Wormwood Extract Kills Cancer Cells

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Not quite ready for prime time, but interesting none the less.

http://news.sciencemag.org/chemistry/2001/11/wormw...

I also found this line from the article especially interesting... "Cancer cells can also be rich in iron, as they often soak up the mineral to facilitate cell division," because someone on another thread had recently mentioned iron as possibly not being good for us, which I'd never heard. But it now makes sense, especially because anemia can be quite common with a Stage IV dx.


Comments

  • new_direction
    new_direction Member Posts: 449
    edited February 2015


    chinese wormwood extract = artemisinin

  • geewhiz
    geewhiz Member Posts: 1,439
    edited February 2015

    Yes - started taking this a few years ago, but havent been terribly diligent about it. I will get back to it. Thanks for posting!

  • new_direction
    new_direction Member Posts: 449
    edited February 2015


    i think you need breaks also. It is something about the absorption in the intestines that decreases if no breaks (?)

  • dlb823
    dlb823 Member Posts: 9,430
    edited February 2015

    Thanks for the input. I also found these articles, so don't think I'll dabble with it until I see something more concrete...

    http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsidee...

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16185154 (Hmmm... this one's from 2005, which makes me wonder why, if it showed any real promise, we haven't seen more on it in the past 10 years?)

  • new_direction
    new_direction Member Posts: 449
    edited February 2015

    it's antimalaria properties has been known and used for many years

    so in a way the "safety" on humans has already been tested. Wonder what else might cause delaySick

  • NWArtLady
    NWArtLady Member Posts: 360
    edited August 2015

    Here's a more recent abstract on wormwood (artemisinin) from PubMed:

    Abstract

    The anti-malarial drug artemisinin has shown anticancer activity in vitro and animal experiments, but experience in human cancer is scarce. However, the ability of artemisinins to kill cancer cells through a variety of molecular mechanisms has been explored. A PubMed search of about 127 papers on anti-cancer effects of antimalarials has revealed that this class of drug, including other antimalarials, have several biological characteristics that include anticancer properties. Experimental evidences suggest that artemisinin compounds may be a therapeutic alternative in highly aggressive cancers with rapid dissemination, without developing drug resistance. They also exhibit synergism with other anticancer drugs with no increased toxicity toward normal cells. It has been found that semisynthetic artemisinin derivatives have much higher antitumor activity than their monomeric counterparts via mechanisms like apoptosis, arrest of cell cycle at G0/G1, and oxidative stress. The exact mechanism of activation and molecular basis of these anticancer effects are not fully elucidated. Artemisinins seem to regulate key factors such as nuclear factor-kappa B, survivin, NOXA, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α, and BMI-1, involving multiple pathways that may affect drug response, drug interactions, drug resistance, and associated parameters upon normal cells. Newer synthetic artemisinins have been developed showing substantial antineoplastic activity, but there is still limited information regarding the mode of action of these synthetic compounds. In view of the emerging data, specific interactions with established chemotherapy need to be further investigated in different cancer cells and their phenotypes and validated further using different semisynthetic and synthetic artemisinin derivatives.

    2015 Mar-Apr;5(2):93-102. doi: 10.4103/2141-9248.153609.

    from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25861527


  • momoschki
    momoschki Member Posts: 682
    edited August 2015

    Artemisinin is one of the supplements my integrative onc has me taking for prevention-- although after reading this, I wonder about its efficacy in terms of absorption and potency

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