Many studies have proven the efficacy of ground flaxseed and flaxseed
oil to modulate a number of degenerative diseases. In fact, ground
flaxseed has been shown to shrink breast tumors 31% by the ingestion
of just one flaxseed muffin per day.
Dietary Flaxseed Alters Tumor Biological Markers in Postmenopausal Breast Cancer
http://tinyurl.com/9fx2a
With respect to Omega-3 essential fatty acids, hundreds of positive
scientific studies have been published. In fact, the Food and Drug
Administration, in September 2004, granted "Qualified Health Claims"
status to marine Omega-3 EFA.
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01115.html
In the 1950s, a German chemist is reputed to have determined that not
only is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil hazardous to human health
but that Omega 3 EFA, when combined with protein such as cottage
cheese, effectively cures cancer! Of course, she also prescribed
copious amounts of what we now know to be antioxidant rich fruits and
vegetables and plenty of sunshine, but the core of the so-called
Budwig Oil-Protein Diet is flaxseed oil/meal and cottage cheese. A
tin book consisting of three of her speeches is an alternative
medicine favorite.
Flax Oil As a True Aid Against Arthritis, Heart Infarction, Cancer and
Other Diseases
http://tinyurl.com/82yqn
The Oil-Protein Diet Cookbook
http://tinyurl.com/89bhf
With respect to warning of the dangers of partially hydrogenated
vegetable oils, she was surely ahead of her time, as the FDA has
recently acknowledged.
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qatrans2.html
Indeed, two countries--Canada and Denmark--have banned or are
considering banning partially hydrogenated vegetable oils from the
food supply.
www.bantransfats.com
Is it possible that this obscure German chemist was right about
flaxseed oil and cottage cheese but that it is only the plausible
mechanism of action of these two foods that is yet to be discovered?
1. How would one go about determining this?
2. How much would it cost to duplicate the already completed flaxseed
studies but add a protein source such as cottage cheese?
I should mention that many cancer patients credit complete remission
of disease to following the Budwig Diet. These survivors can be found
on alternative health discussion boards all over the Internet. Here
are two such discussion boards.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/flaxseedoil2/
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AdvancingBudwigProtocol/ |
Clarification of Question by
cathcoy-ga
on
22 Jul 2005 01:21 PDT
I meant to say: A THIN book consisting of three of her speeches is an
alternative medicine favorite.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
27 Jul 2005 20:41 PDT
cathcoy-ga,
I had never heard of the Budwig Diet until just a day before you had
posted your question, when my wife asked me to Google it, as she came
across mention of it in a blog she was reading.
Odd how the world works, sometimes.
I don't know yet if I can answer your question, partly because I'm not
quite sure what the question is.
Your actual questions were two-fold: (1) how would one determine a
mechanism of action and (2) how much would it cost to repeat certain
studies, with a protein source added
For (1), there's no simple answer. Researchers wouldn't really pursue
a mechanism of action, until they were convinced there was a likely
action happening that they needed an explanatory mechanism for!
It would take a multitude of studies in animals and humans to see if
the Budwig Diet could alter body chemistry, if the alterations could
influence the course of various diseases, if the influence was
positive and significant, what parameters (dose, type of protein,
mechanism of delivery, etc) influence the outcomes observed. This
would be a large undertaking, and would take many years.
However, I could certainly offer some guidelines as to how a study
might look with humans who volunteered for the Budwig Diet.
As for (2), I'm not clear what studies you have in mind, in terms of
duplicating them. If you could narrow down the field a bit, perhaps I
can offer some perspective there as well.
Science is a highly competitive field, with a limited amount of
dollars being fought over to support an endless number of research
questions. Apparently, interest in the Budwig Diet hasn't yet hit
that critical mass where anyone has started clamoring for research
dollars for the types of studies you're asking about.
Please tell me a bit more about your interest here, and what sort of
information you hope to receive in answer to your interesting
question.
The better we understand what you're after, the more likely everyone
is to be satisfied at the end of the process.
Looking forward to hearing back from you...
pafalafa-ga
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
07 Aug 2005 07:44 PDT
cathcoy-ga,
Just checking in.
Have you had a chance to read my earlier note (above)? If so, any
feedback you can provide would be most welcome.
Thanks.
paf
|
Clarification of Question by
cathcoy-ga
on
07 Aug 2005 09:08 PDT
Hi paf ~
So sorry...I didn't see your response on July 27.
The links I provided will clarify quite a lot but I understand that it
would take a long time to read them, so let me try to fill in the gaps
a bit now.
