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Will Fruit and Vegetable Plant Salvestrols Save us from Cancers?
Red & Green fruits and vegetables www.ars.usda.gov Photo by Keith Weller. This latest ‘pure and simple’ in essence scientific discovery of the importance of fruit and vegetable plant’s salvestrols, as a protective and potential remedial aid to cancers in the form of a supplement, comes at a time when our vitamins and minerals are about to be spirited off the shelves of Health Food shops and Chemists at the beginning of August 2005, via EU intervention and heavy pharmaceutical industry lobbying.1 This Directive has been being fought against in the European Court of Justice on all our behalves by the ‘Alliance for Natural Health’, whose work has until now has been nigh on airbrushed out of the news.2 Campaigners calculate that about 300 of the 420 forms of minerals and vitamins contained in some 5,000 supplements on sale in Britain will be outlawed! We can only hope that ‘Nature’s Defence’ Salvestrols supplement’s research work will not have any cause to be still-born or conveniently swept under the carpet before expected publication of research papers later this year. The company is reported to be dedicated to establishing an inspired, dynamic and creative research institute. It will reserve a proportion of revenues generated from the sale of products to fund the charitable trust supporting its research. And, the primary objective is to develop sustainable therapeutic strategies that are available to all, supporting the work with comprehensive educational programmes.3 Why Salvesterols and other supplements are useful In our ‘pop a pill’ oriented society this discovery also comes at a time when the UK Government’s mantra that the public should eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, not stipulated to be fresh, is not working. Even though there is strong evidence that a healthy diet can cut the risk of cancer, heart disease and other serious conditions the current average intake of fruit and vegetables is 2.8 a day and only 13% of men and 15% of women eat the recommended five portions or more.4 Certainly, there is no substitute for eating your way to and maintaining your health with an organic ‘balanced’ diet, but that in itself is not possible if food generally available to purchase no longer naturally contains the protective and remedial elements within it or if it does is unaffordable, which latter situation can often be the case for the average family and definitely for the low income household. Very few in terms of the whole UK population are privileged to experience and enjoy the savings of now ‘Once upon a time’ allotments to grow their own ‘organic’ fruits and vegetables, most of which have disappeared under the bulldozers of land developers. Over-population in the sense of the self-sustainability of food in Britain, i.e. being self-reliant without imported foodstuffs, (fresh foods undergoes vitamin losses in transit) - last put to the test in ‘Digging for Victory’ in WWII - no longer exists and exacerbates the problem.5 All of these contra-indications to common sense for the health of the nation are likely to put an even more untenable burden on the NHS por fin! “It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.” Robert Houghwout Jackson, Chief Judge, War-Crimes Tribunal, Nuremburg, 1945.
‘Fings ain’t wot they used ter be!’ We are far removed in the practical sense from the Paeleolithic ‘Hunter-Gatherer’ diet, yet “…genetically our bodies are virtually the same as they were at the end of that period some 20,000 years ago. … Thus an inevitable discordance exists between our dietary intake and that which our genes are suited to”.6 Our genes are influenced in their development environmentally, but however intelligent homo sapiens is, he/she is as well one of the slowest developers of the animal kingdom on Earth. Therefore, the sudden assault of modern foodstuffs upon our long-suffering bodies, especially in the past 60 years with Junk and Fast Foods, together with the help of various types of pollutants ingested via air, land and sea or others that may interfere with our DNA and our electro-magnetic fields that are all part of the somatic toxicity of our modern life-style, would seem to account for the cause of all the major diseases and illnesses we experience today. Leaving cancer aside for a moment and taking a look at recent research into the subject, the writing was on the Caveman’s wall! Hypothesis or no, how many people do you now who have a thyroid problem in the past couple of decades in particular? Quite a few I imagine. “An increased iodine requirement as a result of significant changes in human nutrition rather than a decreased environmental iodine supply is suggested to represent the main cause of the iodine deficiency disorders.”7 To cite another example of this genetic discord: “Accumulating evidence suggests that this mismatch between our modern diet and lifestyle and our Paeleolithic genome is playing a substantial role in the ongoing epidemics of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Until 500 generations ago, all humans consumed only wild and unprocessed food foraged and hunted from their environment. These circumstances provided a diet high in lean protein, polyunsaturated fats (especially omega-3 [omega-3] fatty acids), monounsaturated fats, fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other beneficial phytochemicals.”8 So it is useless to say that just by eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, not even fresh or organic, anyone can make up the deficits, markedly for those who cannot obtain the minority fresh organic foodstuffs for whatever reason. True it is far better to eat the five portions than not. However, modern food nutritional value being what it is, increasingly the public require Food Supplements and ready availability of them.
