Sutherlandia frutescens and oleander

Then I suppose we may have to agree to disagree, but I will add a bit to back what I have said:

I too have seen studies backing Sutherlandia frutescens against cancer.  It wasn't nicknamed the "South Africa CANCER BUSH" for nothing.  On the other hand, I have also seen numerous studies backing oleander against cancer, including two patented oleander extract medicines currently in FDA trials. See for example:

Case Reports and Studies on Oleander

In addition to those studies, it has been reported from a source close to one of the oleander patented medicines that oleander was tested in European studies in the mid 1980s and was found to have six times the immune boosting activities of the most powerful patented immune boosters at that time.

More importantly to me than all the scientific studies combined is what I have seen in real life, such as:

Unsolicited Testimonials about Oleander Based Supplements

In real life, Dr. H. Z. Ozel has used oleander extract for over 40 years for thousands of patients who have had a broad variety of cancers and the stats I saw indicated an overall success rate of over 70% - which is all the more remarkable because he is limited by the medical rules in Turkey to only using oleander as either a CAM therapy or when mainstream treatments have failed.

Though Sutherlandia has had some good success against cancer - especially in increasing survival time and adding better quality of life, I have seen people use Sutherlandia frutescens without success who turned to oleander and had remarkable success.  In my Yahoo group about oleander and cancer which has been around for six years and has over 2000 members we have also seen remarkable success against cancer when oleander is used as a key component of an overall cancer fighting protocol, such as this one:

A Natural Anti-Cancer Protocol

Likewise the naturopathic doctor who formulated the Sutherlandia OPC and who has studied both Sutherlandia and oleander extensively reports that it is successful against cancer primarily due to the oleander.  Sutherlandia frutescens was added primarily for HIV, which is epidemic in the doctor's native South Africa and which is the main reason he formulated SOPC to begin with.  He now offers both the SOPC mix and an oleander only supplement.  If he had found that Sutherlandia was as effective or more effective against cancer, he would no doubt offer a Sutherlandia only supplement.

In my Yahoo group, there are many who do use the SOPC - in part because oleander only supplements were not available until the past year or so.  Many more use other forms of oleander only extract, including supplements, the patentend medicine and a large number who make their own oleander extract by carefully following instructions which eliminate virtually all of the toxins found in the raw oleander plant.

The Recipe for Oleander Soup Part 1

The Recipe for Oleander Soup Part 2 - Tips and Advice

To be sure, no one should attempt to make their own oleander extract without knowing what they are doing.  However, the home method is modeled directly after the first medicine put into FDA trials and it should be noted that in the phase I FDA trials designed to determine the maximum safe dose they never did reach a limiting doseage, but rather stopped at a point where the doseage amount was too large to be practically administered via injection.

In my group, we have noticed no difference in effectiveness between the supplement containing Sutherlandia and pure oleander extracts.

The naturopathic doctor has tracked over 2000 people who have used his SOPC supplement over the past five years.  Many of those people used traditional treatments first without success and others did not.  He reports that as far as he can tell over 95% of the people using the supplement who had stage 1 or 2 cancers are still alive, as are over 85% of those who had stage 3 or 4 cancers.  That appears to track well with what we have seen in the Yahoo group.  No doubt, the reason our success rates are even higher than those reported by Dr. Ozel is due to the other items both of us recommend, including changes in diet, lifestyle, and other key herbs and supplements.

The relatively small handful of people who have not survived virtually all share one of more of the following: they came to us very, very late with scant days or a few weeks left, they had prior mainstream chemo and/or radiation which had inflicted major damage and greatly suppressed the natural immune system, and/or they failed to follow the protocol fully or consistently including taking far less of the oleander and other items recommended.

Oleander normally takes time to be successful - and the time needed can range from a couple of months or so to over a year.  Initially it begins to slow the growth of the cancer, then stabilizes the cancer and finally reduces and eliminates the cancer.  Though I have seen instances where someone took a large amount and had fast results, I cannot recommend anyone doing that..  Oleander does contain cardiac glycosides (along with a number of other cancer fighting and immune boosting compounds).  The amount or cardiac glycosides which cross assay with digoxin/digitalis in a typical dose of oleander extract is about 1/30th the amount found in a typical dose of digoxin/digitalis.  Even such small amounts can add up if a person goes to far.

Since oleander does normally take some time, when I encounter anyone with only a couple of weeks or so estimated time left, I tell them that oleander may be a very good choice for the longterm, along with the other items in the protocol I recommend, but for the short term they need something which will act much more quickly on the cancer.  And I have been pointing them towards ozone therapy in general and you and what you have posted about ozone, as I have great respect for your knowledge and experience with ozone as well as your knowledge about some key herbs for cancer (and thus the "R" ratings I have given to some posts).  I feel that your ozone knowledge and advice in particular has likely been a real life saver for some cancer patients and I thank you for sharing it.

All the best,

DQ