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Cancer: A Treatable Disease
By John Austen

Help your immune system heal cancer
A few decades ago, if you had heart disease your chances of survival were slim. Today, through prevention, natural therapies and high-tech diagnostics, having the disease no longer points inevitably to a poor outcome. The same is now becoming true for cancer. Cancer is not only preventable, it’s curable.

However, similar to heart disease, a more enlightened mindset must be taken toward cancer to truly understand the disease. Surviving cancer is about personal empowerment and engagement in your own health through nutrition, exercise, emotional support and natural therapies. To support your healing journey, you need a personalized cancer care plan that considers aspects of your illness, your health and your lifestyle. And though surgery plays a very important role in cancer treatment, it doesn’t address the underlying factors that predispose you to the disease and even prevent your healing.

In today’s “fight against cancer” we may be losing sight of the fact that the disease is not an alien being that has inhabited the body, but a growth of the body. It needs to be handled in a way that heals, rather than drastically trying to eradicate the invader at great expense to the rest of the body. Given the side effects and inconclusive results of chemotherapy and radiation, our best hope may be in therapies that enhance the body’s own immune protection and the way it responds to cancer cells.

Dr. Mamdooh Ghoneum, Ph.D., Chief of Research, Department of Otolaryngology at Charles Drew University of Medicine in Los Angeles, has spent 20 years studying substances that affect immune response. He discovered that compounds found in nature may be just as effective as drugs for cancer treatment. While experimenting with extracts from mushrooms, herbs, fungi and bacteria, he stumbled across a substance that interested him enough to abandon all other projects, including government-funded research, in order to focus on it. The substance, MGN-3, is an extract of rice bran, modified by enzymes from shiitake mushrooms.

In studies involving 72 patients, the efficacy of MGN-3 equaled or surpassed all commonly used immune-modulating drugs (those that affect the body’s immune response) but, in stark contrast, showed no toxicity or negative side effects. The data regarding MGN-3 was published in technical journals and presented at international research conferences, but the information remains largely unknown to oncologists and other health professionals dealing with cancer patients.

What is its role in cancer treatment?
Our immune system’s natural killer (NK) cells are white blood cells that fight infection and disease. They work independently to recognize and attack a foreign cell and are considered to be the body’s first line of defense against cancer. Once activated, the NK cells begin aggressive search-and-destroy activities. Upon encountering a tumour cell, the NK cell injects a substance that quickly dissolves it. In less than five minutes, the cancer cell is dead and the NK moves to its next victim. A single NK cell can destroy up to 27 cancer cells before it dies.

However, the number of NK cells present doesn’t indicate the efficiency of the body’s immune system. Instead, it is the activity – how well NK cells are recognizing and binding to tumour cells – that is important. In a healthy person, NK cell activity is from 60 to 75 percent, and in cancer patients, activity ranges from near 0 to 30 percent. Most substances that affect the immune system including MGN-3 do not increase the number of NK cells, but increase their function.

Dr. Ghoneum’s research suggests that MGN-3 works by simulating the body’s natural production of chemicals that have direct anti-tumour effects and activate the body’s NK cells, B-cells and T-cells (other protective cells). Dr. Ghoneum has found that MGN-3 can be safely used in conjunction with conventional treatment, including chemotherapy, to decrease adverse side effects. In 32 cancer patients with different types of advanced malignancies who had completed surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, taking MGN-3 led to a significant increase in NK cell activity after only one to two weeks. The increase in NK activity in patients taking MGN-3 correlated with increased survival rates. In long-term follow-up of patients (up to five years), Dr. Ghoneum’s team observed that the effect of MGN-3 on NK cell activity is maintained indefinitely with continued use.

Conventional medicine has excellent anti-tumour therapies that reduce cancer cell numbers. Unfortunately, as Dr. Ghoneum explains, it is difficult to achieve a 100 percent kill rate without killing the patient in the process. At best, doctors can hope to kill 95 to 98 percent of the cancer cells with these therapies. At this point, a patient may be considered “in remission” and treatment is stopped. However, these remissions are frequently short-lived. Chemotherapy and radiation suppress the immune system, lowering the fighting power of anti-cancer cells. Following treatment, the few hardy cancer cells that survive are left to replicate largely unchallenged by a damaged immune system, and the cancer eventually resurfaces.

Dr. Ghoneum feels that the practise of “watchful waiting,” monitoring patients in remission, wastes a golden opportunity to provide increased support to the immune system. At early stages of detection, or in more advanced stages when the tumour has been reduced as far as possible by surgery and/or chemotherapy, boosting the immune system allows the body to eradicate the remaining cells that have escaped the chemicals, radiation or surgery. However, substances including MGN-3 cannot replace these therapies, especially in the case of advanced malignancies. In these cases, even an extremely active immune response is easily overwhelmed by the huge numbers of cancer cells present. Instead, Dr. Ghoneum recommends that cancer patients begin MGN-3 at the same time or immediately following other therapies. He has found that cancers of the blood such as leukemia and multiple myeloma have been particularly responsive to MGN-3 therapy.
Unlike most alternative medicine and natural preparations, Dr. Ghoneum offers solid data collected from human, rather than animal, clinical trials. This data offers compelling evidence that MGN-3 may positively affect the immune system and is free of side effects, and therefore shows promise in the treatment of cancer.
Supporting your overall health and your immune system facilitates the healing process, improves your quality of life and enhances full recovery.