Although IP6 is found in a number of legumes and grains, the absorption from food sources is not always good, because the IP6 is tightly bound to elements within the fiber. This explains why pure, isolated IP6 has thus been shown to fight tumors more effectively than an equal amount of IP6 in fiber. IP6 should be taken between meals in order to ensure that it does not compete with such elements in food. Experts advise that consuming 2g of IP6 per day in supplemental form provides good “health insurance” to support natural cell defenses.

Shrinking Tumors

In a study of human liver cancer cells transplanted into mice that were subsequently treated with IP6, the researchers found that IP6 slowed or stopped the growth of liver cancer cells and shrank existing tumors three to four fold. In one human liver cell study, Shamsuddin’s team treated human hepato-carcinoma cells with varying doses of pure IP6. The result was partial to complete inhibition of cell growth and proliferation. Treated cells transplanted into mice produced no tumors over the 41 days of the experiment, while 71% of control mice developed tumors. When these control mice were treated with IP6 for 12 days, their tumors weighed 3-4 fold less than before IP6 treatment, suggesting that IP6 is useful as a preventative and as a treatment.

Shamsuddin has tested IP6 on colon, lung, breast, prostate, lukaemias, fibrosarcomas, and muscle cell cancer in test tubes and in experimental animals, including human cancers transplanted into animals. In all types, whether IP6 is administered before, during, or after exposure to a carcinogen or the development of tumors, treated animals have shown fewer, smaller tumors with reduced growth rates.


Inducing Differentiation

Cancer cells are not simply normal cells that grow too quickly. They also fail to differentiate. Nearly every cell in the body contains the DNA for the entire organism, but a healthy cell only turns on a small portion of this DNA, so that a lung cell is different from a brain cell, a liver cell, or a red blood cell. Cancer cells fail to undergo this process, which gives them an ominous, primitive appearance and prevents them from performing their normal function in the body. Histological studies have shown that IP6-treated human cancer cells (including the colon cancer cell line HT-29, rhabdomyosarcomas, HepG2 human liver cancer, and erhythmoleukemias) show signs of differentiation, returning them to normal appearance and function (phenotype). As Shamsuddin has remarked, “IP6 does not kill cancer cells; it tames them and makes them behave like normal cells.”


Related Abstract(s):
http://aor.ca/int/abstracts/inositol_hexaphosphate.php