What time zone you in? Here today is Thursday, tomorrow Friday, day after Saturday. DCA Wednesday / Thursday / Saturday. Friday hit the little boogers with 3 nasty chemotherapies which will make them very worried. I don't think they'll have time to develop resistance.

But, anyway, I think it safer not to do DCA the day of the infusion in case there is an interaction. I'll test on Saturday when the chemotherapy titre is high but I can manage anything that goes wrong easily by stopping the DCA input. That works OK I'll think about doing DCA through the next chemo infusion.

Kind regards - Ian

Thanks for the comment. I understand the issue with oncologists very well. I even had quite a big disagreement with mine this morning and I will be taking him before his ethics committee in the next couple of weeks as a consequence. Probably need a new oncologist after that but hey, if the man is useless to me then no loss.

I appreciate the nanocell approach but I don't know there will be a trial in the UK - but now you mention it I'll check if its going multi-centre - some of them do.

Hrrm, if its in Aus can you give me a pointer to that? I'll go look it up in other topics, if I can't find it I'll come back to you. I lived in Aus for 10 years in the 70s and I wouldn't mind coming back - maybe I could qualify for that trial. Sounds fun.

As to DCA working, I can't yet know. I didn't expect anything when I started Wednesday. However there was a pronounced effect as reported yesterday. I'll post today's blood test results later - I'm a bit pooped after all day chemo.

I'll probably do some DCA this evening then back to full load tomorrow. I'll give it the best shot.

Kind regards - Ian

Thanks for the offer of the papers, I look forward to them.

BTW I'd like to make a comment to administrators / mods. I must be being stupid but I don't see any easy way to upload files or include pictures in messages. This makes it more difficult to share data with each other.

F'rinstance I've got here today's blood test results and next week I'll have some fresh CT scans. To really document a progress it would be nice to make it easy to put this data in the record when fresh.

If fixing this means adjusting my stupidity level then please do so. Otherwise, could we have an easy way to attach data please?

Kind regards - Ian

You should make progress on FolFox + Avastin. Its an effective combo although Oxaliplatin has bad blood vessel and neuropathic side-effects. I look forward to hearing of your next scan results. BTW, do they give Oxali with a premed to suppress the neuropathic effects these days? That was introduced just before I moved on and made a big difference.

I don't know much about alternative / herbal stuff. I've stuck to the pharma driven chemo until recently as it was generally more accessible to me being a heavy techie able to read research papers.

I will look into Curcurmin over the next few days as I'll not be going far from the laptop till the chemo settles down. However my first google produced this link http://www.holfordwatch.info/2007/04/whats-excitement-about-turmeric.html
which seems down right abusive about it (or one of its protagonists). I'll look again tomorrow and see what I can see.

Now doesn't HyCamp look like fun? Thats an improvement worth paying for. I was aware of the use of Hyaluronic Acid in combo with chemos but didn't know of this trial report so thank you.

I guess it should be possible to get an MHRA import license for this even if it isn't EMEA approved. I'll research this further: if it still looks good then its just 1. confirm the company can supply 2. get drug import company on the case 3. get 2 letters from quack prepared to administer it (MHRA / drug import company) 4. hold up arm. A simple sequence usually taking 4 months to organise. *If* you can find a quack with the balls to be first out of the blocks.

Kind regards - Ian

It may be that I don't feel as stressed as usual after this chemo combo and I do have better mood. I can never sleep the night after unless I really drug up but I do feel more alert than usual - not speedy but calm and relatively clear headed.

All interesting - I guess thats the Phase 1 multi-agent trial rolling. I don't plan to look for DLTs but I'll let you know if anything falls off by morning...

Kind regards - Ian

I have entered most new blood results (I'd been a bit lax last 6 weeks) but need to add another class and knock spread sheet into shape for upload. I'll get it out tomorrow. Doesn't seem anything very strange in the numbers - maybe they look better than I might have hoped from clinical state earlier in the week.

