Cancer

(see also below under Cholesterol, Detoxification, Iodine and iodine deficiency, Immune system and deficiency, and Salt replacement)

Approximately 1/3rd of the US population will eventually contract a form of cancer. Research at Harvard School of Public Health concluded: “seaweed has shown consistent anti-tumour activity. In extrapolating these results to the Japanese population, seaweed may be an important factor in explaining the low rates of certain cancers in Japan” (16).

Seagreens® offers a useful nutritional input in cancer prevention, management and recuperation. Several varieties of kombu (like Seagreens® also a member of the phæophyta or brown seaweed family) are a traditional decoction for cancer in Japan, where scientists have been able to verify its effective treatment of tumours in the laboratory with: “complete regression in more than half the treated group” (17).

The principal cancer-fighting substances are the special polysaccharides in the brown seaweeds, in Seagreens® typically as much or more than 50% of total carbohydrate which itself accounts for more than half the composition of nutrients, especially fucose and fucoidan which has been shown to cause the destruction as well as the inhibition of cancer cells by preventing adhesion to healthy cells and by interruption of the DNA within the cancer cells (29, 30, 37). The polysaccharides are now known to have anti-cancer, anti-coagulant, anti-thrombotic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-viral properties. A substantial body of literature covers this subject with special reference to brain tumour (37), breast cancer (31, 32), intestinal cancer (39), leukemia (36, 38), lung cancer (29, 33, 34, 35, 36), throat cancer (43), and research into the mode of action (40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52). Korean research also highlighted the role of sulphated fucoidan in the polysaccharides (92).

“Japanese scientists have run more than 500 clinical trials to discover whether there are elements in seaweed which could suppress the growth of tumour cells. Researchers at the Japanese biomedical group Takara Shuzo discovered the polysaccharide known as U-fucoidan which literally causes cancer cells to self-destruct. Their research showed that when a small amount of this was added to a culture of colon cancer cells half of them died within 24 hours and trhe rest were completely eliminated after 72 hours” (132).

The incidence of breast cancer is rising worldwide, particularly in women over 50. It increased by 30-40% between 1973 and 1997 (221). Although it has dropped about 10% consistent with the reduced use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the incidence of breast cancer in the US remains the highest in the world, while Japan until recently had the lowest. Almost 15% of American women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. Japanese seaweed consumption was 4.5g per day when last measured in 1964, which gives an average population intake of iodine of 13.8mg of iodine (now 12g per day against a US daily intake of 240µg or 50 times less) (192). Interestingly, some of the most dramatic results achieved with Seagreens® reported by practitioners and patients between 1998 and 2008 were when using between 6 and 12 Food Capsules or 3 - 6 grams of Food Granules per day which corresponds to the traditional average daily intake in Japan.

Seaweed appears to provide an effective defence against excessive salt (in particular sodium chloride). A 2003 study in Japan which followed the dietary habits of 40,000 men and women found that the risk of stomach cancer in men with a low-salt intake of 4g to 6g daily was 1 in 1,000 per year, but double in men consuming 12g to 15g per day. The risk for women on a low-salt diet was 1 in 2,000 per year but on a high level diet increased to 1 in 1,300 (93). Researchers discovered that when stroke-prone rats were overfed salt, only those also fed seaweed powder did not have strokes; indicating that the seaweed was a protective antidote to the excess sodium consumption (27).

Seagreens® are highly alkalising - some 75 times moreso than apples - and an alkaline system has a greater defence against cancer. ‘A Cancer Therapy’ by Max Gerson M.D. makes useful reference to the subject.

In the nutritional response to chemo- and radiotherapy, the special seaweed polysaccharides in Seagreens® come to prominence. They have been shown to reduce absorption of strontium, barium, tin, cadmium, manganese, zinc, and mercury’ (114). In the 1960s Japanese scientists showed that radioactive strontium in the gut is converted to an insoluble salt which is excreted. Nature published a report showing that wrack seaweed inhibits the body’s absorption of radioactive strontium and cadmium by up to 7/8ths the dose received. It also removed Strontium 90 already absorbed through the gut wall and deposited in body tissues and bone.

In radiotherapy, offered to approximately 50% of cancer patients often in conjunction with surgery and/or chemotherapy, normal cells as well as cancer cells will be attacked, for example hair cells, stomach lining cells, blood cells, as well as healthy tissue adjacent to the site of the tumour. Intra operative radiation therapy (IORT) in which a source of radiation is implanted directly into the body close to the tumour site, also damages other cells, however well targetted.

Seagreens® is an ideal nutritional foundation for all cancer therapies. At a high daily intake prior to and throughout treatment as well as in recuperation, the Food Capsules and Food Granules may give significant support to immunity and recovery, noted by practitioners and consumers alike.

Seagreens® also provide the entire range of antioxidants in an easily assimilable, natural form and balance. This is in stark contrast to the case of high-strength formulated anioxidant and vitamin supplements which are the subject of controversy, although there is no hard evidence that they are causative in cancer, including prostate cancer as has been claimed (129).

Seagreens® have already been included in the daily diet in food and drink for prolonged periods up to 6 months at strengths of up to 7 grams of the Food Granules (or 14 Food Capsules) per day with no side effects and with marked improvements in the general health of patients. Seagreens® have a particular contribution to make in nutritional protocols in conjunction with alternative or complementary cancer management and in the prevention of cancer, not least because a natural dietary solution can be maintained over a lengthy period.

In vitro research has shown that fucoidan in the polysaccharides of Wrack seaweed is a potent inhibitor of tumour cell invasion, acting to blocvk tmour cell adhesion (144).