What’s it all about! Salvestrols are aptly named: the word ‘salve’ meaning something that soothes or heals or to save from ruin, destruction, or harm, e.g. in Spanish ‘salve me’ means save me. Salvestorals are compounds naturally existing in common fruits, vegetables and herbs, which are believed by ‘Nature’s Defence’ to be the link between diet and cancer prevention. They are used by plants as a defence against fungal infection. Headed by professor Gerry Potter of the UK based ‘Cancer Drug Discovery Group’, whose work in mainstream research into resveratrol (a salvestrol) is already published, which compound is derived from the skins of red, green and blue-black grapes, 9 his more recent work with salvestrols has revealed how the body protects itself from cancer and disposes of cancer cells as they are forming. Back in March 2002, Professor Potter’s research showed that the cancer preventative agent resveratrol undergoes metabolism via an enzyme CYP1B1, (present in both pre-cancerous and cancerous cells), to produce a metabolite known as antileukaemic agent piceatannol. This was not all; the observation provided an explanation for the cancer-preventive properties of resveratrol. Furthermore, it demonstrated that “a natural dietary cancer preventative agent can be converted to a compound with known anti-cancer activity by the enzyme that is found in human tumours.”10 Referring to the amazing potency of substances that were previously thought to be inert or only mildly active, Professor Potter has described salvestrols as ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’. “ … It is likely that we have discovered a mechanism that can tackle cancer cells whether they are formed or forming. Whether this could lead to a cure or not, we do not know.”10A However, from the promulgations of as yet unpublished work we may gather that salvestrols are tumour specific. In the body, salvestrols can be chemically transformed into chemical weapons that induce cell death. It is also claimed that salvestrols are only active in cancer cells, and are therefore highly selective and non-toxic to healthy cells, but are highly potent and safe.11 Not all at this stage of the proceedings are in agreement with this statement until more research is done and acknowledged. At a recent Conference in Leicester, experts commented that the anecdotal evidence was ‘promising’, but full clinical trials have to be carried out to confirm the treatment’s benefits. A spokesman for ‘Cancer Research UK’, said it does not endorse any supplement or drugs which have not been rigorously tested in clinical trials, and until this supplement has passed these trials, they cannot say if it has any preventive effects against cancer or any harmful side effects, which are remarks that are to be expected – together with the usual lack of enthusiasm and inclination towards skepticism surrounding anything new that is ‘natural’. It’s par for the course, especially in the present climate where supplements are under relentless threat.12 It would be less than responsible to raise false hopes for cancer sufferers, nevertheless for the past few decades cancer rates in the UK have shot up and it is predicted that by the year 2020, one in two of us will be affected by the disease at some point in our lives. Part of the problem are the higher levels of cancer-promoting chemicals in our food and environment, coupled with lower levels of cancer-protective nutrients in our diets; so this discovery is timely and bodes well for 2005 and the future. The hypothesis on salvestrols, requiring enzymatic activation to be effective, has led it to be known or described as a prodrug, with the ability to avoid the serious side-effects of most commonly used anti-cancer drugs that often severely damage normal tissue as well or in some cases render the user infertile. Harking back to our Paeleolithic past, the enzymes are present in a wide variety of tumours, irrespective of their oncogenic transformations that result in various forms of cancer and likely evolved for some other purpose. “The discovery of natural compounds, salvestrols, available in common foods, which specifically target and are activated by the enzymes”, led Professor Potter “to deduce that the enzymes have evolved as ‘a rescue mechanism’ … and cause a cascade of events that lead to the destruction, through apoptosis (cell death) demonstrated ‘in vitro’ in cell lines from many different types of cancerous tissue.”13 Of the tests done to date, salvestrols have demonstrated anti-cancer activity against: brain, breast, prostate, colon, ovarian, testicular and lung cancers. It was found that salvestrols content varied enormously and widely, e.g. the majority of supermarket produce was very low in salvestrols content, also in fruit juices, beverages and processed foods they were largely absent from depletion caused by extraction and filtering. Researchers found that salvestrols are not produced where crops using modern agricultural methods i.e. are intensively farmed and are subject to treatment by synthetic fungicides.14 Salvestrols were found to be present in highest concentrations at flowering and ripening times in crops that have not been treated with synthetic chemicals.15 There also can be depletion of salvestrols by method of cooking, boiling in particular, but organic fruits, vegetables and herb plants told a different story.16 It is not just a matter of depleted vitamins and minerals in our current Western diet, but salvestrols too, and unless food is organically produced or not treated with fungicides or mould inhibitors our efforts on the Government recommended 5-a-day front are not going to do us the amount of good hoped for. These findings also make an even stronger case to promote Organic Farming in the UK. For those who have said they can’t ‘taste’ the difference between ordinary produce and organic produce please note that they should think again, because organic produce is not about taste distinctions alone, it is about food value content. A vegetarian diet is not everyone’s bag, but the Mediterranean Diet proper comes close to what ‘Nature’s Defence’ recommends when it comes to buying fruits, vegetables and herbs. They have dubbed it the ‘Red & Green diet’, because the plants concerned are mainly coloured Red and/or Green. According to them the following are said to yield the highest complement of Salvestrols17: - Vegetables: All Greens including: Broccoli, cabbages, kales, savoy, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Chinese leaf, spinach, chard, lettuces, watercress, green beans, broad beans, garden peas. Artichokes (globe), red & yellow peppers, bean sprouts, celery, salad rocket, avocado, pumpkins, squashes, gourds, marrows, courgettes, cucumbers, melons, gherkins.