Kind regards - Ian

The one thing that I have learned since being diagnosed is that there seems to be contradictory peices of information regarding virtually everything related to cancer. I've had discussions with the pharmacist at my cancer clinic and their response to many items is that they just don't know the answer - so it's best not to do it (anything). With regard to the curcumin thing I did manage to convince the pharmacist regarding the merits here - the question is about dosage and bioavailibity. Summary version is whether or not enough curcumin can get into the entire body system to do the good that they see in vitro. I believe the current thinking is the digestive system will benefit most as this is where the curcumin would first be abosrbed so in your case the mets in the abdomen might be addressed by the curcumin.

You can google "curcumin+cancer" to get some nice hits regarding the subject: I've included some below for your reading

http://www.asco.org/portal/site/ASCO/menuitem.34d60f5624ba07fd506fe310ee37a01d/?vgnextoid=76f8201eb61a7010VgnVCM100000ed730ad1RCRD&vmview=abst_detail_view&confID=45&index=y&abstractID=10505
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16340194&dopt=Abstract
http://www.aapsj.org/articles/aapsj0803/aapsj080352/aapsj080352.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&db=PubMed&list_uids=12171541

I've included a link to nanocurcumin discussion as well (the future!)
http://www.jnanobiotechnology.com/content/5/1/3

I hope your treatments went well today and that you are feeling as good as can be expected. In anwser to your question regarding neuropathy - if you are talking about the not touching anything cold - no - this is still a side effect I have to deal with. For about a week after the chemo everything has to be warm - warm water, warm juices. I can't even touch anything in the fridge or freezer for the first couple of days after chemo without wearing gloves. I wan't made aware that there was anything to deal with that - I will look into it - however for me that's an issue that I can live with as is.

Dave

There are a couple of neural issues with Oxali, the dysesthesia effect you mention is one of the two. As you say it can be lived with but I found it built up over the months and became more serious. I think this a link to the premed I was talking about: it helped reduce it by 70%.
http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/85/5/2293?ijkey=5c4763a939051a7061d432818dc9ac2b9dd550c3&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/10/12/4055

I also found intellectual dysfunction but that might have also been the Xeloda I was taking - I have high levels of DPD which helps Xeloda produce v. nasty side-effects.

Then there are longer term peripheral neuropathies which build up destroying fine control in fingers and (I found) autonomic balance controlled by lower leg reflex arcs. I'm not sure these are recoverable although there is long term adaptation. Certainly usage gets bounded by the oncos eventually although they are most reluctant to talk about why.

Basically the Pt in Oxali is a heavy metal and poisonous. Here is a link to a new product to limit these effects (not around when I was doing it)

http://en.sanofi-aventis.com/Images/20060128_xaliprodene_en_tcm24-12097.pdf

http://jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/full/20/7/1767?ck=nck

There are bunch of papers on the long term effects and the fact patients should be warned of them.

If these don't download for you let me know as I have accounts to many journals and I can email them over.

Kind regards - Ian

If I interpret Derek's post correctly, is there a possibility that a CT scan may not show the true state of tumors after DCA?

Thanks to everyone for their honest and factual input.

Vern

I use DCA by dissolving my daily dose in a bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water (I just like the stuff) and take it in 4 shots through the waking period. I take 1gm Vit C with every dose. So I drop an effervescent Vit C tab into a tumbler and add ~ 250mls NaDCA / mineral water mix. It fizzes well and is sharper in flavour than Vit C in mineral water.

I am working on 12.5 mg/kg. I find 5 days at a time is enough then I have 24-48 hours off DCA to let things settle. If I am having chemo or imaging contrast agent I don't take DCA till the IV stuff is in - then I can control dosing collisions somewhat.

Can't comment on Derek's post - I need to find / reread it first. My CT on Monday last week followed DCA and chemo in the preceeding 5 days. The CT scan looked ordinary to me.

