Phil: Your daughter might be interested how this originated - on a forum, a friend, who buys into a lot of sketchy material, posted this link to a 'popular' website http://naturalsociety.com/apple-extract-kills-cancer-cells-outperforms-chemo-drugs/ -
so - I'm guessing many more people will see the claim "Study: Apple Extract Kills Cancer Cells, Outperforms Common Chemo Drugs" than will be exposed to any critique such as Robert Walter posted for us - bogus is bogus, and altho this would, on the surface, seem to be positive for apples, it's cheating and not a prosperous way to promote ourselves David Doud grower IN thunderstorms, rain and floods, tornado watch, gonna be a while before I get anything else planted - and wondering how effective that COCS applied last sunday at 1/4" green is today... On Apr 18, 2013, at 9:46 AM, Phil Glaize wrote: > David and Robert, > Your discussion has been interesting. I am forwarding your information to > my daughter who is a student at Oregon Health and Science University. She is > getting her degree in Dietetics and Nutrition and is insatiable when it comes > to learning. Thanks for posting on apple-crop. > Phil Glaize > Virginia grower…. heading into bloom > > From: apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net > [mailto:apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net] On Behalf Of David Doud > Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 9:07 PM > To: Apple-crop discussion list > Subject: Re: [apple-crop] apple anti-cancer research > > > > > On Apr 17, 2013, at 2:04 PM, robjwal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > David: > > Thanks for the PDF. As I had thought, the only cell type studied was HT29, a > human colon cancer cell line. No other tumor cell types or, more > importantly, normal cell types were studied here. Proper experimental > controls were not done, so the results cannot be generalized beyond the > obvious findings...the apple extract used can kill one type of tumor cell in > tissue culture, but so can a thousand other things. > > Also, there did not appear to be any vehicle controls used. The preparation > of the apple extract is given in great detail, but the final product is dried > powder. This powder had to be dissolved and sterilized before adding it to > cultured cells, but the solvent used as the vehicle for this is not stated as > far as I can tell, and it is never tested by itself to see if the vehicle > alone has any toxic effects on the cells. Often DMSO is used as a vehicle > for difficult to solubilize compounds and even diluted DMSO can injure or > kill cells depending on the dose and time of exposure. There are 'control' > groups mentioned here and there in the paper, but a control group of cells > that simply has nothing added to it (no apple extract, no FU, no vehicle) is > not the same as a vehicle control. Because the study was performed in > considerable detail, one would hope that vehicle controls were performed, but > this must be stated explicitly in the paper or else it cannot be assumed. > > Interestingly, the authors cite another paper (reference 11) where they > showed "that oral administration of LMWAP effectively protected > ICR mice against CRC" (LMWAP is a mixture of polysaccharides isolated from > apples; CRC is colorectal carcinoma). > > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22429028 > > Again, this paper is not in my library's PDF collection, but if they are > referring to the ICR mice that I am familiar with > (http://www.taconic.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=758), it is impossible to > demonstrate this effect in that mouse. The ICR mouse is just a regular white > mouse with an intact immune system. This experiment cannot be done in such a > mouse because it requires a mouse with a defective immune system that will > permit human colon carcinoma cells to grow unimpeded. > > And so it goes... > > Robert Walter > > > > On Apr 16, 2013, at 11:32 PM, robjwal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > This journal is kind of obscure and I can't get this article from my > university library, but would be interested in seeing it in its entirety. If > someone could get it to me as a PDF, I'd appreciate it. Cancer > chemopreventatives, carcinogenesis, and cell culture happen to be among my > specialties. Based on the abstract, I'll make a few comments. Of late, the > Chinese have made a great effort in the area of chemopreventatives probably > due to their long cutural history of traditional or herbal medicine. Many > studies like the one in question have been published over the past 10-15 > years using cultured human tumor cells treated with this or that naturally > occurring agent including curcumin, resveratrol, silibinin, bitter melon > extract, etc. Many of them show cytotoxic effects on tumor cells similar to > those seen in the apple study. So, right away, we must ask, why haven't we > stopped cancer using these agents? > > Unfortunately, most of these studies suffer from the same failing. The apple > study showed a dose-dependent killing of cultured human tumor cells and > assayed several apoptosis-related or cell cycle-related peptides or proteins. > This seems convincing because these assays test for peptides that are of > current interest in apoptosis studies, but here they only confirm that the > cells are dying and point to the stage of cell cycle in which they are dying, > nothing more. The problem is that cells in culture can be killed by almost > anything and it will occur in a dose-related manner. Increasing doses of any > salt like NaCl, KCl, MgCl2, CaCl2; any amino acid like glutamine, alanine, or > glycine; any sugar like glucose, sucrose, or mannose; hormones like insulin, > transferrin, or estrogen; even distilled water will kill cultured cells with > increasing doses. This doesn't mean that they are specific for tumor cells, > just that they will kill cells in culture and when the cells die, their > expression of Bax, Bcl, Cdk, and cyclins will change in predictable ways. > The control that is usually missing from these studies is: normal human cell > lines like cultured primary skin cells (keratinocytes) or fibroblasts or > normal kidney cells or normal pancreas or normal gut epithelial cells. If > the agent of interest kills tumor cells but must be used at 100-10,000 times > higher doses to kill normal cells, then you may have something, but 98% of > these studies don't do this simple but essential control. A great deal of > confusion results when this control is lacking. > > There are several widely used and potent chemotherapy agents that have been > used for decades and are still actively used today. These agents were > originally derived from plant sources and include colchicine and colcemid > (from crocus), taxol (from yew), vinblastine and vincristine (from > periwinkle) and podophyllotoxin for etoposide (from mayapple). So it is > quite reasonable to expect that there will be other phytochemicals that are > yet to be discovered which will be highly effective in preventing tumor > development or in killing tumor cells. Studies like this one using apple > oligosaccharide however, are not at all convincing no matter what we may wish > for...but I haven't seen the full paper just the abstract. > > Rob Walter, PhD > Research Scientist, Retired > Stroger Hospital of Cook County > Rush University Medical School. > > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 7:53 PM, David Doud <david_d...@me.com> wrote: > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23511050 > > Chinese study - "Oligosaccharide from apple induces apoptosis and cell cycle > arrest in HT29 human colon cancer cells." > > If I read the abstract correctly, this was published last month - > > Dunno - it would be nice if someone knowledgable could review this - > > If it were the opposite association, I bet there would be banner headlines... > > David Doud > Grower, Indiana > 1/4" green, wet - nice to have a real spring this year - > > > > > _______________________________________________ > apple-crop mailing list > apple-crop@virtualorchard.net > http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop > > > _______________________________________________ > apple-crop mailing list > apple-crop@virtualorchard.net > http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop > > _______________________________________________ > apple-crop mailing list > apple-crop@virtualorchard.net > http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
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