There have been a moderate amount of exciting new studies about the
efficacy of consumed flaxseed to modulate breast cancer. This harkens
back, in my mind, to the work of Johanna Budwig who claimed--and MANY
cancer survivors agree with her--that consuming flaxseed oil/meal and
cottage cheese in a 1:2 ratio is CURATIVE for cancer.
I can understand that Cancer, Inc. does not want to pursue this
natural cancer treatment, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be
pursued. If someone OUTSIDE Cancer, Inc. wanted to hire researchers,
that person would first have to identify the mechanism of action of
flaxseed oil + cottage cheese. (This is referred to on discussion
boards as FO + CC.)
Budwig claimed that the sulphur amino acids methionine and cysteine
contained in cottage cheese mix with the omega-3 essential fatty acids
contained in flaxseed oil to cause some kind of reaction in the body
that cures cancer.
So...taking into account how food is digested, what, to use your
words, could be a likely action happening that they needed an
explanatory mechanism for? (This would be Question #1.)
Question #2 would be, since some clinical studies have already been
done showing the efficacy of consumed flaxseed to modulate breast
cancer, can researchers add cottage cheese and repeat the studies to
see if additional benefit is derived?
(As you can see, as a non-scientist, it's difficult to even form the
question properly! I hope I've done a little better job this time.
Thanks for your help.)
Since
|
Clarification of Question by
cathcoy-ga
on
07 Aug 2005 09:12 PDT
paf, I shall gather the flaxseed studies and post them here. This
should take me about a day.
|
Clarification of Question by
cathcoy-ga
on
07 Aug 2005 09:13 PDT
I found them rather immediately and here they are.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15897583
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15849746
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12588699
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12142076
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10424786
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
07 Aug 2005 12:13 PDT
cathcoy-ga,
I'm glad we finally hooked up on this, because it's quite an
intriguing topic, and your comments and links helped a great deal.
Desite the additional calrification, though, I'm still not quite sure
how to go about answering your question.
Let me start by simply reacting to some of the things you said, and
solicit some further comments from you. Eventually -- with a few
rounds of back and forth comments -- we may arrive at a formal answer.
>>This harkens back, in my mind, to the work of Johanna Budwig who
claimed--and MANY cancer survivors agree with her--that consuming
flaxseed oil/meal and
cottage cheese in a 1:2 ratio is CURATIVE for cancer.<<
Can you provide a link to what you consider to be the most compelling
claim or group of claims that has been made in this regard...I'd like
to see directly what you are referring to.
>>I can understand that Cancer, Inc. does not want to pursue this
natural cancer treatment...<<
I think your point here is something like, 'there's no profit motive
in research on a cure that anyon can buy in their grocery store!'
While that's true, to a certain degree, I also think the the
scientific community would jump on anything -- natural or not -- that
really had a strong hint of a cancer cure. Part of this would be mere
curiousity, part the desire to do good. But there also would be a
strong monetary incentive, since understanding how a natural product
works often leads to the purification of a potent drug -- or even a
whole class of drug products -- that can work in a more targeted
fashion than a dietary product like flax seed oil.
<<Budwig claimed that the sulphur amino acids methionine and cysteine
contained in cottage cheese mix with the omega-3 essential fatty acids
contained in flaxseed oil to cause some kind of reaction in the body
that cures cancer...what could be a likely action happening that they needed an
explanatory mechanism for?<<
Anything's possible. Clearly, flax seed oil contains some components
that do seem to be biologically active in a way that can influence the
course of certain cancers. Some of the studies you inked to are
beginning to elucidate what these mechanisms might be. Even though I
am a biologist, I don't have enough background in medical biology to
intelligently speculate about how a flax-cottage cheese combination
might work.
Bottom line...I can summarize and put into plain English what other
people have said on this topic, but I don't think I have anything
original to add.
>>...can researchers add cottage cheese and repeat the studies to
see if additional benefit is derived?>>
Yes, of course they can. But, there are a few caveats:
1. Combining ingredients can greatly complicate any experiments,
since a new variable has been added that has to be controlled for and
quantified. The complications are not insurmountable, but they do
raise the cost of the research, add to the complexity, and can make
interpretation of the results more difficult. That said, researchers
look all the time at the effects of therapies that combine two or more
drugs, so there's no reason they couldn't look at the effects of two
or more foods.
2. In order to undertake such studies, both a research team and a
funding group would have to agree that the preliminary evidence is
suggestive enough to warrant further research. Based on the links you
provided, and some other materials I've seen, there are only a few
studies on flaxseed oil, and only one of these (the muffin study) was
carried out with human beings. It may be too early in the game to
count on support for a more complex and costly FO+CC study.