The chap who does the reporting commented when prompted that there might be evidence of unexpected necrosis as some of the active disease areas in the liver seemed more attenuated than he might expect. Before anyone gets excited he is a nice chap who likes to please and this is an analog observation. Lets wait for the next imaging when there should be shape change before celebrating. There is however no doubt the CT scan confirmed some of my earlier reported clinical observations - liver not enlarged, cholecystitis calmed down.

Copies of report, blood tests etc at www.cybersolver.com/medical
Right click to download / save then email me via this site for password as they are encrypted. I have some flack with my oncologists and until they are back in their box I need to make sure only legit users of this site have access.

Kind regards - Ian

I didn't take DCA on 4th June or today. Otherwise I built up quickly to 12.5 mg/kg and kept at that level. I find the experience changes over time. DCA alters my mood positively but that actually morphed into a state of aggression after 10 days.

Perfectly manageable socially but definite sense of short fuse and frustration: this rapidly improves once dosing is deferred. I also found soreness of eyeball. Increased gut disturbance in association with chemo (*severe* constipation).

DCA seems to have modified my chemo experience otherwise for the better: the dreadful depression / low energy I normally get with headache / lassitude / weakness has been greatly improved. The blood tests show some evidence of this - *platelet levels are much improved*. If anybody has any ideas what that might mean do speak up.

The other subjective sensations are not easily interpretable. I do have greater secretion from the lung and some inflammation in hilar regions. I don't think I am taking as much prednisolone to suppress that as usual. I have some discomfort occasionally in other nodes. The liver is generally comfortable and there are no significant symptoms of liver disease.

Oh yes, I also have had a breakout of gum disease in the upper palate in the last 48 hours. It seems to yield to vicious water-picking with mouthwash in the (warm) water. Might be coincidence but could be evidence of reduced peripheral blood supply?

No change in hypertension or heart rate. Some beneficial effect on blood glucose. Weight change due to chemo as expected. Slight extra nausea (normally don't have this) but nothing a chemo patient can't manage. Appetite reasonable given the chemo.

If I think of anything else I'll add it later. Reports www.cybersolver.com/medical

Kind regards - Ian

Thanks for your input re; taking DCA while on chemo.

I posted the message below about my wife's numbness in her feet, but I have another question. I am assuming she should stay off DCA until the numbness is resolved but could (should) she take it sparodically, say every few days or so?

For a week before she went back on chemo she was feeling pretty lousy and we both think that was due to her cancer and her enlarged liver due to tumors. She went back on chemo a week ago today and she felt really lousy until Friday afternoon when it was just like a "feel better" switch was turned on. She still feels better than she has for a couple of weeks.

By the way, I took her to a drop in clinic 2 weeks ago because she wasn't feeling well and she thought she may have had a urinary tract problem. I told the DR. she was taking an experimental drug called DCA and he virtually waved his finger at me while giving me a lecture for self prescribing from the internet.

I previously posted about a message about my wife who has stage 4 colon cancer. She was off chemo for 4 months and during the last 3 weeks during the period she was off chemo, she took DCA @ 10mg/kg.
Unfortuneately the CT scan she had 2 weeks ago today showed that her tumors were growing and spreading.
She is now back on chemo as of a week ago today.

She complains about the numbness in her fingers and feet but especially her feet. Does anyone have any suggestions about anything that might her her with this or does she just have to wait until the numbness goes away on it's own? She has been off DCA for 3 weeks.

Thank you (and others) for your help.

Vern

Your wife's state seems very familiar to me and I am sorry to hear of it. Numbness (usually peripheral neuropathy (PN)) is caused by many chemos (oxaliplatin being classic) but it is also re-activated / exacerbated by others which don't seem to cause it as prime agents.

