Artemisinin: A Cancer Smart Bomb There are a wide range of natural products that cannot be patented that have potential to treat cancer. You would think that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would sponsor research on these chemicals because it is supported by public funds and should therefore be responsive to public need. It may surprise you that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) research represents less than 1% of the research dollars spent by the NIH. Who, then, is committed to doing the research of the people that Big Pharma will not support because it has no return on investment? Also consider that Big Pharma spends twice as much ($92 billion per year) as NIH. One of these natural products is wormwood extract, or artemisinin. This herb had been used by the Chinese for thousands of years for treating malaria before it was lost. It was rediscovered in 1970 and has slowly returned to clinical use, especially for drug resistant falciparum malaria, but also for treatment of most cancers. Artemisinin contains two oxygen atoms hooked together that break down in the presence of iron, by creating very reactive free radicals that kill malaria parasites and cancer cells. Both cancer cells and malaria parasites sequester iron, accumulating as much as 1000 times what normal cells store. Giving artemisinin to people with malaria or cancer results in destruction of these abnormal cells and leaves normal cells unaffected. Artemisinin is a cancer bomb!
Posted on: Thu, 22 May 2014 23:10:14 +0000
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