If enough patients try FO+CC with beneficial effects, this will
eventually be noted by the research community (who can be remarkably
slow at times to see the handwriting on the wall!), and the pace of
research will accelerate.
NOW...having said all that, how can I help you?
Let me know what you think.
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
cathcoy-ga
on
10 Aug 2005 09:41 PDT
Hi paf ~
I'm looking for the actual virbiage from Dr. Budwig's writings so that
you can see what I'm seeking to verify. I thought I had already
excerpted these passages and saved them to my hard drive but
apparently not. Be back in a day or two.
Catherine
|
Clarification of Question by
cathcoy-ga
on
11 Aug 2005 13:55 PDT
paf, you asked about success stories of cancer patients using FO + CC.
Here's a link where the author, Cliff Beckwith, concentrates on
people knowing about the so-called Budwig Protocol or, as Budwig
called it, the Oil-Protein Diet.
http://www.beckwithfamily.com/Flax1.html
|
Clarification of Question by
cathcoy-ga
on
11 Aug 2005 19:04 PDT
Thanks, Myoarin, for the many links, not all of which I've explored,
but this caught my eye from the "House of Steed" link:
[quote] The modern diet is terrible. It is death and destruction.
Modern Europeans and Americans feed themselves so badly that the only
way to solve the chronic disease problems is to return to fresh,
unrefined sources of food especially foods rich in linoleic and
linolenic acids. The best source is fresh linseed oil.
"Why is this the best? I'll tell you. There are two unsaturated double
bonds close together in the 18-segment chain of linoleic acid. Because
these bonds are close together, the energy is increased-the electron
cloud is natural and powerful. It can provide a strong electrical
charge for the cell oxidation. This is the natural design of the fatty
acid which is capable of incorporating protein to build healthy cell
membrane.
"I'll explain. When we, analyze fats, we find fatty acid chains with
18 segments. In some places the chain is easily broken; it is loose,
and it can absorb water. It is like roughing a smooth silk thread. The
thread will absorb dye or water more easily where it has been roughed.
It is specifically at these double bond sites that protein is readily
incorporated. The fatty acid becomes water soluble by combining with
the protein. Without these particular fatty acids, the oxidation
enzymes cannot function. A deficiency of these fatty acids means many
vital functions will be impaired. First of all, it decreases the
person's supply of available oxygen. "
And we are right back to Dr. Koch, Dr. Warburg and many others-the
beginning of all disease is a lack of oxygen and cell oxidation.
Modern food refining, especially the processing and refining of
vegetable oils, which now play such a major role in every day human
nutrition, has robbed us of our source of linoleic acid. This wonder
of natural nutrition is found in many oils-and mankind has been
squeezing the oil from vegetation for thousands of years.
However, linoleic acid is "polyunsaturated and will go rancid very
quickly, turning from a nutrient to a toxin by losing its natural
electrons to oxidation. Vitamin E, always present in natural oils,
will prevent rancidity, but refiners remove the tocopherols, heat the
oil, destroy the electron clouds and produce a chemically preserved
liquid plastic that will never spoil on the supermarket shelf.
Dr. Budwig put it this way: "We have resorted to chemical processes to
remove the unsaturateness of these fats. They are easier to handle,
easier to market-they won't spoil quickly. But, they have destroyed
the marvelous electrical field, they have ruined the ability to
incorporate protein. Refinement has taken the very life from them."
[end quote]
Whew! That's a lot to take in but, as you can see, she expounds on
the oil-protein connection. What if she's right? How would we
demonstrate this clinically?
That's the $64,000 Question.
|
Clarification of Question by
cathcoy-ga
on
13 Aug 2005 17:26 PDT
Myoarin, you said: "She [Budwig] has a way with words ("destroy the
electron clouds") that unfortunately reminds one of some less serious
medical sites here."
Ain't it the truth, Myoarin! The curious thing is, she was, in fact,
ahead of her time with her insistence that Partially Hydrogenated
Vegetable Oil is dangerous to human beings and Omega-3 Essential Fatty
Acids have the ability to modulate a host of degenerative diseases.
She was right on both counts, as we're seeing today with the mandatory
disclosure of trans fats (partially hydrogenated vegetable oil) and
the granting of Qualified Health Claim status to Omega-3 Essential
Fatty Acids.
So many people claim to be cured by FO + CC that I would like to come
up with a plausible mechanism of action for these two foods so that I
can pursue it further--in what fashion I don't know yet.
|