I have the scars (sorry loss of sensation) from Oxali. Irinotecan in combo can re-activate this and certainly induces a related clumsiness. I have only had slight feelings of coarseness in sensitivity of hands from DCA use so far. As if the finger skin were thicker - which it may be as Erbitux causes weird effects and DCA may have modified these slightly.

But chemo can act even more distantly. I recently found that Erbitux / MMC / Raltitrexed kicked off classic diabetic neuropathic symptoms in my feet leading to loss of gait control and foot bruising. I had to take to wearing air cushion trainers else ulcers / amputation would have been on the horizon. Fortunately it didn't last too long as I only had 2 shots of MMC and it remitted when that left the system.

I did investigate this and there are drugs targetting diabetic neuropathy in development. One at least has been licensed in Japan for 14 years. They all seem to target an enzyme called Aldose Reductase and Inhibit (ARI) it. The Japanese drug is called Kinedac or Epalrestat.

I obtained some Kinedac as a recent paper suggests that effective ARI also suppresses growth of colorectal xeno-grafts in mice. I haven't got around to trying it yet - its on my agenda for next month after my 1 month observation of DCA. Whether it will help with drug-induced PN requires a more careful reading of the papers. I'm afraid I can't offer any guidance yet even as to combinatorial safety. I will try it and comment in due course (I hope).

As to whether your wife should use DCA intermittently whilst PN is present is tricky. It isn't desirable to exacerbate even reversable neuropathies and generally I would seek to avoid it. Whether the condition is caused wholly by DCA or is a permanent reminder of earlier chemo made obvious again by DCA is a consideration. How much loss of function is there? Would life be good if it became permanent but the cancer were inhibited for a while?

I was under the impression that recovery from DCA induced PN was fairly rapid - I think others have experienced it and commented on the dynamics of recovery. If your wife's PN isn't following that model I'd question why.

I am sorry to say I have to go - I am dragged off to the vet to collect the body of one of our pussy cats who succumbed to cat SARS (FCoV => FIP) for decent burial. Some duties exceed all others. If I can think of anything helpful to add, before you have to choose, I'll come back to you.

Kind regards - Ian

I am at the end of 48 hours off DCA (as mentioned above) to minimise development of any problems and some things changed:

1. constipation not so bad,

2. eyeballs stopped scratching,

3. continued development of loss of balance (resurrection of old Oxaliplatin neuropathy relating to lower leg reflex arcs).

4. increase in lethargy but also sleeplessness

5. increase in hilar inflammatory state requiring more prednisolone to fix

6. on reflection there is some evidence of restriction of peripheral blood supply other than gum disease, cold feet in particular

7. Oh yes, some of the imbalance mentioned in 3. feels like it might have a CNS component - its worse in some ways than previously and staggers take longer to recover

Kind regards - Ian

Please note anomolously high platelet value - not out of normal range but much higher than usual following cytotoxic chemo - assume this has something to do with DCA usage. Probably responsible for some sensations of well-being.

Kind regards - Ian

Kind regards - Ian

I wanted to tell you my wife started a new nano treament called abraxane with avastin and carboplatin in a low dose weekly regimen which has reported a 50+% response in Lung Cancer and an 85% impact on controling the desease due to it being a better delivery method to the cancer cell.

God Bless

Oracle

Are you referring to the balance type symptoms? If so I really think your naturopath is right that the original damage is caused by chemo. I'll look into the L-glutamine and thanks for the tip.

Its kind of hard to project effects and symptoms from one to the other of us as we are all doing our own thing on dosing / other chemos and we are each somewhat unique in our responses. I definitely have some CNS activity with DCA including mood changes (mostly good) and intellectual energy (mostly good).

But I also have quite a strong internal buzz or twitch that builds up. Its a bit like mild tinnitus spread throughout the body. It slightly affects proprioception and clumsiness. Its hard to dissect out from the nasty effects of my chemo but the little rest I just had from DCA eliminated it: I've now restarted and I'll let you know if it builds up again. BTW it does exacerbate tinnitus slightly for me.

