PC-SPES: Herbal aid for prostate cancer on verge of comeback

[Guest guest]

If any natural substance is good for us they are going to try to ban it. Lets

face it, they want us to be sick and they want us to have to pay for those

exorbantly overpriced drugs as the only option available. Frank

 

http://www.medicalposting.ca/men/article.jsp?content=20040427_095454_5240 & topSto\

ry=y

 

2004-04-27 Herbal aid for prostate cancer on verge of comeback PC-SPES banned

due to contamination, but researchers hope to study it again A herbal

concoction tested against prostate cancer with great fanfare until it was banned

in North America may yet make a comeback.

 

Researchers have reported hearing of new investors negotiating for the

eight-herb formula -- called PC-SPES -- in hopes of putting the health

supplement back on the market.

 

In February 2002, Health Canada warned Canadians not to use the supplement

because an analysis by the California Department of Health Services found

PC-SPES contained the active ingredient for the prescription drug warfarin, a

powerful blood thinner that could cause serious health effects if not taken

under medical supervision.

 

Health Canada said the manufacturer, U.S.-based BotanicLab, was recalling

PC-SPES and a related product called SPES that was contaminated with another

prescription drug.

 

But Dr. Stephen Straus, director of the National Center for Complementary and

Alternative Medicine at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.,

says there are now groups attempting to collect the herbs and standardize them

for testing.

 

Straus says independent researchers are ready to start testing a re-introduced

product, and that his centre has promised to support new trials of PC-SPES but

can't begin until a clean product is available.

 

David Sadava, a professor of biology at Claremont University in California, is

one of the researchers waiting for suitable material to test.

 

He says he knows of several groups of PC-SPES supporters in the U.S. intent on

developing a new product with the same formula, including men with advanced

prostate cancer who had significant responses to the original product. " I keep

hearing they are trying to get these tested for contaminants sometime this

year. "

 

These supporters, who have tried copycat products such as Equiguard and PC-CURE,

are desperate, Sadava says.

 

Data from his lab suggest that PC-SPES may also help treat lung cancer, and that

the herbs themselves, rather than the contaminants, are responsible for the

anticancer effect.

 

He says the herbs turn on genes that activate a process called programmed cell

death in prostate and lung tumour cells.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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