----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 12:26
PM
Subject: [ozmidwifery] who would have
guessed? Breast Milk Kills Skin Warts
Breast Milk Kills Skin
Warts
TRENTON,
New Jersey June 23, 2004
A compound in breast milk has been found to destroy many skin warts,
raising hopes it might also prove effective against cervical cancer and other
lethal diseases caused by the same virus.
The human papilloma virus
causes skin warts, which is extremely widespread. Swedish researchers found
that when the breast-milk compound - since named HAMLET - is applied to the
skin, it kills virally infected cells in warts resistant to conventional
treatments.
�This may have relevance for the treatment of cervical
cancer,� because virally infected and cancer cells are similar, said lead
researcher Dr. Catharina Svanborg, professor of clinical immunology at Lund
University in Lund, Sweden.
The researchers hope to start small-scale
testing of the compound so! on on women with cervical cancer.
�Any
long-term potential for any devastating diseases is very speculative at this
stage� but should be followed up, said Catherine Laughlin, chief of the
virology branch in the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
There are 130
known types of the human papilloma virus. Two sexually transmitted types cause
nearly all cases of cervical cancer. Other types cause skin and genital warts,
squamous cell skin cancer and lesions in the throat that are deadly in rare
cases.
Many people carry the virus in skin cells, but it does not
always cause disease.
Doctors knew breast milk contained a natural
antibiotic. But its potential against viruses and tumors was discovered by
accident.
Svanborg's team was testing ways to fight what is called
bacterial superinfection - bacteria infecting cells already infected by a
virus. They applied a protein in mo! ther's milk called alpha-lactalbumin to
double-infected lung cancer cells.
To the researchers' surprise, the
cancer cells as well as the bacteria inside them were killed. That was because
the milk protein had changed its configuration, bound to another milk
component called oleic acid, and created the more powerful HAMLET compound.
The research team then tested the compound against warts on patients'
hands and painful ones on their feet, called plantar warts. The warts shrank
by at least 75 percent over the first three weeks the compound was applied to
the skin. And at least three-quarters of the warts disappeared after a second
treatment.
The researchers dubbed the compound HAMLET, an acronym for
human alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumor cells, partly because of their
proximity to the scene of the Shakespeare play, which took place in Denmark.
The research was reported in Thursday's New England Journal of
Medicine.
�Any agent that can be topically applied and absorbs well
into cancerous or precancerous cells has great potential,� said Dr. Frank
Murphy, chief of dermatology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New
Brunswick, N.J.
Murphy noted that the compound probably would be much
more expensive than standard treatments for warts, about half of which go away
on their own within two years. The standard treatments for getting rid of
warts include burning, freezing, laser removal and various topical solutions.
Dr. Karl Beutner, associate clinical professor of dermatology at
University of California-San Francisco, said a drug that destroys skin warts
also should work against papilloma lesions in the throat, but not necessarily
against cervical cancer.
Svanborg said if HAMLET proves useful against
serious diseases, the compound would probably be synthesized in the lab
instead of being extracted from breast milk.
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