Imaging in 14 days. We'll see what we shall see. I feel very well today in sharp contrast to 2+ weeks ago when hemlock would have been an acceptable alternative to DCA. I do mean well: no obvious disease symptoms and the chemo side-effects now purged. Plenty of bounce and even contemplated the Times crossword without flinching this morning.

Kind regards - Ian

Guess what? I also was told that I "had" colo-rectal with lymphnode involvement - so I did the chemo and am now trying the homeopathic approach. But to address Vern's wifes' feet issues - On the AnnieAppleseed.com web page it was stated that taking Hops and/or soaking your feet/hands in hops with the blossoms would help eleviate the numbness. I just started taking the hops and will let you know... it seems the balls/pads of me feet are better. Also, the doctors said that it should go away in six months after stopping chemo... it's been eight months since my last chemo and I still have it so it may be permanent.

I am taking 10,000 mg of Vit C every day, along with Cayenne, Capsibiol-T, N-Tense (a combination of Graviola w/7 other rainforest plants), Graviola, Pomegramate seed oil, Essiac tea, lots of flax seed, and other things. It seems to be working as the CEA is dropping. Just had a blood test last night so that should be the answer to how low it is dropping.

Take Care, Dori

Were you on Xeloda (Capecitabine)? This commonly causes horrid lesions and pain in hands & feet (HFS or PPS) although its not alone. If it was Xeloda it turns out there is a genetic predisposition to side-effects based on levels of an enzyme DPD in the body.

No DPD (rare) and Xeloda poisons you, high DPD (level is somewhat variable based on transcription efficiency) and the side-effects including HFS become more damaging. I had HFS as a Dose Limiting Toxicity (DLT) and this meant my dosing was suspended with benign effects for my tumours.

I eventually discoverd this DPD issue and found 3 other chemos which work well and bypass the problem: UFT (Uftoral with Tegafur) & the Japanese drug S1 - both of which work similarly to Xeloda but have a defence against the DPD issue - and Raltitrexed which works in a different way to target the same enzyme sub-system (thymidylate synthase). I tried UFT and Raltitrexed: I found Raltitrexed works best and causes no HFS pain.

If your foot problem is HFS then it can be very bad. You can get open or buried ulcers. I had extensive blistering and buried ulcers on the ball of the foot. The blisters were manageable (I ignored the quacks and drained them) but the buried ulcers had to grow out. They were like deep blisters but eventually migrated to the surface so I guess they must have been in the base layer of skin. This took 4-6 months as I remember and the feet recovered rapidly once they emerged. I have heard of others who took longer to recover than that so don't give up hope.

Kind regards - Ian

I can't have been very awake when I read your note about feet. For some reason I picked up pain rather than numbness: sorry about that.

I found numbness was caused by Oxaliplatin. I didn't find it went away but I did find one accomodates to it fairly well. After a year most of my hand and foot insensitivity and clumsiness didn't affect most of what I wanted to do. However it still makes me occasionally cross when I drop a small screw or have trouble walking across a rough field. I'll be very interested to hear how the hop therapy works.

Kind regards - Ian

4 week trial of DCA alongside heavy chemo made no substantive difference to the expected course of the disease.

I had pronounced subjective effects with it. Indeed, even though I now know the effect is marginal at best for me, I have taken some this evening to quiesce liver discomfort and its doing its stuff. However the evidence is that it doesn't seem to be killing many of my tumour cells: no magic bullet for my particular colorectal mutation.

I'll write up the protocol, observations and results, Saturday probably, and upload with comparative images and the latest report.

Must be time to move on to TetraThioMolybdate.

Kind regards - Ian

Bioavailability seems to be the real issue with unpackaged curcumin and none of my mets are in the intestines so I guess I'll have to eat curries because I like them rather than they are good for me.

Thanks for these, I'll have a further browse later.

