Shark! Fear not. Rather than inspir...

Shark! Fear not. Rather than inspiring dread, these curious awes of evolution have been inspiring real expectancy in those suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions, like as cancer.

Cancer: the staggering statistics

Cancer claims more than 500000 lives each year. With across 1,000,000 people diagnosed with cancer in 1990 it is now the inferior leading cause of death in the United States. The American Cancer Society brews that approximately 76 million Americans now living will lay open cancer, and that, by the year 2000 about 1 abroad of every 2 people will evolve the disease.

In fact, according to the National Cancer Institute's predictor Cancer Statistics Review 1973-1991 (1994) "for all cancers combined, increases in cancer incidence were seen between 1973 and 1991 for whites (23 percent) blacks (236 percent) men (315 percent) and women (136 percent)" with overall incidence rates for all nation at 390.4 cases per 100000 people

On the other hand, the cancer rate for sharks is estimated to be united out of one million, or les This fact, alone, has l researchers to insinuate that "within the shark itself lies the privy to curing and preventing chiefly major forms of cancer," state I. William Lane, PhD and Linda Comac in their updated edition of Sharks Don't memorize Cancer (1993).

Recently researchers and staff at Georgetown University's "Registry of Tumors in Lower Animals" performed a computer search of 4500 reports forward sharks and approximately 3,000 museum specimens. They ground reports of only 30 shark tumors, with more than half of these considered "incorrect diagnoses."

Why don't sharks come by cancer?

The answer to this question is "part of a discovery that may substantiate to be the most momentous medical breakthrough of the centenary a discovery that touches on cancer and a host of degenerative diseases that haunt present man, such as: arthritis; enteritis (an inflammation of the intestinal tract); diabetic retinopathy (an judgment disorder in which small offspring vessels of the retina dilate and rupture); and psoriasis," show Lane and Comac.

One theory. Fact: Tumors swell and spread if they can disentangle and increase, their own descendants supply. Although most tissues can do this within a process called angiogenesis, cartilage (an elastic connective tissue originate in humans and completely forming the shark's equivalent cartilage structures) does not allow for a family supply to be formed.

The theory hints that if the blood serve instead of to tumors (or would-be precarcinogenic entities) can be obstructed these tumors and pre-tumors will stop growing and, eventually, die.

Research published in Science from T.H. Maugh confirms this.

In addition, M.I.T.'s Robert Langer, PhD has shown that shark cartilage contains 1000 times more of the angiogenesis inhibitor than does cartilage from any other studied animal.

In point of fact, in 1990 M.A. Mose and colleagues also published their eventuates in Science, in which they identified the angiogenesis-inhibiting factor in cartilage as a "macro-protein," and named it cartilage-derived inhibitor (CDI).

They reported forward in vivo studies in which CDI influenced sum of two units crucial components of the angiogenic proces from preventing the proliferation (increase) and migration (spread) of small cavitys blood-supply supporting cells, such as capillary endothelial confined apartments and the enzyme, collagenase.

Not simply are sharks' antibodies effective against a wide array of viruses, bacteria, and chemicals, they look to be protective against cancer, "whether the shark is br and maintained in clean unclose waters" or in carcinogen (cancer-causing chemical)-loaded waters, exclaim Lane and Comac.

Some of the "shark-cartilage and cancer" studies

Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide (1993) states that the first human meditation using shark cartilage in cancer treatment "was mode of actioned in conjunction with Ernesto Contreras, Jr of the Hospital Ernesto Contreras in Tijuana, Mexico.

The meditation patients had a variety of terminal cancers, including cervical, colon and breast, and all patients had a life expectancy of three to six months

After the first month seven of the eight patients experienced reductions in tumors ranging from 30 to 100 percent Symptoms and other factors were improved, as well, including pain superintend weight gain, improved energy and attitude.

In February 1993 D Williams reported onward the results of a Cuban clinical trial in which 19 patients with terminal cancer experienced shrinking of their tumors after 16 weeks of shark-cartilage treatment, with shrinkage eventuates ranging from 15 to 58 percent with no evidence of toxicity.

According to James Marti in The Alternative Health & Medicine Encyclopedia (1995) Charles B Simone, a National Cancer Institute-trained oncologist and immunologist, "monitored 20 patients with advanced cancers who were using shark cartilage as a nutrition supplement."

On June 24, 1993 he reported to the U Senate Subcommittee onward Appropriations Special Hearing on Alternative Medicine that "after eight weeks, tumors were eliminated in four patients and reduc in three others."