Doctors test cure for peanut allergy

(NaturalNews) Doctors from Cambridge University are testing a technique that they believe may functionally cure people who suffer from inconvenient and dangerous peanut allergies, researcher Andrew Clark announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.

Clark and colleagues have had success in a pilot study of their technique, which involves giving children slowly increasing doses of peanut flour. They emphasized that trials are only in an early stage, however, and that people should not try the technique at home without the supervision of a doctor.

More than 1.5 million people in the United States suffer from peanut or other tree nut allergies, and the number appears to be rising. These allergies can be so severe that exposure to even trace amounts can send some sufferers into potentially fatal anaphylactic shock, in which their air passages close up and make it impossible to breathe.

In their initial study, the researchers gave 23 people suffering from peanut allergies a daily dose of peanut flour, starting at about 1 milligram and increasing a little each day. When the participants could tolerate 800 milligrams per day (equivalent to five nuts), the researchers instructed them to maintain this daily dose for another six weeks.

After a year, twenty of the participants were able to safely tolerate doses of 32 peanuts a day, meaning they no longer had to read food labels or worry about trace nut contamination in their environments. In a followup study, the researchers will now test the technique on 104 British children between the ages of seven and 17.

"This is going to be the largest trial of its kind in the world and it should give us a definitive idea of whether the approach works and whether it's safe," Clark said.

The "cure" works on a principle called desensitization, in which the body becomes used to progressively higher doses. It does not actually eliminate the allergy. If successful, however, it would provide an important technique for managing a potentially debilitating condition.

Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8527530.stm ; www.examiner.com/x-11648-DC-Parenti....

Doctor beats swine flu with vitamin D and elderberries

(NaturalNews) A former family practitioner in Canada says she cured herself of the H1N1 swine flu by taking supplements of vitamin D and elderberries.

Dr. Gillian Arsenault, now a public health employee, said that she had a prescription for antiviral drugs on hand when she became infected with swine flu, but never ended up having to fill it. Writing in the Medical Post, Arsenault recounts how the flu "hit like a truck," but was reduced to only a lingering cough within four days.

Arsenault has researched complementary health care extensively and began taking 1,000 IU of vitamin D daily in 2007. This is the amount recommended by the Canadian Cancer Society to help produce strong bones and reduce the risk of infection, cancer and other chronic diseases. Over the course of 2009, she experimented with doses between 3,000 and 5,000 IU.

"Medicine is my job and my hobby. I spend a lot of time after work looking things up," she said.

Researchers remain divided on the maximum safe daily dose of vitamin D, with estimates ranging between 2,000 and 10,000 IU. High doses can interfere with the effects of some drugs, and may produce mild or severe toxicity, with symptoms as severe as kidney failure, seizures or psychosis.

Because research has suggested that vitamin D can help prevent infection, Arsenault set out to see if it could help her recover faster. She adjusted her daily dose and paid to have her blood levels tested to make sure she remained within a safe and healthy range. She added an elderberry extract as well, based on research showing that the plant can reduce the severity of flu and speed recovery.

Many cases of swine flu are mild or moderate even without vitamin D supplementation, and Arsenault admits that her case study is not proof that the treatment works. But it is suggestive enough to merit further research into whether vitamin D can "abort the development of severe illness or enhance the benefit of antiviral treatment for those already seriously ill," she said.

Sources for this story include: www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/....

Scientists discover how Cordyceps mushrooms fight cancer

(NaturalNews) For thousands of years, the mushroom known as Cordyceps has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat problems ranging from coughs and fatigue to impotence and cancer. And once Western scientists started considering that anecdotal reports of the mushroom's curative powers might be something more than "folk tales", research started accumulating that backs up many ancient claims about Cordyceps' health benefits. For example, scientists from the University of Nottingham in Great Britain say they've documented how Cordiceps can fight cancer -- and the new discovery could increase the effectiveness of mushroom-derived cancer treatments.

For the study, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Dr. Cornelia de Moor of the University of Nottingham and her colleagues investigated a drug called cordycepin, which was originally extracted from wild growing Cordyceps and is now prepared from a cultivated form of the mushroom.

"Because of technical obstacles and people moving on to other subjects, it's taken a long time to figure out exactly how cordycepin works on cells. With this knowledge, it will be possible to predict what types of cancers might be sensitive and what other cancer drugs it may effectively combine with. It could also lay the groundwork for the design of new cancer drugs that work on the same principle," Dr. de Moor said in a statement to the media.

The University of Nottingham scientists found that the Cordyceps-derived treatment has two important effects on cells that could impact the growth of malignant tumors. At low doses, cordycepin inhibits the uncontrolled growth and division of cells while at high doses it prevents cells from sticking together, essentially blocking the cells from growing.

The research team concluded that each of these effects most likely is the result of a single underlying mechanism -- cordycepin interferes with how cells make proteins. Specifically, low doses of the mushroom-derived treatment interfere with the production of mRNA (the molecule that directs cells to assemble a protein) and at higher doses cordycepin directly interacts with the making of proteins.

"Our discovery will open up the possibility of investigating the range of different cancers that could be treated with cordycepin," Dr de Moor stated. "We have also developed a very effective method that can be used to test new, more efficient or more stable versions of the drug in the Petri dish.This is a great advantage as it will allow us to rule out any non-runners before anyone considers testing them in animals."

More Cordyceps news

Scientists at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, published research in the November 30th edition of the journal Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy showing that oral Cordyceps can reduce the occurrence of cancer spreading to the lungs in metastatic breast cancer. Although the researchers found that Cordyceps does not reduce the growth of the primary breast tumor, they noted that deaths from breast cancer are primarily due to the development of metastases. That means a treatment that stops the spread of metastatic tumors could save countless lives.

Although various medical therapies currently exist that attempt to stop the growth of cancerous metastatic tumors, they have little effect -- so this makes the Dalhousie University research into Cordyceps very important. The Canadian researchers stated the evidence they have so far suggests that the mushroom reduces the growth of metastases due to Cordyceps' effects on the tumors' cell cycles.

For more information:
http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/media/releas...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...