Kind regards - Ian

Curcumin is available in pure form from www.lef.org and other places but thats where I get mine. They include some bioprene (piperine from black pepper) to increase absorption a little. In India, they are looking at a curcumin hard candy with the hope it will increase absorption and spread a large dose throughout the day.

Curcumim's activity is greatly restricted to the gut, and I think nano-curcumin will overcome that limitation, and allow it to be distributed throughout the body.

Capsaicin (the phyto-chemical that makes chilis and peppers sting) is anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-fungal, orally or topically. Orally is only practical in capsules, unless your mouth has a very high pain threshold, and best in the middle of meal or blender drink, not on an empty stomach.

The serum quercetin concentrations required for anti-cancer activity (upwards of 10 microM, see below) are much higher than those achieved with oral doses in human studies. Since a 100 mg single dose was found to create a serum concentration of 0.8 microM quercetin,11 one could extrapolate that a 1500 mg daily dose might attain a 10 microM level. The relative long half-life of quercetin may result in even higher serum concentrations. Data from an animal study cited above suggest that concentrations of quercetin above 10 microM are attainable with oral doses.6 A single intravenous dose in humans of 100 mg led to a serum quercetin concentration of 12 microM (4.1 mcg/ml).12

Quercetin maybe can be pumped up to an active systemic level but curcumin can't easily. I am unsure that there are convincing demonstrations of in vivo curative properties yet - although I expect to get dumped on from a great height for saying so! I don't think that means we shouldn't be devising good experiments and trying them out of course.

I must say that even though I have had largely benign subjective effects from using DCA I really doubt that any single simple chemo is going to cure any cancer. Multiple simultaneous agents working synergistically together can rock the brute back and maybe control it - those lucky enough to have testicular of course can get away with it.

For single agent I think targetted biochemicals interfering with specific cell functions have a chance as Gleevec has shown in GIST for instance. But my money is on an engineered retrovirus that takes up permanent residence (like herpes) and busts out of hibernation to kill tumour cells whenever there is a resurgence of disease. Interestingly there was a recent paper showing how a Herpes simplex 2 virus, engineered to need a tumour cell with activated Ras pathways for reproduction, was succesful in clearing human ovarian cancer xenografts out of mice.

The only problem with that is neither big pharma or the regulatory authorities are going to like people wandering around with biologically active material in them that might propogate or even mutate and propogate. Personally I wouldn't object to catching a cold that would cure my cancer but I guess one can see their point.

Anyway, imaging Tuesday. I'll post the results as soon as I have them although its possible that might be the end of the week as I may be out of the UK Wed / Thu.

Kind regards - Ian

What can this mean? Is this a mis-spelling of onions? In which case I am, of course, in favour as the onion is one of nature's finest veges. Seriously, it sounds an interesting chemical with useful anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Prima facie I would accept that it might make a sensible additive to minimise risk of cancer. But how effective is it with established cancers in vivo? I found the following snippet when searching for data:

A recent study in the British Journal of Cancer shows that when treated with a combination of quercetin and ultrasound at 20 KHz for 1 minute duration, skin and prostate cancers show a 90% mortality within 48 hours with no visible mortality of normal cells. Note that ultrasound also promotes topical absorption by up to 1,000 times making the use of topical quercetin and ultrasound wands an interesting proposition.

OK, so that sounds like there are adsorption issues and the suggested method for overcoming this is not directly applicable to tumours deep in the body. Skin, I can see that, even prostate though 20kHz is well above the range where I suspect many have experience.

OK OK I'll go look again.

Kind regards - Ian

http://www.grouppekurosawa.com/cancer2print.htm
This is a long article, but well worth the read. (I only posted 2 brief quotes).