Herbs:
Fruits: All Red fruits (grapes, blackcurrants, redcurrants, blackberries, mulberries, cranberries, bilberries), apples, pears, pineapples, mangoes, tangerines.
COMMENT: Whether the discovery of Salvestrols proves to be the best thing ever for cancer-prevention and/or a remedial treatment, or simply another useful supplement to help boost the flagging Immune System’s health, we shall soon see. Meanwhile, it would be folly not to follow the Government’s 5-a-day advice. There are other important compounds and elements in fruits, vegetables and herbs we all need, but with the caveat to remember that salvestrols are only really present in wholefoods and to try to buy insofar as you can produce with freshness and of good quality. Oh! And don’t cook your vegetables to death. Whether you live alone or cook to feed a family, if you can’t afford a ‘steamer’, then a ‘steam-basket’ should not break the bank. It is well worth its economic weight, as it will fit many different sizes of cooking-pots and make your vegetables tastier.
References: 1. ‘Why do Meddling Eurocrats want to ban your vitamin pills? (Could it be anything to do with the drug giants hoping for huge profits)’ by Geoffrey Lean, Daily Mail (Good Health Section) 25th January 2005. 2. Alliance for Natural Health - http://www.alliance-natural-health.org 3. http://www.furl.net/members/Aging/Health 4. ‘Healthy Eating Guide is Launched’ BBC New Online 5th May 2004. 5. Census for 29th April 2001 UK population 58,789,194; figures were undersubscribed and therefore an underestimation, but were a 17% increase since 1951, which was therefore c.48,795,032 - or 9,994,162, c.10,000,000 more. http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page844.asp The unaccounted for population is now frequently estimated as being closer to between at least 62-63,000,000 in 2004 or between 12-13,000,000 and some suggest towards 15,000,000 higher than in 1951. 6. Pealeolitihic Diet ‘Stone Age’ http://www.panix.com/~paleodiet/ Period dates: Lower Paeleolithic Period 100,000BC, Middle Paleolithic Period 100,000-40,000BC, Upper Paeleolitchic Period 40,000-16,00BC. ‘Paeleolitchic nutrition: what can we learn from the past?’ Mann NJ. Dept. of Food Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2004;13(Suppl):S17 7. ‘Nutrition, evolution and thyroid hormone levels – a link to iodine deficiency disorders?’ Kopp W. Diganostikzentrum Graz, Austria. Med Hypotheses. 2004;62(6):8871-5. 8. ‘Cardiovascular disease resulting from a diet and lifestyle at odds with our Paeleolithic genome: how to become a 21st- century hunter-gatherer.’ O’Keepe JH Jr, Cordain L. Mid America Heart Institute, Cardiovascular Consultants, Kansas City, MO, USA. May Clin Proc. 2004 Jan;79(1):101-8. 9. ‘Pharmacokinetics in mice and growth-inhibitory properties o the putative cancer chemopreventive agent resveratrol and the synthetic analogue trans 3,4,5,4’-tetramethoxystilbene.’ Sale S., Potter GA et al. Dept. of Oncology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK. Br J Cancer. 2004 Feb 9;90(3):736-44. 10. ‘The cancer preventative agent resveratrol is converted into the anticancer agent piceatannol by the cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP1B1.’ Potter GA et al. Cancer Drug Discovery Group, School of Pharmacy, De Montfort University, Leicester. UK. Br J Cancer. 2002 Mar 4;86(5):774-8. 10A. Quoted by the BBC from Max Drake, medical herbalist at Nature’s Defence. 11. http://www.naturesdefence.com/ 12. ‘Chemicals used by plants as defence aginst fungal infection could benefit cancer sufferers, researchers say.’ By Jayne Elliott BBC Online News 27th January 2005. 13. http://www.naturesdefence.com/ 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. |
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