Graham Crackers, Avemar and Cancer Treatment

[Guest guest]

Graham Crackers, Avemar, and Cancer Treatments

April 30, 2007

Jacob Schor, ND

 

A product made of fermented wheat germ shows promise in treating cancer

 

[website verfsion has Sylvester's portrait here]

 

Sylvester Graham (1794-1851)

 

Sylvester Graham is long forgotten. He was born in 1794 and, as an ordained

Presbyterian minister, preached on the benefits of vegetarianism, abstinence

from alcohol and the value of whole wheat flour. If remembered for anything, he

is famous for inventing Graham flour in 1829. He preached that the white bread

of the time was unwholesome. Graham made his bread from pure unsifted and

unbolted flour. He also insisted that it was dangerous to eat while still fresh.

For reasons unclear to me, he argued that dry hard crusty loaves were

preferable. He made and shipped his hard dry loaves to followers all over the

country. Graham crackers are a leftover from his one time fame that we are

familiar with. His fanatical belief in the danger of white flour also remains in

the public domain, even if not so fundamentalist.

 

Everyone knows that whole wheat bread is better for you than white bread. That’s

a given. Wheat grains are made of three components, the endosperm, the bran and

the germ. The endosperm makes up the majority of the grain by weight, about 83%,

and contains primarily starch and a little protein. This is the stuff that white

flour is made from. It contains calories from the starch and protein but is

relatively deficient in vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. The bran comes

from the outer protective shell of the wheat kernel and makes up about 14% of

the grain by weight. Bran is mostly indigestible fiber, though it does contain

more nutrients than the white endosperm. The germ is the most nutritious part of

the grain although it makes up only 2-3% of the grains weight. The germ is the

actual plant embryo. It is rich in vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Both

bran and germ are removed from wheat during the milling process to make ‘white

flour.’ It is worth remembe

ring

these nutrition basics when talking about one of the new entries into the field

of nutritional oncology. It is called Avemar

 

A product called Avemar made from fermented wheat germ extract was invented in

the 1990s by a Hungarian scientist named Máté Hidvégi. To make Avemar, wheat

germ is fermented with the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae for about 18 hours and

the resultant product dried to a powder. This endproduct is standardized to

contain 0.04% of methoxysubstituted benzoquinones which may be one of several

active ingredients in Avemar.

 

Hidvégi isn’t the first Hungarian to show interest in these benzoquinones for

treating cancer. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who received a Nobel Prize for

discovering ascorbic acid, was the first to propose their use as anticancer

agents.

 

It should come as no surprise to find that this product is safe. After all it’s

just fermented wheat germ. In animal studies, no adverse effect was seen when

giving animal 2 grams per kilogram body weight per day. An equivalent dose for a

150 pound person would be 150 grams or about 5 ounces per day of the powder.

Typical doses used in studies have been 9 to 18 grams a day. At these lower

doses, human test subjects have reported only mild transient nausea, dizziness,

constipation when using Avemar.

 

Quite a bit of work has been published which attempts to explain the mechanisms

of action of Avemar. This is a complex substance and probably contains a number

of active chemicals. It is assumed that the methoxy-substituted benzoquinones

are at least part of the active principles. A number of different mechanisms

have been identified by which Avemar acts against cancer. They include apoptosis

induction via poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase, the immune system, major

histocompatability comples (MHC) class 1, ribonucleotide reductase (RNR),

cyclo-oxygenase (cox1 and cox-2) enzyme activity, intracellular adhesion

molecule (ICAM) 1, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a) production, and

transketolase (TK).

 

Animal Research:

 

Numerous animal studies have demonstrated Avemar’s benefit in cancer treatment.

Scientists measure immune function by timing how long it takes an experimental

animal to reject a skin graft from another animal. The faster the rejection, the

better the immune system is working. Avemar increases immune function as

measured by this skin graft test. Giving Avemar to test rats prevented them from

developing colon cancer when given a cancer causing chemical. In the rats in the

control group, 83% developed tumors while only 45% of the rats given Avemar did

so. In a number of animal experiments giving vitamin C at the same time as the

Avemar increased the effect at inhibiting metastasis.

 

Human Research.

At this point, we are still awaiting a definitive double blinded placebo

controlled human trial. There are a number of open human trials and animal

trials suggesting benefit.

 

In an article published in August 2003 in the British Journal of Cancer, Jakab

Shoenfeld and his colleagues reported on an open trial of 66 patients with

colorectal cancer. They received standard therapy plus 9 grams of Avemar a day.

These patients were compared to 104 patients who received only standard

treatment but no Avemar. The primary endpoint of the study was progression-free

survival. Tumor progression was defined as an increase in size of tumor of at

least 25% or the appearance of new lesions. Progression related events,

including recurrent disease, metastasis, or death were more common in the

control group than in those taking Avemar. In all, 42.3% of the control group

had progression events while only 16.7% of the Avemar group did. This was an

open trial, patients decided if they wanted to take this ‘experimental product.’

They were not randomized. It seems that the sicker someone was at the start of

the experiment, the more inspired they were to try somet

hing

unusual. At the start of the trial 27% of the Avemar patients had stage IV

disease while the control group only 4% were this advanced.

 

Event Control Group Avemar Group p value

New Recurrences 17.3% 3.0% <0.01

New Metastases 23.1% 7.6% <0.01

Deaths 31.7% 12.1% <0.01

Progression related events 42.3% 16.7% <0.001

 

 

 

Another study from 2004, this one published in the Journal of Pediatric

Hematological Oncology looking at the incidence of febrile neutropenia in

children undergoing immunosuppressive chemotherapy. Avemar was given at the same

time as chemotherapy in an open label matched-pair pilot trial. Control patients

did not receive Avemar. Tumor staging was the same at the start of the study.

The number and frequency of febrile illnesses was monitored and differed

significantly between the two groups of patients. The Avemar patients had 30

febrile episodes in total in contrast to the control patients who had 46

episodes.

 

In another open-label, pilot trial but this one randomized clinical trial,

Avemar was given along with chemotherapy to patients with stage III melanoma.

Twenty-two patients were given Avemar in addition to the chemotherapy drugs

DTIC. They were compared against twenty-four patients who only received the

drugs. Again there was a significant difference in favor of the patients

consuming Avemar in terms of progression-free survival.

 

Dosing: Avemar comes as powder in single serving packages that are stirred into

water. The powder is flavored and sweetened. Human trials have used 9 grams of

powder once or twice a day.

 

The question: Before any of you write to ask, I will confess that I do not know

if you can make this at home. Avemar is made by fermenting wheat germ with

yeast. Someone is bound to write me and ask, “Could I bake bread at home using

loads of wheat germ and produce the same chemicals as in Avemar?” I don’t know

but it is an intriguing thought. On the other hand, how many people will sit

down to eat a bowl of fermented wheat germ? An orange flavored sweetened drink

may be more palatable.

 

the website version of this article not only has a picture of Sylvester Graham

but references:

http://www.denvernaturopathic.com/news/Avemar.html