"Many natural medicines, such as quercetin and curcumin, exist in two basic biochemical forms. One form, called a glycoside, has a sugar attached to it. This molecular modification makes the compound soluble in water and theoretically bioavailable. Unfortunately, glycosides have little biological activity. The non-glycoside versions of natural molecules like quercetin and curcumin have full biological activity but poor solubility in water. They are, in fact, lipophilic or lipid (fat) loving. So we dissolved them in a fat, coconut milk, and introduced them into the body via the lymphatic system, which is how fats enter the body."

"There is a way around this problem, which the pharmaceutical industry has been busy trying to exploit for years. Fats, as in oils of any kind, do not enter the blood from the intestines. They directly enter the lymphatic system, the system of ducts that bathes all the tissues of the body. The lymph fluid originates from the blood but it is a completely different circulatory system in the body. The clear liquid that moves from the blood to the tissues bathes all the tissues in the body with nutrients, drugs, and oxygen. It also removes waste products. This liquid is collected in lymphatic ducts and returned to the blood where waste products are removed by the liver and kidneys. If you can target the lymphatic system with a drug or natural medicine, thereby bypassing initial contact with the blood circulatory system, you can substantially enhance the introduction of biologically active substances into the body."

I will start taking my curcurmin/ginger/cinnamon/black-pepper/quercetin dissolved in virgin coconut oil, flaxseed oil, or cod liver oil, which I already take anyway, instead of in water:

http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/virgin_coconut_oil.htm

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00012NF5Y/002-3404172-8517632

http://www.amazon.com/Barleans-Organic-Oils-Highest-Lignan/dp/B0007A5FU8/ref=sr_1_1/002-3404172-8517632?ie=UTF8&m=A26XED0S1E7AO&s=hpc&qid=1182544340&sr=1-1

OK, first dose in coconut oil was much easier on the mouth. Great suggestion!!

I've been madly reading more on the Kurosawa Blog. Here are some terrific links (and there are many more):
http://grouppekurosawa.com/blog/2005/12/curcumin-preparation-and.htm
http://grouppekurosawa.com/blog/2005/12/curcumin-and-glutamine-do-we-need_06.htm
http://grouppekurosawa.com/blog/2005/12/joys-of-coconut-oil.htm

Take care,
Sandra

P.S. I wondered if you were ever able to get any Noscapine? I'm also trying to source it.

But at $2750/Kg wholesale, finding enough people to split the purchase through my pharmacist friend was the initial problem. It looks like we are almost there, if you want to come in, contact me via email.

http://www.pcref.org/MedInsight%20-%20PCREF%20Noscapine%20Review.pdf

Would cottage cheese or yogurt work as a fat to dissolve the curcumin in for greater bioavailability ? If so would I have to actually remove the curcumin from the capsule and mix it with the cottage cheese / yogurt or is it enough to consume them at the same time in order to get the bioavailiblity increase ?
Is the ground turmeric that is avaialble in bulk at food stores the same curcumin that you get in capsules ?

The bulk tumeric is not standardize, that is, you don't know how much curcumin is in it. It's best to find a supplement manufacturer who sells it (standardized) in bulk. Here is a link to the suppliers on the Grouppe Kurosawa Blog: http://www.grouppekurosawa.com/suppliers.htm

Take care,
Sandra

Dave

I'd rather buy 500 g sacks around the corner at the Asian Indian shop for $5 and double or triple my dosage rather than pay 15x more.

Here are a couple links I've been reading lately:

http://cancerprotocol.grouppekurosawa.com/

http://grouppekurosawa.com/blog/2006/03/breast-cancer-treatment-overview

Honestly, I don't know how at this point, that I'll be able to take 10 grams of curcumin in coconut oil. It's nasty! But I'm trying.

For bio-availabilty to be useful you have to get the nanocurcurmin to the target cell and then it has to be effective in the target cell. From the reporting you would have to assume the current researchers are looking at intra-peritoneal insertion or more likely an i.v. route. I don't suppose for a minute they conceive you will be able to sprinkle it on cornflakes.

