Cyanide targets cancer

[Guest guest]

Cyanide targets cancer

 

 

In September 2000 The BBC broadcast the following news:

Cyanide targets cancer

By BBC News Online's Jonathan Amos, 7 September 2000

 

Scientists are using cyanide to attack tumours.

They have tested a two-stage drug that harnesses the power of the

dangerous chemical to kill bowel cancer cells in the lab.

 

The researchers, at Imperial College, London, now hope to refine the

technology and test it on patients.

 

The technique takes a lead from some plants that release cyanide to

protect themselves from insect attack.

 

Tumour specific

 

The cassava plant, almond tree and hydrangea, all have an enzyme

that will produce cyanide when it comes into contact with a

particular sugar molecule.

 

The enzyme and the sugar are normally kept apart and are only

brought together when a pest bites into the plant tissue.

 

The Imperial College scientists have engineered the enzyme and

attached it to an antibody that will target specific tumours, when

injected into the body.

 

A second drug, containing the sugar, would then be introduced which

would react with the enzyme to release cyanide and kill the cancer

cells.

 

No resistance

 

Dr Mahendra Deonarain said the system would be so specific that only

the target tumour would be exposed to the cyanide.

 

" The enzyme will circulate around the body and accumulate in the

tumour only, and then it will clear from everywhere else. Then the

second step

is to inject the sugar drug and that itself will circulate around

the body but only where the tumour is, where the enzyme is, will you

get the cyanide.

 

" It will be enough to kill the cancer cells and you will be able to

repeat it over and over again until the tumour has gone. " Dr

Deonarain said the cancer cells would not be able to develop

resistance to the

cyanide in the way they can with some of current cancer therapies.

---

-Laetrile

 

What these researchers have done is 'discover' laetrile -- a cancer

treatment pioneered in 1950 by Dr Ernst T Krebs jr and used

successfully

by him in partnership with H H Beard in the middle of the 20th

century.

 

Laetrile is still a very well-known treatment which has had great

success in unconventional cancer circles. It was suppressed

vigorously

by the medical profession. One practitioner, Jimmy Keller, reckoned

on

an 80% success rate if the cancer patient had not had chemotherapy,

and

60% if he had. This is far, far better than anything that

conventional

medicine can achieve. Unfortunately, Keller was not a doctor, and

only

doctors are allowed to treat cancer in the USA, so he was sentenced

to

20 years imprisonment for curing people. Hundreds of people who had

been

cured by Keller lobbied the judge in 1997 and Keller's sentence was

reduced to 2 years suspended, on condition that he stopped curing

cancers. He came out of prison in January 1998. However, many cancer

patients, who had not been helped by conventional medicine, came to

him

to be cured. A kind and humane man, Keller hadn't the heart to turn

them

away so the authorities locked him up again. In the USA curing

people is

a heinous crime.

 

Laetrile is a compound, amygdalin, which contains cyanide. It is

found

in fruit pits, particularly of apricots. This 'new discovery' is

that

linamarin, found in cassava, hydrangea, etcetera, is a similar

cyanide-bearing compound.

 

As this compound is 'new', no doubt they can patent it and make a

lot of

money out of what they have derided as quackery for so long.

 

But the linamarin substance is not as effective as amygdalin -

laetrile.

 

 

To find more about laetrile, just enter the word into a search

engine.

World Without Cancer's website is a good place to start.

 

How Laetrile works

 

Laetrile (amygdalin) is a simple compound found most abundantly in

the

seeds of non-citrus fruits. Most commercially prepared laetrile is

extracted from apricot seeds. Laetrile is composed of two molecules

of

glucose (sugar), one molecule of benzaldehyde (an analgesic) and one

molecule of hydrocyanic acid (a cell-killing compound). It is the

hydrocyanic acid which kills cancer cells.

 

Laetrile's action relies on a chemical difference between normal

cells

and cancer cells:

 

Cancer cells contain in abundance an enzyme called beta-glucosidase;

normal cells have very little of it.

Normal cells have large quantities of another enzyme called

rhodanese;

cancer cells are deficient in that.

 

Laetrile is broken down into its component parts as a result of the

action of beta-glucosidase. As normal cells are deficient in this,

most

of the cyanide is released only in cancer cells. With nothing to

control

it, the cyanide released destroys the cancer cells.

 

In normal body tissue, deficient in beta-glucosidase, very little

cyanide is released and rhodanese, in the presence of sulphur-

bearing

compounds, converts the little free cyanide which may be released to

thiocyanate which is not toxic. This thiocyanate is then excreted in

the

urine. In this way normal cells survive unharmed.

 

The cancer industry has been searching for decades for a 'magic

bullet',

a treatment which targets only cancer cells without damaging normal

cells, and there it was all the time and they refused to acknowledge

it.

 

 

Last updated 14 December 2000

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/laetrile.html