the use of oleander and s. frutescens. I look forward to seeing the results, and hope that part of his studies and trials will involve comparing the results of using oleander alone with oleander used in conjunction with s. frutescens. I agree completely that lack of objective results make it difficult to judge natural treatments. That is why I am so impressed with the results over the past three years with OPC. 350 out of 350 HIV/AIDS patients still alive and well, and 72 out of 80 cancer patients either cancer and tumor free or with their cancers in remission and tumors shrinking. Of the 8 that did not make it, 5 were literally in their final days and could not hold down the oral supplement and another 3 succumbed to organ failure as a likely result of prior chemo. Now those results are pretty quantifiable, and if such results continue with S. Frutescens I will have to conclude that either it is pretty effective or else it is the oleander by itself that is so incredible. Regardless of the prior or present formulation, the patent holder for OPC has been quick to give most of the credit to oleander. Thanks for the input - I am always glad to get good information from experienced and qualified folks like yourself. --- In oleander soup , " Michael Uzick, N.M.D. " <druzick wrote: > > Hi Tony, > > I had the opportunity to give Sutherlandia a try with HIV+ patients. > At the time there was no published evidence supporting its use in > these patients. Today a single in vitro study showing some activity > against HIV is the only published evidence that exists. Just about > everything inhibits HIV in vitro, thus there's not much to go on. > Still, I decided to give it a try based on some un-authored cases I > found on a web site which suggested huge activity. > > I'll say that an un-authored case is something I would normally give > little credence. What could possibly be the reason to have no author > or source? It's very shady and I'm pretty sure I read them on the web > site that was selling the stuff. Still, if there was a possibility > that it could help my patients I felt it was my duty to find out. I > looked into the safety first and felt reasonably satisfied on that count. > > I tried it in about 20 patients that either hadn't started HIV meds > and were looking to avoid them for as long as possible or in patients > that were taking a drug holiday and wanted the break to last as long > as possible. In both cases this means keeping those CD4 cells up and > the viral load down. > > I didn't keep official track of the patients, but rather I have an > impression. Often a number of factors interfere with an objective > evaluation, such as stopping and starting HIV meds, not taking the > sutherlandia regularly, not having lab work available to see if there > was indeed a short lived benefit, patients not following up. > > I never saw any clear benefit from Sutherlandia. Certainly nothing > resembling the supposed case reports I read. I had developed regimes > that would clearly boost CD4 counts and typically reduce viral loads > in drug naive patients. In patients on drug holiday these regimes > also seemed to be effective at extending holidays, but less so than > in the former group. Yet, Sutherlandia was a complete dud in my experience. > > As far as cancer goes I couldn't say. However, I would be suspect of > natural therapies that have little to no objective evidence and a lot > of hype. Case reports can be very persuasive. In reality they can be > some what misleading. For example, what if 100,000 people use a > " natural " therapy for cancer and 20 people survived their cancer with > this treatment. It would be incredibly impressive to hear 20 > consecutive testaments. However, the 999,980 patients that had no > benefit and died with this treatment can not speak to tell their story. > > ~Michael > > > > >Thanks for your post - I will for sure take a look at Ribose. I would > >also suggest that everyone here take a look at the new secondary > >herbal ingredient in the oleander based OPC product: sutherlandia > >frutescens, the South Africa Cancer Bush (there is an informational > >site at <http://www.sutherlandia.org > http://www.sutherlandia.org). > >It appears to work wonders by > >itself on HIV, Cancer, Hep-C, Diabetes, etc - and those are all > >conditions that can leave the victim greatly diminished in energy, > >appetitite and immune function. > > > >> > > > > >< oleander soup%40>oleander soup , > >Preferred Customer > ><commonsense2265@> wrote: > > > > > > Tony: > > > It came thru on my mail but I deleted it anyway. We are here to > >help oursleves heal. I suggest people form their own groups when they > >want to get on other subjects that is what has chat groups for. > >Then you can all talk to your hearts content about anything you wish. > > > Has this group looked at Ribose . . . . > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------- > www.DoctorUzick.com > ------------------------------- > ------------------------------- www.DoctorUzick.com ------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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