So i.p. or i.v. deals with efficient transport to the tumour cell doorstep. Then it has to make a target sensitive entry to the tumour cell. If cell entry is universal then an unhealthy ochre stain is likely to spread across the cancer patients of the world. PEG particles *can* be targetted but I not sure anyone is yet routinely doing this in therapy.

Whether nanocurcumin particles will be curatively effective in vivo, even if all the delivery systems work, is not I think really resolved. Activity is reported at the 10 micromolar level. Activity is normally preferred at the nanomolar level otherwise dosings do get quite high.

While I expect you will be permitted to continue to eat most things in raw form (when they have been traditionally available) once they have been prepped so that their sole purpose is therapeutic and not as a food stuff all the normal medical regs will be applied. Requiring i.p. or i.v. insertion just makes that certain.

So functionally there are a bunch of demonstrations to go through before a solid case can be made for using encapsulated curcumin as a commercial cure in the ordinary way. I think it will be yonks before nanocurcumin will be commercially available "off the shelf" and then, if its any good, the medical profession will snaffle it as one of theirs.

The only way round this is to set up your own lab facility now while its unembargoed, make some, and be your own guinea-pig. "Set up your own" is not impossible (it happened here for example) but the facilities required for nanoencapsulation will be somewhat greater - but not impossibly so.

It almost argues for cancer patients clubbing together to set up their own development lab doesn't it? I'm fairly sure that could be made to work legally although not in all legislative domains. A structure providing requested services to its members, delivering only to members, situate off-shore from member domicile etc has many powerful protective mechanisms available - just look at fund managers.

Kind regards - Ian

It may not be an impossible amount though. I mainlined 525mgm of MABs today - similar particle size to nanos and arguably within coowee of a possible nanocurcumin dosage = depending on the actual achieved numbers for absorption, half-life etc.

Kind regards - Ian

Sorry to bang on about this topic, but several things you have mentioned make me think that you might not be keeping Candida under control while you are busy researching and controlling everything else.

Candida is with us all the time and is generally maintained by our various immune systems in a state of balance and control. However, when the immune system is put under pressure or takes a bashing, then candida is prone to flourish and take over.

When it does, some of the symptoms can be:-

Muzzy head - can't think clearly.
Depression
Bloated yet constipated verging on IBS
Mouth ulcers

In tandem with the outer symptoms goes a further depression of the immune system as the candida changes from a yeast to a mycelial form and invades the whole body.

Keeping candida under control is sort of like 'House Keeping' -- do it regularly and generally it is a trivial occupation, leave it to build up and the house becomes uninhabitable and the job of bringing it back into control becomes a mammoth task.

Even when your system is under onslaught, keeping candida in its place is easy. First, candida does not like coconut oil, so adding this to the diet puts candida at a disadvantage. Second, a probiotic designed to target candida (such as THREELAC) will maintain a gut flora able to eat candida should it try to proliferate.

Note: THREELAC is the only probiotic that I know of at the moment that specifically targets candida. Other probiotics, while being 'generally good for you' do not directly target candida and do little to attack overgrowth and No, I do not work for the Threelac company nor draw any financial incentive to promote the product, and Yes, I do use it myself on a daily basis.

I appreciate this forum, which I happened to visit today for the fist time.

And I was mostly surprised with Derek Smith's post.

You probably have had contact with Simoncini's work on Candida/Cancer. I know it's controversial, but I had enough problems with candida, and thus I easily believe when someone suggests this relationship.

So, I have had problms with candida, and just as Derek pointed out, the consequences were tragic. In my humble opinion, you dont have to be so very sick to suffer from the symptoms of candida...but if you are very sick, maybe you could verify if you let candida overgrow.

Some people belive they have other issues to address to. Again, IHO, please consider also the effects of a fungal infesction...the other symptoms might vanish, or diminish.

Keep up the great work!!!
Thanks for all the comments!
SergioBrazil